LA School Report

LAUSD teachers earn too much to live in the affordable housing apartments built for them  In the mid-2000s, in the midst of a housing boom, the Los Angeles Unified School District realized that skyrocketing rents were fueling teacher turnover. Nearly half of all new teachers in some neighborhoods were leaving the district after three years. L.A....

* UPDATED Five independent public charter schools were denied Tuesday night by the LA Unified school board. The board granted one petition of the nine schools on the special agenda that had been recommended for denial. Another school will likely keep its charter under a last-minute deal, and two were petitions withdrawn. Here is the action Tuesday...

Magnolia Public Schools, facing a Tuesday afternoon vote that could shut down three of its schools, is prepared to take legal action and is calling on board President Steve Zimmer to recuse himself based on “a level of bias.” A letter sent Tuesday by a law firm on Magnolia’s behalf lays out its response to the...

A teacher who worked as an education policy advisor in President Barack Obama’s administration announced Tuesday she is running for the East San Fernando Valley District 6 seat on the LA Unified school board. Kelly Gonez, a 7th-grade science teacher at Crown Preparatory School in Los Angeles, joins five others who are seeking to replace...

The LA Unified school board today approved the renewal petitions of three independent public charter schools and approved a petition for one new charter school. The new charter school approved by the board is Gabriella Charter School 2, which plans to serve up to 468 students in grades TK-6 in Boyle Heights or Lincoln Heights....

Huntington Park leaders want to ban new charter schools for a year The small, densely populated city of Huntington Park is peppered with schools, about two dozen in 3 square miles. At least 10 are charters, and city leaders contend they’re bringing in unwanted traffic. Their solution is to try to ban new charter schools....

*UPDATED The day before the LA Unified school board is scheduled to vote on the fate of 23 charter schools, the district was hit with a bombshell of a letter signed by 64 charter school leaders. The schools serve 90 percent of the charter students in the district — 196 schools serving 94,595 students, according to...

*UPDATED A record number of charter schools, all outperforming nearby district schools, have been recommended for denial by LA Unified staff when their petitions come before Tuesday’s school board meeting. More than 15,000 students could be affected by board decisions involving charter schools that are up for renewal or revision. Seven schools that have 6,730 students...

Californians, having curbed bilingual education, may now expand It In 1998, voters in California passed a law that severely restricted bilingual education in public schools, arguing that students were languishing in their native language and that requiring English-only instruction would speed up the time it took children to learn English. Now voters are being asked...