LA School Report

In a sudden reversal for LA Unified, Superintendent Ramon Cortines is asking the state to ignore the district’s Smarter Balanced testing results as a measure of academic growth or improvement next year. In a letter to the State Schools Chief, Tom Torlakson on Friday, Cortines wrote, “I have determined that it would be untimely to have...

Lovelyn Marquez-Preuher, an eighth-grade English teacher at Dodson Middle School in Rancho Palos Verdes, recently became one of five educators the California Department of Education named California Teacher of the Year. In an interview with Bob Bravo, LA Unified’s Local Instructional Service Center-South Superintendent, for his weekly podcast, Marquez-Preuher discussed her path to becoming a teacher, a...

Amid safety concerns, LAUSD students hauling home iPads Students at Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granda Hills are among the first in LAUSD cleared to tote home their iPads for homework. KPCC Group seeks oversight of military arms after LAUSD’s arsenal revealed An advocacy group is calling on LAUSD to create a citizens...

The LA Unified school board honored two people at its meeting Tuesday as retiring 20-year employee Linda Perez received a certificate of appreciation and late board member Marguerite LaMotte was remembered with a moment of silence. LaMotte was a long-serving member of the board when she passed away on Dec. 5, 2013 at the age...

* UPDATED The City Clerk’s office today completed verification of petitions to qualify for the March primary in LA Unified’s four school board races. After a random draw of letters, the ballot order is now set for how candidate names will appear. Here’s the way they will be listed: District 1 George McKenna, incumbent (No...

“Forty years ago we were in competition with private schools. Now, we’re in competition with charters.” That was LA Unified board vice president Steve Zimmer yesterday, speaking at a board committee meeting where the issue at hand was district enrollment. The number of kids attending the district’s traditional schools has been declining since 2003, now...

Via The Los Angeles Times | By the Editorial Board Ideally, high school history courses would not be so overwhelmingly focused on the accomplishments of white males and would pay more attention to the roles played by others. There has been progress in that direction — in fact, the College Board has come under withering...

San Francisco to offer ethnic studies at all of its 19 high schools The San Francisco school board voted unanimously on Tuesday to require all of the city’s 19 public high schools to offer ethnic studies courses. Huffington Post Districts want to highlight retirees’ costs The coalition isn’t asking for the state to pick up...

UPDATED* LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines has corrected a statement he made at Tuesday’s board meeting, telling the members in an email that he erred in saying charter schools receive more in state funding than traditional public schools. “One of the problems is the funding of charters versus regular schools. And the charters in the state get...