Despite projected budget deficits reaching nearly half a billion dollars and steep enrollment declines, LA Unified’s certified administrative staff has increased 22 percent in the last five years, according to a superintendent’s report. The number of teachers has dropped 9 percent in the same period. And teachers and certified staff are aging toward retirement, heading toward...

Three charter management organizations (CMOs) were named as finalists for the 2016 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced today. The finalists are Success Academy Charter Schools in New York, IDEA Public Schools and YES Prep Public Schools. IDEA and YES Prep are in...

Special education students present one of the biggest costs for LA Unified, but administrators are considering ways to capitalize on the district’s successes with that population. Half of the school board’s all-day special budget session at USC on Tuesday was spent discussing the costs of dealing with students with mild and severe disabilities. Special ed is identified...

Updated Feb. 10, 2021 | This is part of an LA School Report series taking an in-depth look at the different categories of schools that exist within the massive LA Unified school district. Today we conclude a three-part mini-series on magnet schools. Check here for Part I and Part II.  Jai’Myah Henderson may have fallen right...

The LA Unified school board put its money where its mouth is at its May 10 meeting and approved a $3 million expansion of its growing magnet program. The move comes after months of public comments from district leaders pointing to the popular magnet program as a way to increase enrollment in the district. Two...

By Peter Cunningham Across America, parents are demanding more and better educational options for their children while teachers unions and bureaucrats desperately fight to retain their monopoly over public school students. The latest front in the war against charter schools is in Los Angeles, where a study funded by United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) tallied up...

By Naomi Nix (Bridgeport, Connecticut)  —When veteran Bridgeport journalist Nancy Hendrick greeted the start of 1961 with a blistering column called “What’s Wrong With Bridgeport,” the inequalities that afflict the city today were already evident everywhere she looked. “Suddenly we are all aware of the sharp contrast between private opulence and public squalor that exists within...

* UPDATED May 13 As district officials and other analysts pick apart the UTLA-funded study released Tuesday that claims that independent charter schools drain half a billion dollars from LA Unified, the district’s own numbers show LA Unified actually makes money from charters. The first finding of the 42-page union-funded Cost of Charter Schools report states that the revenue collected from...

LA Unified’s school board this week approved spending $18 million on more than 900 classrooms and office spaces for 25,000 charter school students using classrooms that are co-located on 94 traditional district school sites. The money is coming from Prop. 39 funds. Prop. 39, passed by California voters in 2000, allows charter schools to use under-utilized...

By Michael Vaughn The Los Angeles teachers union just spent $82,000 on a report that concludes that the thousands of Los Angeles families who are choosing to send their children to charter schools are costing the LA school district a half-billion dollars annually. The report “doesn’t fault charters,” according to the LA Times, “saying that...