LA School Report

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. As the world settled into pandemic life, students who graduated from high school during the COVID-19 crisis started new chapters of their lives in social and academic seclusion. Many spent their senior year on Zoom, without homecomings, proms or graduations. They struggled to...

This story was originally published at the LAist The Los Angeles Unified board unanimously approved a $18.8 billion budget that relies on diminishing reserves to make ends meet. “There is a tempest ahead, uncertainty, instability, a threat to public education as we know it,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said as he gave updates to the district’s...

This story was originally published on EdSource. The Los Angeles Unified School District board has quietly authorized issuing a half-billion dollars in bonds to settle decades-old sexual abuse cases involving former students.  And that will likely not be enough to settle all the claims the nation’s second-largest school district is facing under 2019 legislation that allows victims...

Looming funding cuts threaten the academic progress of Black students in districts across California, according to a report by researchers at the University of Southern California. “The Cost of Equity: Exploring Recent K-12 Federal and State Funding Shifts and Their Impact on Black Students,” examines how changes in legislative and policy could impact California’s school...

Across California, students face a daunting academic reality.  In January, scores from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) showed that students in our state performed significantly below pre-pandemic levels in reading and math. Gaps between low-income students and their wealthier peers widened. As the world becomes more complex, it is critical that youth are...

In states like Florida, where restrictions on AP African American History, DEI censorship and books bans have caused turmoil, Juneteenth is an opportunity for educator Brian Knowles to explore with his students the “more despondent areas of American history that are often avoided.” That includes examining the intellectual and cultural foundations of the holiday: the...

As spring showers give way to rising temperatures, teachers and families across the country are bracing for another record-breaking hot summer — and this time, they’re heading in with even fewer resources and protections. A slew of funding cuts from the Trump administration impact everything from school heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to...

Families are mostly satisfied with their LAUSD schools — although they want improvements in school safety and better mental health services for students, an annual survey of district parents has found. The 79-page “Family Insights” report found LAUSD families saw improvements in their schools in the past year, with support for leadership of the nation’s...

In the agricultural regions of California’s San Joaquin Valley, schools like Firebaugh Middle School are surrounded by fields. But many of Firebaugh’s students struggle to read that word. If they were to see “field” on the board, they would likely pronounce it as “filed,” a reflection of their unfamiliarity with the varied pronunciations in English....

Chronic absenteeism remains a problem for LAUSD, but the school district is making gains, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said on his last house visit of the year aimed at driving student attendance.  The district made progress this year with the tricky challenge, Carvalho said during the home visit last month, but officials could not say how...