By Naomi Nix (Bridgeport, Connecticut)  —When veteran Bridgeport journalist Nancy Hendrick greeted the start of 1961 with a blistering column called “What’s Wrong With Bridgeport,” the inequalities that afflict the city today were already evident everywhere she looked. “Suddenly we are all aware of the sharp contrast between private opulence and public squalor that exists within...

* UPDATED May 13 As district officials and other analysts pick apart the UTLA-funded study released Tuesday that claims that independent charter schools drain half a billion dollars from LA Unified, the district’s own numbers show LA Unified actually makes money from charters. The first finding of the 42-page union-funded Cost of Charter Schools report states that the revenue collected from...

LA Unified’s school board this week approved spending $18 million on more than 900 classrooms and office spaces for 25,000 charter school students using classrooms that are co-located on 94 traditional district school sites. The money is coming from Prop. 39 funds. Prop. 39, passed by California voters in 2000, allows charter schools to use under-utilized...

By Michael Vaughn The Los Angeles teachers union just spent $82,000 on a report that concludes that the thousands of Los Angeles families who are choosing to send their children to charter schools are costing the LA school district a half-billion dollars annually. The report “doesn’t fault charters,” according to the LA Times, “saying that...

Although the brawl that took place on the Sylmar High School campus Monday is garnering national attention, it’s for the wrong reasons. “It was not race related, it was not about bullying,” said principal James Lee, who came to the school four years ago. Lee allowed students to take over the stage on Wednesday night at...

By Jill Tucker The taxpayer-supported Teach for America program, which supplies enthusiastic if inexperienced teachers to thousands of schools in lower-income areas across the country, has fallen out of favor in San Francisco. The city’s school board made clear this week that staffing some of the city’s neediest classrooms with recent college graduates who are...

The LA Unified school board broke into a surprise closed session for several hours Tuesday afternoon in the middle of their public meeting in order to head off a potential “parent trigger” lawsuit over 20th Street Elementary School. All morning, the school board was in closed session to discuss employee actions, contract renewals and pending litigation....

Almost without comment Tuesday, the LA Unified school board voted unanimously to seek help from outside the district to replicate high-achieving schools. The resolution was introduced by Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez and asks the district staff to “seek outside support for the funding” to replicate successful school programs in areas of high need in the...

LA Unified board members asked Tuesday for an in-depth analysis of a union-funded report stating that the district loses more than half a billion dollars because of independent charter schools. A response from the California Charter Schools Association, delivered after an hours-long recess while the school board met in closed session to address litigation against the district, called...

  Sylmar High School has quieted down and an assembly is planned after a lunchtime brawl disrupted the campus on Monday. The 20-minute incident involving at least 40 students was captured on cellphone video and posted on YouTube. Principal James Lee told LA School Report, “This was an incident that just snowballed, and it had to do...