LA School Report

A group of anti-charter school activists is circulating an online petition that calls for LA Unified to rescind a contract with Teach for America (TFA) intended to fill 25 special education teaching positions. The petition points out that the teachers from the organization will be trainees but does not acknowledge that the district is allowed by...

LAUSD is making another strong push for input from families and employees to see what the school schedule should be for the next three years. And, the district is providing lots of back-up materials to help inform choices, including a comparison of student test scores in traditional school years versus early school calendars, electricity consumption costs for the...

LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said late yesterday the district’s facilities staff plans to monitor methane gas levels near two schools in northern San Fernando Valley. Cortines said he will post the results of the air quality report right away on the LAUSD website. Concerns about a smell in the Porter Ranch neighborhood led to a protest that...

A major contributor to LA Unified’s pending fiscal crisis is unfunded federal and state mandates that have deprived the district of hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. The exact number is difficult to calculate because the total not only reflects the amount the district seeks in reimbursement but what percentage the governments return to...

At a high school called the Critical Design and Gaming School, you’d think every student had a device on and was playing a game all the time. Not so. In fact, during one recent morning lesson, students opened up boxes of traditional board games to play with each other. “They find out pretty quickly it’s...

By Matt Murray Arne Duncan has been pushing the cause of education all his career. And as he prepares to step down as education secretary after seven years, he is asking CEOs to join him in the fight. In today’s global marketplace, it’s critical for the U.S. to develop in young people the skills that will...

New flow of money for arts education heads to LAUSD schools The Los Angeles Unified School District announced Monday that schools received more than a million dollars in new funding for arts education from the state. KPCC, by Priska Neely There’s more to a ‘growth mindset’ than assuming you have it Stanford University psychology professor...

An independent Financial Review Panel recently dropped some sobering news: LAUSD is headed toward a financial cliff and, without changes in operation, faces a $600 million budget shortfall by 2019. The reasons for the dark financial clouds ahead are varied, but one often cited is declining enrollment. The district has lost 100,000 students in recent years due to...

Niche, a company that researches and compiles information on schools, has released its 2016 rankings of the Best Public High Schools in the country, a list that includes charters and magnet schools. Despite looking at more than 100,000 schools and ranking them in areas like academics, teachers, student culture, diversity, resources and facilities, not a single...