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 ...
Here's a teacher I'd want for my children
June 17, 2013
I don't know what her students' test scores are like, or what her principal thinks. But I do know that if I had a child in third grade, I'd want someone like Kaylie Gomez to teach her.
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Still feeling that garden glow
June 14, 2013
The faded newspaper clipping shows a small girl with a wide smile, holding a gigantic head of lettuce. The girl is me, in 1964. The lettuce was a prize-winning product of my first elementary school garden.
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Children's welfare demands a fix in institutional incompetence
June 7, 2013
I'm tired of hearing "culture change" held out as a fix for idiocy.
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Friends, relatives of suicide victims are bound in grief
June 3, 2013
Hope was the theme of the day, but unremitting pain was the backdrop when friends and family members of suicide victims gathered in a Culver City park on Saturday for their annual summer potluck.
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For the graduate, a lack of pomp, but plenty to be proud of
May 31, 2013
I stuffed my purse with tissues for my trip to San Francisco last week. I expected to be a teary mess as I watched my youngest child walk the stage at her college graduation.
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Troubled youths deserve more effective discipline than suspension
May 17, 2013
The limits on student suspensions approved by the Los Angeles Unified school board this week may burnish the district's progressive credentials, putting L.A. in the forefront of a national shift away from zero-tolerance policies that ban kids from campus for minor offenses.
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Program with tiny budget makes huge difference for pets, owners
May 11, 2013
The teenager showed up in a panic on Thursday, cradling a wounded puppy in arms spattered with blood. A stray dog had attacked his 2-month-old pit bull on a walk near their South Los Angeles home. The city animal shelter nearby was the only place he knew to go.
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A plan to make the morning-after pill a moot point
May 7, 2013
It's a new front in the long-running battle over reproductive rights, playing out this time as a clash between politics and science.
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Greuel's campaign of 'gotchas' conveys desperation
May 4, 2013
It's beginning to look like there's nothing Wendy Greuel wouldn't do to become the next mayor of Los Angeles.
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Mayor leaves L.A. in better shape than he found it
April 26, 2013
I couldn't have imagined saying this a few years ago, but I wish Antonio Villaraigosa could run again for mayor of Los Angeles.
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Putting Yelp in their rear-review mirror
April 22, 2013
If readers of my Saturday column about Yelp were to write a review of the crowd-sourced website, it might read something like this:
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Turning a critical eye on Yelp
April 20, 2013
I spotted the restaurant while on a stroll near my daughter's San Francisco apartment. The menu looked good, the prices were right. I decided to check its reviews online.
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A shortsighted 'cure' for prescription meds' abuse
April 12, 2013
An Orange County pain specialist already in the spotlight over deaths from prescription medications has racked up another patient overdose death.
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Don't punish people who really need painkillers
April 9, 2013
It's not enough that medical insurance companies want to dictate how much and what kind of treatment our illnesses deserve.
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Grieving mom takes on the federal government
April 5, 2013
Carol Champommier vs. the United States of America.
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An email out of the past tests time and memories
March 29, 2013
The email was an invitation to step back in time, from someone I hadn't seen or talked to since 1965.
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The downside of superstar schools
March 22, 2013
You could say that Carpenter Elementary in Studio City owes its survival to students from other neighborhoods.
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Drunkenness isn't the same as consent
March 19, 2013
It would be easy to close the book and say justice has been served in the Steubenville, Ohio, rape case.
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The many shades of meaning in 'Negro'
March 15, 2013
I got a clue even before my column ran this week that its subject — what "Negro" means these days — might make some folks uncomfortable.
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Long live 'Negro'
March 11, 2013
I let Black History Month slide by this year without writing anything about it. I am so over celebrating firsts or reprising triumphal narratives.
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TB outbreak is not just a skid row problem
March 8, 2013
There's a $200-million hotel on the drawing board for downtown Los Angeles, so tourists from around the globe can kick up their heels at LA Live.
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Hallmark shop fades into history
March 2, 2013
I noticed when I shopped for Valentine's Day cards that the supply at my local Hallmark store was woefully thin. I chalked that up to my own procrastinating.
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Dorner and the LAPD legacy
February 22, 2013
I expected fireworks in South Los Angeles this week, when LAPD Chief Charlie Beck showed up at a community meeting to talk about Christopher Dorner, the ex-cop turned killer whose manifesto cast the department in an ugly light, resurrecting decades of buried wrongs.
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Responses to Dorner case contain surprises
February 11, 2013
A Christopher Dorner sighting was reported Sunday in my Northridge neighborhood. Helicopters swarmed, patrol cars roared up. The hardware store was evacuated and my favorite bakery roped off.
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We can do more to protect children
February 9, 2013
In middle school, my daughter had a friend who'd spent most of her life in foster care. During the next few years, the girl would pass through almost a dozen foster families, group homes and probation camps.
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Lesson of Te'o: Heartbreak is heartbreak
February 2, 2013
I'm not sure what's more weird, the idea that Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o fell in love with a woman who didn't exist or the soap opera sideshow that has developed around the saga of his fake dead girlfriend.
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Amid all the pomp (and tedium), Obama's 'girls' stood out
January 25, 2013
I'm just back from Washington, after a weeklong trip to cover the inaugural festivities.
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Obama's second inauguration a mark of progress in its own right
January 19, 2013
WASHINGTON — The first time Barack Obama ran, the euphoria that attended his election captivated Kamilah Aquil. Then came his presidency, a bracing reality check.
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Blacks share their painful stories of bias in Orange County
January 11, 2013
It was a reign of terror that reeked of rednecks and white hoods.
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Saving thousands of adoptable animals, one at a time
January 4, 2013
I hate to be a party pooper. So I've been eager to join the celebration over "No-Kill December" — the first time that Los Angeles city animal shelters have managed to go an entire month without euthanizing any adoptable dogs or cats.
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Float remembers U.S. vets of 'forgotten war' in Korea
January 1, 2013
Byoung Baek flew out from Rochester, N.Y., on Christmas Day for the Rose Parade. But she didn't come for the weather or the revelry or the spectacle.
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Letting strangers live rent-free in his house: cool or crazy?
December 22, 2012
When Tony Tolbert turned 50 last year, he marked the occasion by moving in with his mother.
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The need to find a lasting good
December 18, 2012
It's four days in and I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what happened inside that elementary school in Newtown, Conn., last week.
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Glimpsing the hereafter, or just missing loved ones?
December 15, 2012
What do you wear to visit a psychic?
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After generations of failure, a school and its students head for success
December 7, 2012
I was prepared for the dog-and-pony show — the choreographed "reveal" of a school makeover that's been in the works for years.
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Treating them as victims, not criminals
December 3, 2012
Two years ago, Los Angeles County probation officer Michelle Guymon was asked to help child abuse experts study human trafficking.
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The stereotype and the single mother
November 30, 2012
I've been thinking a lot lately about single mothers — the concept and the people.
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Lessons from a disadvantaged children's charter school
November 23, 2012
It's not exactly where you might expect to find an example of public school success:
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Anxiety, an unwelcome side dish
November 20, 2012
It's the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I should be making a shopping list, clearing space in my refrigerator, rummaging through cabinets for my roasting pan.
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Even the best and brightest can be knuckleheads
November 16, 2012
It seemed at first like a welcome break from political overload. There's nothing like a juicy sex scandal to relieve election fatigue.
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Column: Reality crashes the Republican Party
November 9, 2012
It turns out this presidential election wasn't so much about race after all, but about something bigger, more fundamental and harder to ignore. And there's a lesson here for shellshocked Republicans, still wondering how things went so wrong:
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Column a catalyst for debate on race and politics
November 5, 2012
I knew I'd be navigating a minefield in my Saturday column, which dealt with two combustible topics: race and politics.
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Kumbaya era unravels in campaign against Obama
November 3, 2012
She seemed embarrassed to tell me that she's voting for Mitt Romney, as if the admission might suggest that she'd been hiding racist leanings during our long friendship.
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The city's suffering stray animals desperately need help
October 26, 2012
Los Angeles took a baby step this week toward enabling the "no-kill" policy we're trying to promote in our giant animal shelter system. The City Council's vote to forbid pet shops from selling dogs and cats from commercial breeders may mean a stay of execution for many shelter animals.
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Near L.A. Live, parents press for downtown charter school
October 23, 2012
If you ask young parents in downtown's South Park area near L.A. Live what their neighborhood needs, it's a decent elementary school, not a professional football team.
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Champions for foster children make a difference
October 20, 2012
Former high school principal Elois McGehee remembers what got her started. It was a graduation day at Locke High in Watts more than a decade ago.
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Champions for foster children make a difference
October 20, 2012
Former high school principal Elois McGehee remembers what got her started. It was a graduation day at Locke High in Watts more than a decade ago.
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Domestic violence and indifference doubly harm women
October 13, 2012
October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, so it's fitting that I share a tale that makes me believe that we still — despite decades of tough talk — don't treat domestic violence as the serious crime it is.
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Sheriff Baca is out of time and excuses
October 6, 2012
Sheriff Lee Baca said this week that he's ready to shoulder the blame for years of unchecked deputy-on-inmate violence in Los Angeles County jails.
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Prop. 30 isn't perfect, but if it fails, the results will be tragic
September 28, 2012
It's the kind of education news that never makes headlines: Dozens of teachers and principals from both charter and district-run schools across the Southland gathered last weekend at Loyola Marymount University to talk about what's working in their classrooms.
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Rejecting test scores as a core value
September 21, 2012
It wasn't about money. It was about respect.
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Abortion rights advocates let their voices be heard
June 2, 2012
The subject was reproductive rights, the audience was fervently pro-choice and the panelists were activists from Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women and the ACLU.
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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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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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