LA School Report

Steven Van Zandt is not only one of the busiest men in show business. The composer, arranger, guitarist and longtime Bruce Springsteen sideman is also a transformational educator. A record producer and music historian, Van Zandt has been a member of two well-known rock bands: Springsteen’s legendary E Street Band and the influential Southside Johnny...

Despite heightened concerns about campus safety since the pandemic, in many ways America’s public schools are safer today than they were a decade ago, federal campus crime data released Wednesday reveal. Yet in one startling way, they’ve grown exponentially more dangerous: An unprecedented growth in school shootings. There were a record 188 school shootings resulting...

A new study reveals vastly improved college enrollment and completion rates for students who attended both KIPP middle and high schools as compared to a similar group of children who applied for enrollment but were not selected in the network’s lottery system. KIPP middle and high school students were 31 percentage points more likely to...

Between the harsh winds of a hurricane and the hectic second week of school, Los Angeles Unified school district officials are hoping for one thing this year — higher enrollment.  LAUSD, like other big city school districts such as New York City and Chicago, are now admitting 4-year-olds, a plan that will certainly help boost...

Last week, I sat down and read the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, the landmark case that overturned many affirmative action policies at the nation’s elite universities. The case has generated significant outrage. The right was outraged that Harvard wants to use (and did use) race as a factor in its admissions decisions. The left...

Debates about education policy and the workplace are typically carried out by people far removed from high school classrooms. There’s good reason for that, since age and experience often bring clearer insights not visible to the young. But education today is in a time of disruption and transition. In many respects, it’s not meeting the...

If I asked you to picture a new teacher, you might imagine someone just out of college who recently finished student-teaching and now, at age 22 or 23, is starting a full-time job in a district nearby. That is one common path, but it’s far from the only one. In fact, teachers follow a wide...

Consumed with pandemic-era grief, Gen Z’s apathy towards attending college has grown — even influencing students as young as middle schoolers.  A new YPulse report found two in five Gen Z students agreed with the statement: “The pandemic has made me less interested in pursuing higher education.” Middle school students, generally 11 to 13 years old, not...

As the mother of a 37-year-old son with special needs who is living a full and independent life, I often think about what it took to get here. Alex was one of the original members of the POINT (Pursuing our INdependence Together) residential community in White Plains, New York, which was founded in 2008 by families of...

Universities can continue to target recruitment efforts at predominantly Black and Hispanic high schools even if race can’t be used as a factor in admissions, the Biden administration said in new guidance released earlier this month. The parsing is part of a package of materials responding to the June U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action in...