LA School Report

With LA Unified needing another $40 billion or so to modernize every school, it is likely that the district will ask voters for a lot more through bond sales in the coming years. But a new report from the California Policy Center says voters should be more skeptical and engaged when it comes to construction bonds, arguing that...

In a new position statement, a coalition of food professionals from the nation’s six largest school districts, including LA Unified, is asking for triple the amount of money now provided per school lunch by the USDA and allowing for more free meals as well as autonomy on how to serve them. The Urban School Food Alliance, which also...

To keep local children fed and ready for school the next day, LA Unified officials are hoping to expand the program that serves dinners to students who remain at school hours after the final bell. Already 76,000 meals a day are provided around dinner time at 584 schools in the district’s After School Supper Program,...

By Terri Cook Gender was something I took for granted because I was comfortable expressing my gender and fulfilling my gender roles (as expected by society and those around me). All that has changed now that I’ve seen how my son, and others like him, must think about gender all the time. Let me explain....

Building a tool to define ‘adequately-funded’ education California’s second-largest school district is almost ready to answer a question that has prompted legal challenges across the nation. SI&A Cabinet Report Head of LAUSD schools in northeast SFV to expand bilingual programs Local Superintendent Byron Maltez started his new position overseeing 118 schools in the northeast San...

*UPDATED More than three dozen teachers at some of LA Unified’s lower-performing schools say their contracts are not being renewed because of a loophole in settlement of Reed vs. California, a lawsuit that tried to curb high teacher turnover in some of the city’s most challenging schools. The settlement, made in April 2014, was aimed...

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson came to the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce today to announce his latest action plan for California’s education system. The five-year plan is a continuation of his 2011 effort, called A Blueprint for Great Schools, which has been updated and rebranded as A Blueprint for Great Schools Version 2.0. The...

Editor’s note: In the LA Times yesterday, Diane Ravitch argued passionately that the future of public education in Los Angeles depends on whom the LA Unified board selects as its next superintendent. She wrote, “The ideal superintendent would have the courage, and the support of the board, to resist those who seek to undermine and...

By Clifton D. Parker California’s tough new vaccination law is legally sound and will serve as a model for how to keep children healthy, Stanford professors say. On June 25, California Gov. Jerry Brown approved a new state law (SB277) that substantially narrows exceptions to school-entry vaccination mandates. In doing so, California becomes the third...

Carl Schafer works to get CA to enforce its own arts education law Carl Schafer has spent the last three years lobbying to get arts instruction to every student in the state. KPCC Finally some help from the feds on ELL with disabilities The special education system in many schools is plagued by over- or...