Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, the largest charter network in LA Unified is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and based on performance, there is much to celebrate. The Alliance schools, which include 17 high schools and 9 middle schools, are all located in low-income neighborhoods but have an overall high school graduation rate of 94...

KIPP LA Schools today announced plans to open nine additional campuses, nearly doubling its presence in south and east LA by 2020. The high performing charter schools are part of the Knowledge Is Power Program,which runs 162 campuses, educating 58,000 students nationally. In LA, the organization currently operates 11 schools serving 4,000 elementary and middle school...

* UPDATED LA Unified today finally released a report that confirming that two charter schools, Magnolia Science Academy 6 and Magnolia Science Academy 7, were operating with insufficient funds and for years and have been financially mismanaged. The 78-page report, prepared by an outside firm for the district’s Office of the Inspector General, concludes that...

It’s an old story in LA Unified: Two schools are put together in one campus under the state co-location policy. The merger is always complicated and messier still when it’s a last-minute arranged marriage and neither side is consulted ahead of time about the partnership. It sometimes explodes into smithereens, as it did last year...

In it’s first ever state-by-state rankings, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranked California’s charters No. 8 on its list of best in the nation. Using 11 measures, the study ranked 26 states that met the criteria for the study and judged their overall health based on how they are performing, innovating and growing....

LA Unified is still scrambling to troubleshoot technical issues as the deadline for staffing schools approaches, the school board learned at its latest meeting yesterday. “Norm” day,” as it’s called, is set for Friday but problems with the new student data management system, MiSiS, have forced the district to devise a new plan: “The process...

*UPDATED A new report by the California Charter Schools Association shows a growing gap between the overall school performance of traditional schools and charter schools in LA Unified. The report — Portrait of the Movement — says LA Unified charter schools, on average, produce stronger test results than traditional schools in the district. The data...

At the start of the new school year in two weeks, LA Unified will have almost 200 more charter schools than it did a decade ago.  The growth reflects a more swift expansion than national and statewide trends in school choice options.  Since 2004, charter schools in LA Unified have increased nearly four times, to...

* UPDATED A California Superior Court judge today ruled that two Magnolia Public Schools (MPS) charters can remain open, blocking LA Unified’s effort to shut them down over financial concerns. The decision by Judge Luis A. Lavin enables Magnolia Science Academy 6 in Palms and Magnolia Science Academy 7 in Van Nuys to welcome students...