LA School Report

In May 2021, as efforts to ban books on LGBTQ topics from school libraries were gaining political steam, “Two Grooms on a Cake: The Story of America’s First Gay Wedding” was published. It is a children’s story about Michael McConnell’s 1971 marriage to a man, which was upheld as legal by the U.S. Supreme Court...

It has been the best of times and the worst of times for the California Teachers Association. When the COVID crisis hit, the union received a bunch of protections from the governor and the legislature, including a layoff ban and funding based on pre-COVID enrollment levels. Most districts kept schools closed until fall 2021, in...

With an unprecedented rise in the number of youth identifying as LGBTQ — and equally unprecedented efforts to curtail their rights — a leading national advocacy group is calling on the U.S. Department of Education to add the sexual orientation and gender identity of students and teachers to the data collected in the National Assessment...

LAUSD school board president Kelly Gonez will likely head to a runoff against teacher Marvin Rodriguez in district 6 this November — a surprising outcome for the five year board member who was backed by the powerful Los Angeles teachers union. Maria Brenes and Rocio Rivas will also likely head to a runoff for the...

Recognizing a growing movement for parent rights in education, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Tuesday announced the creation of a new “Parents and Families Engagement Council.” The council will include representatives from 14 organizations that advocate for giving parents a voice in their children’s education — including families involved in charters, homeschooling and private schools....

When Los Angeles Unified announced last December that Alberto Carvalho would be its next superintendent, Ana Ponce was skeptical. The executive director of Great Public Schools Now, an advocacy organization, hoped the district would pick someone from the community, not an outsider from 2,700 miles away. But so far, the charismatic educator who led Miami-Dade for 14...

In the last three weeks, the United States has witnessed babies starving because of a nationwide shortage of infant formula and young students murdered in their elementary school. If you believe these atrocities will spark a comprehensive moral or policy response from our elected federal leaders, you are mistaken. Even if Congress acts, a neutered...

Miah Cerrillo was one of the first children Dr. Roy Guerrero saw when he entered the emergency room at Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 24. A pediatrician, he’s known the fourth grader since she was a baby and underwent the liver surgeries that saved her life. Both testified Wednesday before a House Oversight Committee addressing...

A year ago, school districts wrote plans for how they were going to use their share of the $122 billion in American Rescue Plan money. Fast forward to today, and information is starting to emerge about how schools are actually spending their windfalls. Martha’s Vineyard Public Schools in Massachusetts has already spent all of its nearly $400,000...

Learning loss during the pandemic may have exceeded the damage inflicted on New Orleans students by Hurricane Katrina, according to a recently released study of standardized test scores. Setbacks in math achievement exceeded those for reading, and achievement gaps between comparatively rich and poor schools expanded dramatically. As the United States approaches the end of...