As it was with middle schools, demographics contrast starkly at the top and bottom LA Unified elementary schools on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) accountability index. The schools with the lowest five scores are located in economically challenged neighborhoods and have higher levels of disabled students, English learners and non-white students. Like with middle schools, but...

Science lessons set to rap music. Aspirations in envelopes pinned to the ceiling. And a commitment to live alongside students. Tunji Adebayo, who teaches 7th and 8th grade science at Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Middle School, was honored Monday night for his innovation and dedication at Teach For America’s “Celebrating Changemakers in Education.” “Tunji’s dedication to...

When it comes to the performance of some minority groups and high-needs students, LA Unified high schools showed more ability than their middle school counterparts in beating the odds on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) new school accountability index. While the performance of the district’s middle schools tended to break along familiar lines...

The Fight for the Soul of the Cities, which has disrupted school meetings with calls to end the militarization of school police and reduce their forces, said they are not satisfied with the response from the LA Unified school board. After students and activists protested Friday afternoon outside LA Unified’s Beaudry headquarters, school board members Steve Zimmer, George...

This month, a California appeals court restored the state’s teacher tenure laws, which had been ruled unconstitutional by a lower court two years ago. But the ruling was hardly a ringing endorsement of California’s approach to tenure. Here’s what’s not in dispute in the case, Vergara v. California, even after the appeals court’s decision: Thousands...

LA Unified is expanding a Camps to College program that helps students coming out of juvenile detention camps get back into school and graduate. Since the program launched two years ago in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department and the Los Angeles Probation Office, it has served 1,189 students. Most of them have...

By Michael Bloomberg  Eli Broad is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs—not only in business but in philanthropy too. The two Fortune 500 companies he built (KB Home and SunAmerica Inc.) have helped millions of people achieve their aspirations of owning their own homes and retiring with security. As a philanthropist, he seeks out the most...

By Judy Lin | CALmatters As he eyes a run for governor, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is spotlighting the lagging academic performance of Latino and African American students and saying the state should do more to hold schools accountable. The 63-year-old Democrat says parents have a right to know how their schools are...

Despite for the first time taking into consideration the performance of subgroups like English learners, students with disabilities and those from low-income families, there is still a wide gulf between the top and bottom LA Unified middle schools at LA Unified when it comes to their score on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE)...

In Los Angeles, a leaked draft of a plan to dramatically expand charter school access in America’s second-largest school district has become a lightning rod development for advocates of traditional public schools. The war of words intensified last week at the Huffington Post when American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten attacked LA charter expansion as “part of a coordinated national...