For most kids, getting expelled in the seventh grade for bringing a weapon to school is the beginning of a sad story, the first step into the school-to-prison pipeline. But for Eduardo Pacheco, a recent graduate of LA Unified’s Woodrow Wilson High School, it ended up being a low point from which he slowly rose to...

Some think it is a threat to the public education system. Some welcome it. Members of the LA Unified school board have reacted quite differently to the announcement that the Broad, Keck and Walton Family Foundations are planning to expand the number of charter schools in the district to serve well beyond the 101,000 students...

By Anya Kamenetz Chester E. Finn, Jr. has three very bright granddaughters. He thinks they “have considerable academic potential and are not always being challenged by their schools.” But Finn is not just a proud grandpa; he’s a long-established expert on education policy with the Fordham Institute and Hoover Institution. So its not surprising that...

Now that the MiSiS crisis seems to be in the rear-view mirror, Superintendent Ramon Cortines is focusing on another difficult issue for LAUSD — class sizes. “We are now beginning to make necessary adjustments to class size,” he said in a statement released today. “For instance, we can open a new class and assign an additional...

A teacher at LA Unified filed a lawsuit against the district Wednesday after he was suspended in 2014 over a lewd Facebook page that was created with his name and image on it. A student was eventually arrested by the LAPD and charged with creating the page, but not before the teacher, Jason Duchan, was suspended from...

In a memo regarding the Smarter Balanced Assessments, LA Unified officials explained to Superintendent Ramon Cortines and members of the school board how the new test is so different from its predecessor and why scores may appear lower than in the past. Cynthia Lim, executive director of the district’s Office of Data and Accountability, said...

Not many people know much about LA Unified’s $133 million MiSiS computer system that has held the center of attention for the past year—and will determine the success or failure of the school year now underway. District officials this week gave LA School Report a behind-the-scenes look at the system to understand what it does and...

In an emergency vote yesterday, the state Assembly passed a bill that exempts 2015 high school seniors from passing the California High School Exit Exam, enabling them to graduate. The bill now goes to the Senate, which will take it up Monday as the body is not in session today. If it passes there, it will...

By Matt Krupnick They were once the envy of the world for the access they offered to high-quality education for all students at a low price. But California’s public colleges and universities delivered something different to Andrew Hotchkiss when he applied for admission two years ago: a punch to the gut. Hotchkiss, now 21 and...

After reviewing preliminary results of the Smarter Balanced Assessments, LA Unified officials say the test scores are lower than what parents typically see but want them to know “it does not mean our kids are getting dumber.” Cynthia Lim, Executive Director of the Office of Data and Accountability, told the LA School Report today that parents should...