Superintendent Michelle King gave her second “State of the District” speech on Tuesday morning, touting new accomplishments for LA Unified and new programs that got wild applause from the audience of mostly principals. A middle school pilot program trying out later start times, 10 early education dual-immersion language pilots in Korean and Spanish, 28 new transitional-kindergarten...

*UPDATED LA Unified’s former food services director who resigned under a cloud of controversy has been charged with 15 counts of misappropriation of public funds, embezzlement of public funds, conflict of interest, perjury, and forgery. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced the charges Tuesday against David Binkle. Binkle, 55, pleaded not guilty in...

Romulo Avelica-González, an undocumented immigrant and Los Angeles father who could have been deported to Mexico on Monday, was granted an “emergency stay of removal” by the Board of Immigration Appeals on Monday morning. Avelica-González, 49, will not be deported until the board reviews his case, according to his attorney, Alan Diamante. Avelica-González was arrested...

*UPDATED The election is 10 months away, but the two candidates for the state superintendent of schools have together raised nearly $2 million. Marshall Tuck, who narrowly lost the 2014 contest against Tom Torlakson, leads in fundraising, reporting $1.2 million in contributions from Jan. 1 through June 30, according to the latest reports filed with...

A network of charter schools in Northern California this month will launch the nation’s first teacher residency program focused on personalized learning. Twenty-four teachers-in-training will be part of Summit Public Schools’ first Summit Learning Residency Program, which will train teachers to lead students in a personalized learning classroom setting, a hallmark of the Summit model....

Half of high school students surveyed nationwide say they feel academically prepared for college, a new survey reports. YouthTruth, a national San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, surveyed 55,000 high school students between September 2015 and December 2016 in 21 states through anonymous online surveys about school climate and culture. It released Tuesday an analysis of the...

With only weeks to go until California’s deadline to submit its Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan to the federal government, parents are wondering if the state will offer any guarantee that the lowest-performing schools will improve. Esther Covarrubias, a mother from South LA, believes the nearly finished draft does not. A stronger option, she...

Los Angeles activists decried as “dangerous” new support by the Trump Administration for slashing legal immigration, which came on the heels of news of arrests in Los Angeles during raids targeting undocumented youth. Federal officials announced Tuesday that as many as 120 undocumented immigrant youth who had entered the country illegally as unaccompanied minors were...

By Emilio Pack The new goal charter networks have adopted — boosting the college graduation rate for their alumni — is a wise one. It’s definitely time to move past the short-sighted goal of only ensuring they win admittance into a college. But in rushing to meet this new goal, it’s easy to overlook an awkward...