Downey Unified School District looks much like others in the Los Angeles area, including LA Unified. It serves thousands of students, the majority of them Latino and low income. But its 96 percent graduation rate and other achievements have won it both recognition and the highest honor — replication. Downey has been designated as an exemplary school...

The four contenders for the District 4 seat on LA Unified’s school board met on Thursday night for the second time, in a forum at Paul Revere Middle School in Brentwood. There were a few zingers, some rather polite versions of sharp elbows and hoots of support from the 150 or so in the audience...

President Trump Tuesday evening nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch, currently serving on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Colorado, to fill the seat on the Supreme Court left empty after Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death nearly a year ago. Gorsuch was student body president at Georgetown Prep in suburban Washington, D.C., where his mother was...

As the first in her family to attend college and from a disadvantaged community where few students think it is possible to leave, Carolina Martínez Orozco wanted to prove that you can leave, and succeed.  She also wanted to come back and encourage others. “It was always my goal to go to college outside of...

Betsy DeVos’s nomination as education secretary moved forward after a bitter party-line vote by the Senate education committee and an unusually rancorous process that galvanized her opponents, frayed Senate relations and raised the spectre that some Republicans could defect when the vote reaches the full body. The intention of committee Democrats to block DeVos was...

LA Unified Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly, who is widely credited with steering the district through the Great Recession but has repeatedly warned of coming deficits, has resigned to take a similar position at the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Reilly was hired by LA Unified in 2007. On Monday, Superintendent Michelle King thanked Reilly...

This article was produced in partnership with our colleagues at The74Million.org. The East Coast protests started haphazardly enough Saturday afternoon. Washington, D.C., residents started gathering at Dulles International Airport around the same time New Yorkers were trekking to JFK’s international terminal — rallied by Facebook Live videos and social media posts that decried President Trump’s...

By Misti D. Kemmer Just last Thursday, I experienced one of those especially emotional days at work. I got a call that the mother of one of my fourth-grade students had passed away. Not five minutes later, another student went to the back of the room, sat down in a chair and began to cry. I...

*UPDATED Seven federal agencies united in a raid Wednesday in Los Angeles of a charter school network that oversees high-performing schools but had come under scrutiny for its financial and management practices. The raid of Celerity Educational Group, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, came after an investigation by LA Unified’s own Office of...

Thousands of undocumented students and educators received a respite from uncertainty Wednesday when the DACA program survived President Donald Trump’s first executive order on immigration. Earlier this week his spokesman stated that ending the program is not among the administration’s immediate priorities. Still, for some parents, promises made by LA Unified officials that schools in LA...