On Friday morning, more than 100 parents were lined up outside Walter Reed Middle School in Studio City waiting for a permit to get their child into one of the district’s Schools for Advanced Studies. One dad spent the night on the school steps. No, it’s no April Fool’s joke. Getting into one of LA...

This is part of a series looking at the different types of schools that make up the Los Angeles Unified School District. As part of our examination of magnets, LA School Report visited Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet to learn what makes it one of the top schools in the district.  A nondescript building next to the...

How can the funding more than double per student, yet LA Unified still be facing a financial crisis? Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly posed that question as she explained the intricacies of the budget and laid out new numbers at Tuesday’s special board meeting. For example, she pointed out that by the end of the recession in 2009,...

A student at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet in Boyle Heights died after she was reportedly swept away by a wave on Saturday during a beach cleanup in Santa Monica. The 17-year-old student, Thuy Tran, was a candidate this year to be valedictorian of Bravo and was also a senior track star at the school, according to...

School security officers outnumber counselors in four out of the 10 largest public school districts in the country — including three of the top five — according to data obtained by The 74. New York City, Chicago, Miami-Dade County and Houston schools all employ more security staff than counselors. New York City, Chicago and Miami-Dade...

*UPDATE With LA Unified heading toward financial crisis within three years, Superintendent Michelle King on Tuesday kicked off a series of special board meetings to detail her plans for fiscal solvency. Topping that list is keeping kids in the district. Notably absent was cutting staff. King’s initiatives would initially cost the district — roughly $20 million. But the...

The Supreme Court Tuesday voted 4-4 to uphold mandatory union dues for teachers and other public employees, at least for the time being. Justices issued a short, unsigned opinion saying that the lower court’s opinion “is affirmed by an equally divided court.” High court votes that end in a tie affirm the lower court’s ruling...

In order to strengthen state-level efforts across the country, the education reform organizations StudentsFirst and 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now (better known as 50CAN) are merging, 50CAN will announce today. The new group will be known as 50CAN, but StudentsFirst state chapters will retain their names (except in Pennsylvania, where their work overlapped). While both organizations...

By David G. Savage The Supreme Court announced a tie vote today in what labor law experts had called a “life-or-death” case for public employee unions. The split decision preserves a long-standing rule that requires about half of the nation’s teachers, transit workers and other public employees to pay a “fair share fee” to support their union. The...

George McKenna is going into his 55th year as an educator, and he has a lot to say about it. In fact, he declares: “Give me a school that’s supposedly poor-performing for three years and I guarantee you no charter school would be able to snatch any kids from that school, and no kids will...