By Acacia Squires Ainissa Ramirez used to be an associate professor at Yale in materials science. Now she’s taking her “science evangelism” out on the road. Awakening that little something in young people, especially young people of color, is Ramirez’s true passion. As a 4-year-old kid in Jersey City, N.J., Ainissa knew she wanted to be...

As the second largest school district in the country, one would think the simple law of averages would see LA Unified with plenty of schools in Newsweek’s recent lists of the America’s Top High Schools and Beating the Odds — Top High Schools for Low-Income Students. But the district didn’t fare particularly well on either...

The LA Unified school board did a lot of hand-wringing over a decision this week to deny the opening of a new charter school while  approving half-a-dozen others. After several failed efforts to seek a compromise that would have granted Today’s Fresh Start Adams Hyde Park a charter, the board voted to follow the Charter Schools...

This morning, 350 students at Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills are getting computer devices. The rest of the school’s 800 students already have theirs. And, by next week five schools will receive iPads, laptops and Chromebooks. Another 30 schools are in line for their devices, 19,000 of them, said Sophia Mendoza,...

By Dennis Romero California lawmakers want to teach teens how to say yes to sex. And the state Assembly just passed the bill that would do just that. SB 695 by Senate President Pro Tempore de León of L.A. and Jackson and Sen.  Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara would require high schools to teach the “yes means yes”...

Another charter war is brewing in LA Unified. But the early warning shots are taking aim at ambiguity, not facts. The flashpoint was two sentences in an Aug. 7 story in the LA Times that described a meeting at which three major foundations discussed plans to expand the number of charter schools in the district. The...

The LA Unified school board yesterday picked the search firm to find the district’s next superintendent, completing a relatively speedy process that suggests the members want a successor in place when Ramon Cortines steps down in December. The search process began Sunday, when the board narrowed the field to two head-hunter firms from five and was...

By Helena Bottemiller Evich As the Republican battle against Michelle Obama’s school lunch standards resumes in Congress later this month, some food giants are quietly backing away from their fight with the first lady. Many companies, such as Schwan’s, that once vigorously fought key elements of the initiative to trim sodium, fat and calories from...

An elementary school principal who was removed over the summer after a wave of parental protests took her case before the LAUSD School Board today in an effort to win reinstatement. Gail Greer was removed from the Mid-City’s Prescott School of Enriched Sciences Magnet Elementary School on July 27 by Superintendent Ramon Cortines after parents...