School may be out for the summer, but things are not cooling down for the LA Unified school board as no less than three organizations are planing rallies or protests at Tuesday’s scheduled board meeting. The LA teachers union, UTLA, the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition and a conglomerate of organizations in favor of the district...

By Michele Siqueiros How does the daughter of a seamstress with a sixth grade education get to college?  For me, it was luck. As a good student I worked hard in school, but had I not been lucky in high school to be assigned the A-G high school courses required for consideration to the University of...

By David Whiting A combination of handed-down smartphones, summer break and a new wave of shadowy apps makes the next three months especially dangerous for children, warns a nationally recognized cybercop. Understand, it’s not just pedophiles and pimps preying on children. It’s children preying on children. Despite parental controls, says Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Clay...

With Superintendent Ramon Cortines voicing opposition to the idea, the future of LA Unified’s plan to make the district the second in the state to require an ethnic studies course as a high school graduation requirement appears to be in doubt. In a May 8 letter obtained by LA School Report addressed to the Ethnic Studies Advisory...

D is for diploma! In a major reversal, LA Unified school board members are proposing to change graduation requirements that compel students to pass college prep courses with a “C” or better, making a “D” an acceptable grade to earn their high school diplomas. If passed, the resolution by board members Monica Garcia, Steve Zimmer...

Today is the last day of spring semester classes for LA Unified, and for thousands of students it means summer is finally here. For teachers, it also is the start of vacation, and tomorrow they will get their first fat paycheck including a long-awaited raise and backpay that is due as the result of their new contract....

By Carl Cohn Now that the recent school board elections are over in the Los Angeles Unified School District, there will be the usual calls for a new beginning and getting down to the serious business of charting a bright future for the 600,000 or so deserving students that the board is privileged to serve....

California is woefully deficient in providing quality math education to low-income students and students of color and needs to make a better coordinated effort as it switches to the new Common Core State Standards in math (CCSSM), according to a new report from Education Trust-West. Fifteen percent of low-income eighth-grade students in California earned proficient...

The last test for California high school seniors is one step closer to elimination. Maybe. The state Senate voted yesterday to suspend the California High School Exit Exam for three years, starting in 2016-17 through 2018-19, and lift the requirement for all high school students to pass the test as a condition for graduation. Carol...

* UPDATED California spent less than the national average per pupil in 2013, according to a new Census Bureau report. The state’s spending of $9,220 per student was below the national average of $10,700 and behind 34 other states and the District of Columbia, but still well ahead of some of the worst states on the...