LA School Report

Via Los Angeles Times | By Steven Ceasar The state Education Department has ignored its obligation to ensure that all California students receive a minimum level of instructional time, predominantly affecting minorities from low-income families, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday. The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union,...

South LA to elect a school board member; Can a new face help? South Los Angles residents will vote Tuesday on a new school board member – but their decision will affect students all over the district. A slate of seven candidates are vying for District One – which became vacant last year when Marguerite...

Citizens of the World Mar Vista (CWC) wants to remain a citizen at Stoner Avenue Elementary School in Del Rey next year despite months of bitter fighting between parents of students at the two schools. In a letter sent to LA Unified officials today, CWC denies it missed the district’s deadline to respond to the...

This is the final profile of candidates running for LA Unified’s vacant District 1 board seat. The election is scheduled for June 3, with a possible runoff in August. Genethia Hudley-Hayes is the only candidate who declined to be interviewed for the series. Numerous attempts to reach her and her campaign failed to get a...

Editors Note: This letter from George McKenna, candidate for school board in District 1, is in response to an article published on May 16, entitled, “McKenna, leading in school board race, won’t commit on Deasy.” LA School Report stands by our reporting, as well as the accuracy of the excerpted transcript of a taped interview...

*UPDATED While UTLA, the Los Angeles teachers union, has endorsed three candidates in next week’s District 1 school board race, one has emerged as first among equals. Sherlett Hendy-Newbill has won the endorsement of the Network for Public Education, a public education advocacy group led by Diane Ravitch, one of the strongest voices in the...

$9 billion school construction bond moves toward November ballot Appropriations Committee has finally put a dollar figure to a school construction bond measure that it wants to place on the November ballot: $9 billion. Voter approval to issue new 30-year construction bonds would be the first state financing for facilities for K-12 schools and higher...

The racial tensions at Markham Middle School in Watts have now reached the United States Congress. In a letter to Superintendent John Deasy sent late last week, Congresswoman Janice Hahn writes she was alerted of the conflict between the school administration and parents who feel “that African American students are treated unfairly by being sent...

Just when members of the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, thought brighter economic times for California would translate to higher salaries after seven years without a contract, the state threw them a curveball. In recent weeks, Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature have begun debating over how to pay down teacher pension debt, which has...

With this essay, Ellie Herman concludes her year in the classroom — and sharing her observations and insights with LA School Report. This year, I had the remarkable experience of taking the academic year off to visit high schools across the socioeconomic spectrum in L.A. in an attempt to understand better what we mean when...