LA School Report

UC admissions applicants get more essay choices, shorter lengths Changes are coming soon to the University of California’s application for incoming freshmen and transfer students, offering hundreds of thousands of them more freedom of choice in essays describing their interests, academic achievements and personal challenges. By Larry Gordon, EdSource LAUSD assistant principal pleads not guilty...

*Updated Education reformers spent big ahead of California’s primary, and preliminary results Wednesday show the millions paid off with all of the candidates they supported advancing to November’s general election. Carlos Marquez, California Charter Schools Association Advocates’ director of political affairs, said he was excited by the primary results. “There were a lot of races that...

A Los Angeles public high school graduating its first senior class this week has an extra reason to celebrate: four seniors have scored the same prestigious scholarship. One thousand students this year were selected to participate in the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, a $1.6 billion initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that...

A mother came to board member Monica Ratliff’s office in tears recently because her daughter was doing an end-of-year dance performance, but she thought she couldn’t attend because she got a “Disruptive Parent Letter” and was told she was banned from the school. “She was told you’re not allowed on campus. I think the messaging...

By Brent Walmsley When one considers that childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past thirty years, taking steps to make sugary drinks more available to students represents the height of absurdity. Yet, after five years of implementing a policy in the best interest of student health, the...

Parents to receive easier-to-read reports on Smarter Balanced test scores Parents across California will soon find out how their children performed on Smarter Balanced tests aligned with Common Core standards in math and English language arts. By Theresa Harrington, EdSource Teacher tenure reforms still in play, Orange County Register How to change white teachers’ lenses,...

*UPDATED A California Administrative Law judge has issued a number of rulings in the year-plus legal battle between Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and the LA teachers union, UTLA. Friday’s rulings on several complaints that were brought to the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) were mixed, with some in favor of the independent charter school operator and some...

“If he was in the average school he was in before, he’d be on the street,” testified the father of a 16-year old-boy. “This is what these online schools provide — the comfort to know their kids are not going to become hoodlums, or do drugs. … He has a future, a future I didn’t...

Remember when teacher evaluations were the subject of controversy in LA Unified? Not anymore Only a few years ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s system for evaluating teachers’ job performance was the subject of legal disputes, full-blown lawsuits and bitter fractious debate between district leaders and the teachers union. Not anymore. By Kyle Stokes,...

While community leaders and independent charter schools are calling for an end to random student searches and metal detector wanding at LA Unified, LA School Report has learned that a routine random search at a high school in the district recently yielded a loaded gun. A source close to the search said that the student...