Biography
On cold Cleveland days, young Sandy Banks had an after-school routine: She'd lie on the floor, put her feet on a heating vent and read Ann ...
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AP exam flap baffles Chatsworth High students
May 22, 2012
Nobody has yet used the "c" word — cheating — to describe the imbroglio that has scrambled the testing schedule at Chatsworth High this month.
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Can Jordan High's experiment work?
May 19, 2012
By the stats, Jordan High School in Watts is an abysmal failure:
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For Koreans, damage from the L.A. riots went deep
May 1, 2012
Twenty years ago, they came to Dr. Man Chul Cho suffering from symptoms of hwa-byung, the "anger sickness" of Korean folklore: They couldn't sleep, felt anxious and depressed, had muscle aches and stomach pains.
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Riots claimed 200 liquor stores, but South L.A. still suffers
April 27, 2012
There used to be a liquor store next to Frances Fikes' church on Normandie Avenue in South Los Angeles.
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LAPD goes from longtime oppressor to community partner
April 22, 2012
What LAPD Sgt. Rick Arteaga remembers most about the first night of the riots is a curbside history lesson at the intersection of Manchester and Vermont.
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The secret of the cardboard arcade
April 21, 2012
There's no sign of Caine Monroy's game arcade when I pull up to his father's Boyle Heights auto parts shop. The 9-year-old is taking his show on the road, enjoying the perks of becoming a viral video star.
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Plenty of advice for L.A. Unified's boss
April 14, 2012
Any day now, I expect to see a crowd of substitute teachers marching around Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters, wearing signs that say "I AM PATRENA SHANKLING" and waving lists of dumb things that substitutes have been asked to do.
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A teachable moment for Deasy, teacher
April 10, 2012
It was just one morning out of 365, one campus visit out of more than 500 that Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. John Deasy managed in his first year on the job.
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Too much health information — it's enough to make you sick
April 7, 2012
It's a ritual that's beginning to make me feel less responsibly health conscious and more reliably heading toward old age.
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The lawyer beside Lindsay Lohan
March 31, 2012
When Lindsay Lohan showed up for court on Thursday, the crowd was not as large as it has been for the actress — anticipating perhaps a resolution, rather than the sort of dramatic turn that's made her five-year legal saga as compelling as any TV reality show.
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Whitney Houston's funeral honors her spiritual roots
February 18, 2012
If you tuned in to see a show when you decided to watch Whitney Houston's funeral on your computer or television, you probably were disappointed.
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Pioneers of LAUSD desegregation
February 11, 2012
They aren't the kind of heroes usually honored during Black History Month. They didn't challenge Jim Crow laws or invent more ways to use peanuts.
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Where poor students soar
November 5, 2011
From the outside, Plummer Elementary doesn't look much like a showcase school. The 60-year-old campus has drab green bungalows, a patchy lawn and graffiti scrawled on the "Please, No Honking" sign.
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Sheriff Lee Baca: Right your ship
October 1, 2011
Thousands of felons who would be sentenced to state prison are about to be funneled into county jails — a money-saving measure for cash-starved California, and a headache for local law enforcement agencies.
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Book review: 'The Grace of Silence: A Memoir' by Michele Norris
September 28, 2010
I wish NPR reporter Michele Norris hadn't called "The Grace of Silence," her tribute to her parents, a "memoir." The book is, at once, much less and much more.
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It's all about kids learning
September 11, 2010
Vacation ends Monday for most Los Angeles Unified elementary school students, but opening day this year might be more stressful for parents and teachers than for children.
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Utopia is a hard sell in Jordan Downs
August 22, 2009
Ronald Perkins and his neighbors were nearly outnumbered by the consultants and architects who showed up at the Jordan Downs community center.
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Is all this really for the children?
May 16, 2009
One thing I've learned in 30 years of covering education is that every dispute, demand or decree rests on one claim: We must do this for the children.
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Chris Brown and Rihanna: a lesson for teens
March 5, 2009
For weeks, as rumors flew and details trickled out, I struggled to find a lesson to share in the violent incident/altercation/lovers' quarrel -- even the media didn't know what to call it -- between teen music idols Chris Brown and Rihanna.
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What do students mean to LAUSD superintendent?
December 6, 2008
I remember the moment in 2003 when I realized that my daughter was in good hands at her Los Angeles Unified middle school.
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Where whiteness meets race
November 11, 2008
The Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere was fired up at its conference in downtown Los Angeles last month.
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Metrolink spokeswoman formed a human link
September 16, 2008
Somehow, her tears made me feel better.
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Metrolink tragedy puts parenting in a new light
September 15, 2008
If I ever thought an "empty nest" at home meant an end to parenting, as I said in my newspaper column Saturday, the stories emerging from this weekend's coverage of the deadly Metrolink train crash painfully put that notion to rest:
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Teenagers have mixed views on gays -- and they're OK with that
June 17, 2008
Kye D'Aguilar doesn't have a traumatic story to tell about coming out. The 18-year-old said he's always known that he is gay. "My mother told me she knew when I was born."
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It's the nightmare before Halloween
October 30, 2007
I wish there were a "bah, humbug" expression for Halloween.
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Life in fire zone carries on close to normal
October 22, 2007
It has been hard to escape the fires and windstorms this week. Turn on the radio or television -- or just step outside and breathe -- and it seems as if all of Southern California is in danger of burning up or being blown away.
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L.A. for less than the price of sunblock. 
