By Joshua Brown At the beginning of every school year, my students ask me what I did over summer vacation. This year, I have an answer that will surely mesmerize them: I cleaned caterpillar poop.  Let me elaborate.   I was fortunate enough to participate in a weeklong professional development fellowship to the Yanayacu Biological...

Science lessons set to rap music. Aspirations in envelopes pinned to the ceiling. And a commitment to live alongside students. Tunji Adebayo, who teaches 7th and 8th grade science at Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Middle School, was honored Monday night for his innovation and dedication at Teach For America’s “Celebrating Changemakers in Education.” “Tunji’s dedication to...

It was a devastating time for the young teachers who worked at John H. Liechty Middle School near downtown Los Angeles. It was 2009, and 72 percent of the school’s teachers were handed pink slips, casualties of America’s crumbling economy. Brendan Finch, working there through Teach For America, was among those let go, though he...

LA Unified 2nd graders will be taking a California comprehensive science test when they reach 5th grade in 2019, and district science coordinators are already gearing up for it, according to a presentation before the school boad’s Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee. But it’s a huge undertaking. District officials leading the effort told the committee that...

The State Board of Education yesterday approved a new set of science standards, dubbed the Next Generation Science Standards, which emphasize “a deeper focus on understanding the cross-cutting concepts” of scientific disciplines, according to a press release by the California Department of education. The standards were developed in a collaboration with a number of states over the last 18...