*UPDATED There were three days left in the school year, and final grades had already been turned in. Benjamin Feinberg’s 8th grade algebra students at Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park were looking forward to graduation and officially becoming high schoolers. But despite these kids having no tangible reason to stay engaged in the lesson...

As it was with middle schools, demographics contrast starkly at the top and bottom LA Unified elementary schools on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) accountability index. The schools with the lowest five scores are located in economically challenged neighborhoods and have higher levels of disabled students, English learners and non-white students. Like with middle schools, but...

When it comes to the performance of some minority groups and high-needs students, LA Unified high schools showed more ability than their middle school counterparts in beating the odds on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) new school accountability index. While the performance of the district’s middle schools tended to break along familiar lines...

Despite for the first time taking into consideration the performance of subgroups like English learners, students with disabilities and those from low-income families, there is still a wide gulf between the top and bottom LA Unified middle schools at LA Unified when it comes to their score on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE)...

To help understand the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) new school accountability system, LA School Report recently logged and listed all 714 LA Unified schools by their score top to bottom. We also calculated the average of all the schools and discovered the mean score was 60. Below are breakdowns of LA Unified’s elementary schools with the...

When LA Unified and five other school districts unveiled a new school accountability system in February, it represented California’s first significant move toward incorporating more than just test scores while also valuing how well the neediest students are performing. The School Quality Improvement Index, which was developed by the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), is...

According to an analysis of a new school accountability system developed by six California school districts including LA Unified, the district’s 13 lowest performers are all elementary schools, the best high school is Harbor Teacher Prep Academy and the worst high school is Jordan High. These conclusions were made following an LA School Report analysis of LA Unified schools evaluated...

A group of six California school districts, including LA Unified, this week unveiled a new school accountability system that represents a far more complex and intricate way of ranking schools. Simply put, it is not all about standardized test scores anymore, and the school with the highest scores may no longer be the highest ranked...

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...

* UPDATED LA Unified met today’s deadline and filed an application for a No Child Left Behind waiver without one of the key requirements of the U.S. Department of Education — an agreement with the teachers union on a three-level teacher evaluation system. If approved, the California Office to Reform Education (CORE) Waiver would clear...