LA School Report

What parents need to know about California’s Common Core-aligned tests Tomorrow, the California Department of Education plans to release the first year’s results of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test. EdSource After Deasy, LAUSD faces tough choice: Play it safe or take a risk? At key moments of tumult in the district, the records show,...

LA Unified is suing some of its insurers for $200 million, claiming the companies refused to cover the cost of its defense of the Miramonte sex-abuse scandal. Former elementary school teacher Mark Berndt was convicted in 2013 of sexually abusing 23 of his students and is serving a 25-year sentence. Dozens of former students of...

By Acacia Squires Ainissa Ramirez used to be an associate professor at Yale in materials science. Now she’s taking her “science evangelism” out on the road. Awakening that little something in young people, especially young people of color, is Ramirez’s true passion. As a 4-year-old kid in Jersey City, N.J., Ainissa knew she wanted to be...

SBE sets federal K-8 attendance goal at 90 percent The state board moved Wednesday to hold elementary and middle schools accountable for a minimum attendance rate of 90 percent. SI&A Cabinet Report Report: Kindergarten attendance linked to future academic success A new report revealed kindergarten attendance is linked to future academic success. iSchoolGuide The first...

As the second largest school district in the country, one would think the simple law of averages would see LA Unified with plenty of schools in Newsweek’s recent lists of the America’s Top High Schools and Beating the Odds — Top High Schools for Low-Income Students. But the district didn’t fare particularly well on either...

The LA Unified school board did a lot of hand-wringing over a decision this week to deny the opening of a new charter school while  approving half-a-dozen others. After several failed efforts to seek a compromise that would have granted Today’s Fresh Start Adams Hyde Park a charter, the board voted to follow the Charter Schools...

This morning, 350 students at Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills are getting computer devices. The rest of the school’s 800 students already have theirs. And, by next week five schools will receive iPads, laptops and Chromebooks. Another 30 schools are in line for their devices, 19,000 of them, said Sophia Mendoza,...

By Dennis Romero California lawmakers want to teach teens how to say yes to sex. And the state Assembly just passed the bill that would do just that. SB 695 by Senate President Pro Tempore de León of L.A. and Jackson and Sen.  Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara would require high schools to teach the “yes means yes”...

Teen partly responsible for abuse by teacher, LAUSD tells appeals court Los Angeles Unified continues to argue that a 14-year-old girl should be partly responsible for sexual abuse by her eighth-grade teacher. Los Angeles Times LAUSD settles additional millions for Miramonte claims The LA Unified school board approved $4.5 million in additional settlement money for...