By Joshua Leibner | Salon Michelle Pierson, a 40-ish mother of two, is in a state of confusion over her direction in life and finds herself wandering down the main drag of her gentrifying, hip Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood. She hears a confident voice coming from Eagle Rock City Hall that entices her in. Inside,...

Yet again, LA Unified finds itself in the soup because of a computer malfunction. Friends of Stoner, a group fighting to block the co-location of another charter school at Stoner Avenue Elementary in Palms, has met with lawyers to discuss legal options against LA Unified for extending the application deadline by three days. Frustrated Stoner...

*UPDATED Scott Schmerelson says he is “feeling pretty good” these days, and the longtime LA Unified educator, counselor and principal certainly has lots of reasons for it. Schmerelson emerged from a logjam of five challengers to finish second in the March 3 school board primary election, good enough to make the May 19 runoff against District...

By Doyle McManus |  Los Angeles Times What’s the difference between growing up in an affluent family and growing up poor in America? Yes, upper-middle-class kids have more money. But they also have more attentive parents, stable families, good teachers — and even more friends and acquaintances. As a result, well-off kids have one more...

LA Unified officials yesterday unveiled results of the Arts Equity Index, the most comprehensive arts inventory the district has ever taken, and the findings show the district has a bad case of “art poverty.” Very few of the district’s 650,000 students have access to robust and uninterrupted arts programs from elementary school through high school,...

A team from Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnet won first place in the 2015 Aspen Challenge: Los Angeles competition at last Saturday, beating out teams from 15 other schools. The challenge asked students to propose solutions to global problems, and Westchester’s 10-member team took on water sustainability awareness in Los Angeles, according to a LA Unified press...

By Stephen Mucher | Los Angeles Times Los Angeles teachers and school district administrators are doing battle once again. Contract talks broke down last month after 18 rounds of negotiations on raises, healthcare costs, class size, employee evaluation and charter schools. Mediation begins next week. Strike language and recriminations grow louder. Given the potential long-term...

LA Unified officials are close to clearing a two-year backlog of assessments aimed at identifying thousands of students who would qualify for the highly-prized Gifted and Talented Education program. Why has it taken so long? For one reason, says the district, parents of many gifted students proved they, too, are gifted — at cheating. For...

The graduation rate for high school students in California grew to 81.4 percent in the 2012-13 school year, according to data released this week by the U.S. Department of Education. The number is slightly up from the previous year’s 80.2 percent, but it still leaves California 31st among states and Washington D.C. in high school graduation...