Tomorrow is California’s long-awaited primary, and education watchers are all-eyes on two races. At the top of the ticket is the governor, with 27 candidates. The most important question won’t be who comes in first — Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom maintains a commanding lead — but who makes it to the No. 2 spot. In...

*Updated May 29 A week from today is California’s primary, and four candidates are running for state Superintendent of Public Instruction. LA School Report interviewed all four on what makes for a high-quality school, how to engage parents, how to help the lowest-performing schools, why they’re running, and more. Here are edited highlights from each...

*Updated May 29 Tony Thurmond is one of four candidates running for state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Thurmond, 49 and a Democrat, is in his second term representing Richmond in the state Assembly. He was born at Ford Ord in Monterey. After his mother, a Panamanian immigrant, died when he was 6 years old, he...

*Updated May 21 Marshall Tuck is one of four candidates running for state Superintendent of Public Instruction. He spent two years as educator-in-residence at the New Teacher Center, from 2015 to 2017. The Santa Cruz-based nonprofit seeks to improve student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers, experienced teachers, and school leaders. Previously, he led...

Austin Beutner’s first day on the job as LA Unified’s superintendent is going to be a long day of listening and learning. He starts before dawn Tuesday at a bus yard and ends with an evening parent meeting. But he’s also intent on helping parents and the greater Los Angeles community learn about the behemoth...

Austin Beutner takes over as Los Angeles schools chief a week from today. He was hired for bold action, and he’s vowed to make hard choices. Here’s where he can start. 1. Close the opportunity gap for kids in the highest-need communities. While students in the district have made some academic gains in recent years,...

The principals of 227 struggling Los Angeles schools may be about to get a coveted freedom: the ability to hire the teachers they believe will best educate their students. As common-sense as that sounds, it’s not currently the case at the LA Unified School District, nor at most school districts nationwide. Today, all LA Unified...

*Updated April 12 Driven by mounting urgency to improve struggling schools and widespread dissatisfaction with California’s school evaluation tool, LA Unified board members voted Tuesday to create an assessment framework that will allow parents to more easily compare schools as well as select the measures by which to evaluate them. The key difference from the California...

Responding to years of pressure by Los Angeles community and education advocates, LA Unified next month may commit to funding schools based on a new ranking that gives priority to those with the highest-need students. Nearly $140 million in new funding is expected to flow to the district in the next two years as part...

Los Angeles parents will get a simpler way to evaluate and compare schools, if a plan by three LA Unified school board members is passed next month that gives schools a single score or rating based primarily on student achievement and growth. It’s been five years since the Academic Performance Index, which ranked California schools...