With middle school principals’ sharing their best practices and dire needs, an LA Unified board committee yesterday set off on a new initiative to improve the academic and social skills of students one principal described as “hormones with arms and legs.” The discussion in the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee came two days after...

Despite recent media reports that the arts are doing poorly at LA Unified schools, the director of the district’s arts programs, Rory Pullens, said quite to the contrary, things are better than they have been in a long time; it’s just that nobody knows it. “We are really encouraged and really excited about what’s been...

Los Angeles’ schools are alive with the sound of music, or at least, they will be come fall when LA Unified’s new-and-improved arts budget is put into practice. Last week, the school board approved the district’s 2015-2016 spending plan, which allocates $26.5 million to arts education, said Rory Pullens, executive director of arts education for the...

For years Rory Pullens has been the one who got away. LA Unified offered the former TV writer/producer turned educator, the top post at the district’s premiere arts high school — Ramon C. Cortines School of the Visual and Performing Arts —  and he turned it down. Twice. But the stars have finally aligned for...