By Jeremy Loudenback Nearly a year ago, pro-bono lawyers from Los Angeles-based Public Counsel made national headlines by launching a landmark class-action lawsuit against Compton Unified School District in federal court in Los Angeles, arguing that the district had failed to address issues of childhood trauma that prevented students from receiving a quality education. In September,...

*Updated Education reformers spent big ahead of California’s primary, and preliminary results Wednesday show the millions paid off with all of the candidates they supported advancing to November’s general election. Carlos Marquez, California Charter Schools Association Advocates’ director of political affairs, said he was excited by the primary results. “There were a lot of races that...

A Los Angeles public high school graduating its first senior class this week has an extra reason to celebrate: four seniors have scored the same prestigious scholarship. One thousand students this year were selected to participate in the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, a $1.6 billion initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that...

A mother came to board member Monica Ratliff’s office in tears recently because her daughter was doing an end-of-year dance performance, but she thought she couldn’t attend because she got a “Disruptive Parent Letter” and was told she was banned from the school. “She was told you’re not allowed on campus. I think the messaging...

By Brent Walmsley When one considers that childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past thirty years, taking steps to make sugary drinks more available to students represents the height of absurdity. Yet, after five years of implementing a policy in the best interest of student health, the...

*UPDATED A California Administrative Law judge has issued a number of rulings in the year-plus legal battle between Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and the LA teachers union, UTLA. Friday’s rulings on several complaints that were brought to the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) were mixed, with some in favor of the independent charter school operator and some...

“If he was in the average school he was in before, he’d be on the street,” testified the father of a 16-year old-boy. “This is what these online schools provide — the comfort to know their kids are not going to become hoodlums, or do drugs. … He has a future, a future I didn’t...

While community leaders and independent charter schools are calling for an end to random student searches and metal detector wanding at LA Unified, LA School Report has learned that a routine random search at a high school in the district recently yielded a loaded gun. A source close to the search said that the student...

A rift in the Democratic Party over education policy comes into sharp relief one day before California’s primary election as a record $28 million has been spent by outside groups on state races, one-third coming from groups supporting charter schools. On one side, traditional Democratic players, including the California Teachers Association, are aligning themselves with candidates who have committed...

I’m still trying to make sense of the buckshot attack on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published by the Los Angeles Times editorial board last week. The Times shoehorned a remarkably honest letter from the foundation about the challenges of education philanthropy into a smear of Gates’ work. But it’s clear the editorial board didn’t...