Facing a statewide and national trend in a shortage of special education teachers, LA Unified officials are mounting an aggressive campaign to find them. And, if they can’t find them, the district is training the teachers themselves. “We are out and relentless as far as it goes for teachers, because university enrollment is down for...

Los Angeles Unified School District represents a “rare bright spot” in hiring of minority teachers in both district and charter schools, according to a study released yesterday from the Albert Shanker Institute comparing nine urban school districts. The study shows that as schools are getting higher levels of minority students, there are fewer minority teachers,...

* UPDATED LA Unified teachers are the fifth-highest paid among the nation’s 10 largest school districts, according to the latest data collected by the National Council for Teacher Quality (NCTQ). The top four districts for paying teachers with a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience are Chicago ($62,046), New York ( $52,278), Hawaii ($50,728)...

With this essay, Ellie Herman concludes her year in the classroom — and sharing her observations and insights with LA School Report. This year, I had the remarkable experience of taking the academic year off to visit high schools across the socioeconomic spectrum in L.A. in an attempt to understand better what we mean when...