*UPDATED Having two Republicans in the runoffs for LA Unified school board seats — Scott Schmerelson in District 3 and Lydia Gutierrez in District 7 — would seem to be a flag-waving event for the California GOP in a Democrat-stronghold city like Los Angeles. Not necessarily. Bowing to the nonpartisan nature of local school board elections, party officials are...

By The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board On the day they start kindergarten, Latino children are often already at a disadvantage. Their social skills and readiness to listen and learn are top-notch, but their cognitive and verbal skills, abilities that strongly predict future academic success, tend to be significantly less developed than those of their...

California now ranks 29th among all states and the District of Columbia in spending per student, up from 42nd two years ago, according a new report from the California Budget and Policy Center. The jump is attributed in part to Proposition 30’s tax increases, which were approved in November 2012. The new ranking is based...

By Jill Barshay | The Hechinger Report The growing gap between rich and poor is affecting many aspects of life in the United States, from health to work to home life. Now the one place that’s supposed to give Americans an equal chance at life — the schoolhouse — is becoming increasingly unequal as well. I’ve already...

Despite neighborhood opposition to a proposed $30 million Mandarin-immersion elementary school in Mar Vista, LA Unified school board member Steve Zimmer calls the project “a game-changer” in the district’s efforts to reverse years of enrollment declines that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. “I don’t have accurate words to express how important this issue...

Parents have launched a petition at 20th Street Elementary to take over the school, force major changes and win the right to replace its staff and teachers, the Los Angeles Times reported today. If a majority of parents sign the petition, it will be the latest effort in the state to use the so-called “Parent...

By Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books Fifty years ago, Congress passed a federal education law to help poor children get a good public education: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. Revised many times, it is still the basis for federal education policy today. When it was last reauthorized...

Later today, an LA Unified committee will discuss the importance and feasibility of sustaining a program aimed at helping children in their first years of life as they approach kindergarten. While experts regard this time as critical to child development, money the district has used to fund such efforts are sunsetting: The proposed budget calls...