Closing the achievement gap has become one of the most critical educational challenges in California. As part of state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond’s new initiative to close that gap, he has created a working group to look closely at schools throughout the state that have shown success in improving outcomes for African-Americans, Latinos...

L.A. Unified’s schools chief has a new plan to simplify the sprawling urban district’s complex system. A little more than a year into his tenure, Superintendent Austin Beutner is betting that by empowering principals he can turn “the organization upside down in a certain way” that puts students at the center. Under the new plan,...

In their last candidate forum in the southeast section of L.A. Unified’s Board District 5, the two candidates vying for the open school board seat in next Tuesday’s election mostly stuck to familiar themes and gave few glimpses of how they differ. Jackie Goldberg and Heather Repenning met Wednesday evening at Turner Hall Community Center in...

*Updated May 9 NAACP branches in three California cities that have some of the state’s largest populations of black students are calling to end the charter school moratorium adopted by their national board in 2016. The San Diego, Southwest Riverside and San Bernardino branches have submitted separate resolutions to NAACP’s state board saying they oppose...

Of the 1 million low-income African-American and Latino public school students in Los Angeles County, only 2 out of 10 of them are enrolled in a high-quality school, a first-of-its-kind study found. There are 279 public schools closing the achievement gap for low-income Latino and black students, the study found. That’s out of a pool of...

Californians are divided in their general views on charter schools, according to a new statewide survey. Most are in support of parents having the option to choose charters, but there’s also a high level of concern that charters divert state funding from traditional schools. Nearly half — 49 percent — of all adults surveyed said...

*Updated April 23 Parents and community advocates are divided on L.A. Unified’s Measure EE, a parcel tax on the June ballot that would raise about $500 million a year over a 12-year period for schools. However, a common thread connects them: They agree schools need more funding, but there’s also “distrust” over whether the district would...

*Updated April 9 L.A. Unified’s newest way to share information about how students and their schools are performing is coming up short for parents who find the online site “very frustrating and disappointing.” Last fall, the district launched its Open Data Portal, a school accountability site with data about academic performance, graduation and college-going rates,...

*Updated March 31 There were seven Latino candidates in the L.A. Unified school board race for the Board District 5 seat, but Huntington Park Councilwoman Graciela Ortíz was the only one who came close to making it into a runoff. Only 31 votes separated Ortíz from second-place finisher Heather Repenning, but on Wednesday Ortíz announced...

*Updated March 27 After what she called a challenging campaign, Heather Repenning — an L.A. Unified parent and former mayoral aide — is “optimistic” she will defeat frontrunner Jackie Goldberg in the May runoff for the District 5 school board seat. “I want to be a fighter, especially for the kids that are the underdog...