LA School Report

Seven years after city voters approved Measure Q, giving LA Unified the go-ahead to borrow $7 billion, the first bond sales from the measure will begin within a month or so, district officials said today. As the largest local school bond measure in California history, Measure Q was requested to upgrade older school buildings and reconfigure...

As the FBI agent played a video of a 16-year-old caught in a sex ring in Los Angeles, the audience of the Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline and Safety Committee yesterday remained hushed. Some wiped tears from their eyes. LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King reviewed the list of local schools where such crimes occurred and she...

*UPDATED LA Unified announced today that Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Ruth Perez is leaving the district and will be replaced by Frances Gipson, the current Local District East superintendent who will serve as chief academic officer. Perez, a former superintendent of the Norwalk-La Mirada school district, had been in her position since August of 2014 after she was hired by former...

By Eric Patnoudes As the parent of four kids, I had the pleasure of listening to Fredi Lajvardi give a keynote at CETPA’s annual conference last year, and it was the sort of talk that sends shivers down educators’ spines and gives them goose bumps.  It was an hour of awe-inspiring pure education magic — the type of story...

Nonprofit is formed to advance charter-school plan in Los Angeles area Backers of a plan to greatly expand successful charters and other high-quality public schools in the LA area have formed a nonprofit organization. Los Angeles Times, by Howard Blume Low-income students ask educators to believe they can succeed A statewide coalition of students from...

After 90 minutes of contentious debate, the LAUSD school board agreed on a list of desired characteristics for the superintendent candidates they will begin interviewing. The discussion ran the gamut from the definition of the word “bold” to whether the members wanted someone with experience in an “urban environment.” Ultimately, the one-page list of desired...

A poll released today by EdSource and the Learning Policy Institute shows that the majority of California voters are concerned about the teacher shortage facing the state and support the state’s taking action to help fix the problem. The survey of 1,002 registered voters, which was conducted by the The Field Poll, found that 64...

An LAUSD budget committee discussing the unlikely possibility of establishing an all-charter school district today found merit nonetheless in seeking waivers from state rules that grant charters a greater degree of autonomy than traditional schools have. Mónica Ratliff, chair of the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, said that it didn’t seem fair that the charter...

By Ama Nyamekye What makes a great school? This fundamental question has been lost in a heated debate about a draft proposal spearheaded by the Broad Foundation, the most controversial part of which includes a plan to accelerate charter school growth in LAUSD. This idea has sparked concern and curiosity among parents, community members, philanthropists...

By Roxana Kopetman Students sit down for homework, plug in their earbuds and turn on their cellphones. And they don’t get yelled at. Because they’re actually working. Their history class, at Esperanza High, is part of a small but growing trend in education. The teaching method, “flipped” learning, is catching on in Orange County and...