LA School Report

The nation’s second largest school district isn’t exactly coming roaring back from the pandemic, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly called the nation’s report card. But the Los Angeles Unified School District also isn’t lagging behind either, according to the federal measure of math and reading skills, which, among other things, is...

Among other distinctions, Kristen DiCerbo can lay claim to being one of the first people on the planet to come face-to-face with the educational potential of generative artificial intelligence. In the fall of 2022, months before the public got a glimpse of ChatGPT, DiCerbo, a learning scientist and chief learning officer at Khan Academy, got...

I remember the first day of the historic rain storm back in August 2016. I was happy to get a free day off from classes at Saint Amant High School in Prairieville, Louisiana.  What teenager wouldn’t be?  But the downpour was much worse than anticipated, quickly becoming a life-changing disaster — somewhat like the Los...

It is a sunny Friday afternoon in South Central LA, music blasting through the speakers at Figueroa Street Elementary School as nine-year-old Alan runs around the playground with friends, a smile across his face.  “Everyone is very nice to me, and I feel like I belong here,” said Alan, a third grader. “I feel like...

This story was originally published on The Conversation. Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching. Title of course: “STEM & Social Impact: Climate Change” What prompted the idea for the course? Harvey Mudd College’s mission is to educate STEM students – short for science, technology, engineering and math –...

The Los Angeles Unified School District will spend $2.2 billion to rebuild three schools destroyed or badly damaged in January’s deadly wildfires – and protect the entire district from natural disaster, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a press conference Tuesday. “It’s the right investment at the right time for absolutely the right reasons,” Carvalho said. ...

After a natural disaster like the Los Angeles wildfires, teachers are often a first line of support for children processing trauma — but teachers can also experience what expert Stephen Hydon calls secondary traumatic stress. In this interview, Hydon, who serves as the director of the School and Educational Settings specialization program at USC’s Dworak-Peck...

This story was originally published on CalMatters. As President Donald Trump begins his second term with a declaration of a national emergency at the southern border and a steadfast pledge of mass deportations, California’s colleges and universities have been holding workshops and partnering with legal service nonprofits to help undocumented students on their campuses stay...

Firefighters have now contained deadly wildfires that just after the new year devastated whole swaths of Los Angeles. Schools are reopening and, for some families, life is returning to normal.  But the historic blazes, which in January prompted the emergency closure of the nation’s second-largest district and burned some schools completely, made a lasting impression...

This story was originally published on CalMatters. It’ll be a while before Los Angeles can fully assess the damage to its schools from this recent spate of fires, but a few things already seem certain: rebuilding will take a long time, it will be expensive, and it may sap the statewide fund for school repairs. At least a...