By Sarah Butrymowicz You can see it all over our map of graduation rates by district: a pocket of low graduation rates surrounded by higher ones, indicating a city and its surrounding suburbs. It should come as no surprise that urban districts tend to have lower graduation rates than suburban ones. They often have more...

3 years later, results of LAUSD’s arts experiment are mixed A KPCC analysis of the most recent district data found that at about 100 elementary schools, the vast majority of students get no arts instruction. KPCC Test scores indicate more students ‘college ready’ in English language arts For math, the percentage decreased compared to last...

More than 40 agencies, representing a diverse coalition of bipartisan support, are urging California Gov. Jerry Brown to sign a bill requiring preschool for all children in low-income families. The governor has until Oct. 11 to sign or veto the bill. The bill is sponsored by Early Edge California, an educational advocacy group that is working...

LA Unified School Board President Steve Zimmer kept up his attack against the Broad Foundation charter schools expansion plan, appearing on KNBC’s “News Conference” yesterday and calling the plan a “perversion of what the charter movement was supposed to be.” “The reason why I’m concerned is because this is really a business plan that doesn’t address all students,”...

Just months having securing a new three-year contract that included a hefty raise for its members, all is not well at the the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA. The latest issue of its monthly newsletter is no easy, breezy read, and it suggests that the months and years ahead may be as tumultuous as the recent past. UTLA...

By Anya Kamenetz Ron Turiello’s daughter, Grace, seemed unusually alert even as a newborn. At 7 months or so, she showed an interest in categorizing objects: She’d take a drawing of an elephant in a picture book, say, and match it to a stuffed elephant and a realistic plastic elephant. At 5 or 6 years...

Los Angeles Unified and five other California school districts got welcome news today as the U.S. Department of Education extended their waiver from the No Child Left Behind law, giving them continued flexibility in how they spend millions to educate low-income students. Known collectively as the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), the districts won...

While overall scores on the recent Smarter Balanced tests for LA Unified were disappointing, there are quite a few schools proving they can beat the odds of poverty and language barriers. At least 16 qualify as diamonds in the rough — or as Superintendent Ramon Cortines recently described them, “pockets of excellence.” Despite an above-average number of...

When 50,000 iPads, laptops and Chromebooks went out to LA Unified students last year, about 1,500 were unaccounted for. So far this year about 1,000 were recovered and district computer techs now say they expect to recover the remaining 500 devices by sometime next week. “We’ve been like Sherlock Holmes,” said Bill Wherritt, a Facilities Division...

If you’re an employee at LAUSD or have a child going to a school in the district, expect a call this weekend to ask about what your preference is for a new school calendar. Last evening, Superintendent Ramon Cortines sent out a recorded robo-call that notified teachers and parents that the district will be making three attempts...