As the FBI agent played a video of a 16-year-old caught in a sex ring in Los Angeles, the audience of the Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline and Safety Committee yesterday remained hushed. Some wiped tears from their eyes. LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King reviewed the list of local schools where such crimes occurred and she...

On Dec. 1 it will be a year since FBI agents showed up at LA Unified’s headquarters with a federal grand jury subpoena and carted off 20 boxes of documents related to the district’s controversial iPad program. Since that day little if any new information has been publicly revealed about the investigation’s status, and that...

Ever since the FBI seized documents in December related to LA Unified’s controversial iPad program, there have been no public updates on the case, but now it appears that the LA Unified school board and its legal department see trouble coming. It is just a single line in the agenda for tomorrow’s closed board meeting,...

A report from the U.S. Education Department on the district’s troubled $1.3 billion iPad program and gitchy MiSiS computer system had few positive things to say, as it found problems in both efforts with their planning, execution and metrics for success. The report, which was requested by LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, found that the...

Former LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy will be working as a consultant for The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems as a “superintendent-in-residence.” The center is a leadership academy for school administrators, which is funded by Eli Broad, a longtime Deasy supporter and powerful financier of California education reform efforts. Deasy resigned in October under...

While LA Unified officials yesterday dealt with the FBI probe into the district’s controversial iPad program, the school board approved a wave of new instructional hires and promotions despite an on-going hiring freeze. The personnel changes continue a shake-up at the highest levels of the organizational chart that began when Superintendent Ramon Cortines arrived just over...

*UPDATED Twenty boxes of documents now in hand, the FBI is examining records from LA Unified that bear on its digital technology program. By terms of a subpoena, the documents will go before a federal grand jury Friday morning, and evidence of criminal wrong-doing could lead to indictments. But what exactly are investigators looking for,...

* UPDATED LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines said today he’s delaying the district’s iPad program in the wake of an investigation into it by the FBI. Agents with the FBI visited the offices of LA Unified headquarters yesterday and seized 20 boxes of documents “having to do with the the procedures for purchasing of iPads...

Agents with the FBI visited the offices of LA Unified headquarters yesterday and seized files related to the district’s controversial $1.3 billion iPad program, a district spokesman confirmed. The FBI action was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which said 20 boxes of documents were removed and that the seizure came as a complete...