Sadly, journalists like me rarely provide a coherent picture of what's happening in the local schools our readers care about most. We report successes and failures, debates and innovations, but the sum of our stories is usually no clearer than a running account of squabbles in the playground. Still, it's worth doing. The best new example is a project that unleashed several scholars on our nation's second largest city and culminated with this book: "When Schools Work: Pluralist Politics and Institutional Reform in Los Angeles." The author is Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Participating in the research and writing were five graduate students: Melissa Ancheta, Malena Arcidiacono, Joonho Lee, Caitlin Kearns and Sarah Manchanda. Fuller summed it up this way: "The behemoth institution of L.A. Unified, written off as hapless and ineffectual, came alive with a pulse, a beating heart. Reading and math scores for Latino and white students proceeded to climb (more than one grade level) over the subsequent two decades, as gauged by a careful federal assessment of learning in L.A., finally leveling off in 2019. Other barometers of pupil progress climbed as well — enrollment in college-prep courses rose, student discipline incidents fell, and graduation rates steadily increased."