Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

USC’s Thornton School of Music launched its 125th birthday party this week. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez says the institution has adapted and thrived in a changing music world.

In recent years, financial problems and sub-par academic performance have plagued one of the oldest charter schools in the Southland. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports that independent public school faces a school board vote tonight that will determine its future.

In spite of strong opposition from its powerful teachers’ union, the seven-member Los Angeles Unified school board approved a plan yesterday to hand over control of about one-third of its schools to outside operators. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the story.

A pair of artists has created an exhibit out of the tension in Southern California between its concrete jungles and its wild animals. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the story.

Over four decades the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has won notable civil rights cases on behalf of large groups of Latinos. A new president and general counsel takes over tomorrow. He’s the fourth person in as many years to hold that job. Observers say instability in the group’s top position has held back the nation’s oldest and most successful Latino legal defense group during a key moment in Latino civil rights. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the story.

Officials at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles today blamed activists for their decision to scrap a $175 million expansion at the Autry’s Griffith Park location.

Los Angeles city leaders widely praised LAPD chief Bill Bratton’s success at fighting crime after he announced today he’s leaving his post in several months, three years before his term is up. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has this report.

Budget cuts hit summer school programs hard in many Southland communities. For more than 30 years one Pasadena summer school program has weathered the funding roller coaster. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez paid a visit Friday as the month-long program wrapped up for the summer.

As expected, trustees of the California State University system approved a cost cutting plan to help close a half-billion dollar deficit brought on by Sacramento budget cuts. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez attended the trustees’ meeting in Long Beach and filed this report.

Summer school students at Orange High School are still reeling over what they call censorship just before the school year ended. The journalism students are challenging the principal, who confiscated 300 copies of their annual magazine. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports on the controversy.

On a 5-2 vote on Tuesday the Los Angeles Unified school board approved more than a billion and a half dollars in budget cuts for the next several years. The cuts include the layoff, effective next week, of more than 4,000 employees, more than half of those teachers. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the story.

The students at many Los Angeles high schools are a rich ethnic mosaic. But at some campuses, that mosaic shatters into jagged pieces. It was like that at one San Fernando Valley school – but an 18-year-old high school student helped put the pieces back together again. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has her story.