Here are three good reasons to read the excellent profile of labor leader Maria Elena Durazo that graced the front page of Sunday’s LA Times: Even though Durazo’s LA County of Federation of Labor backed the losing the Mayoral candidate, Wendy Greuel, it still has backed — at some point or another — nearly ever City Councilman. Dan...

Some members of the School Board have sent Superintendent John Deasy a letter asking him to clarify comments deriding a Board-passed spending resolution and indicating his plans to include a targeted funding resolution that was not passed by the Board. “They can’t stop me from doing it,” Deasy said in comments made to LA School Report earlier this...

The LAUSD School Board captured media attention from around the world on Tuesday when it unanimously awarded Apple a $30 million contract to purchase iPads for students and teachers in 47 schools. The Wall St. Journal, Mashable, and Newser all got in on the action. The British tabloid The Daily Mail found time for the story with the headline: “EVERY school child in...

A couple of odds things happened towards the end of the School Board’s late-night meeting on Tuesday: Around 8:00 pm, as seven weary Board members were debating a proposal put forth by Board member Steve Zimmer calling on the district and state to bring greater transparency to the parent trigger signature-gathering process, Superintendent John Deasy...

During Tuesday’s seemingly endless meeting, the LAUSD School Board postponed Board member Tamar Galatzan’s resolution to have new State education funds flow to schools with large numbers of low-income and English language learning students and approved Board member Bennett Kayser’s resolution calling for the district to hire more staff across the board. The votes seemed like...

As anyone following us on Twitter knows all too well, Tuesday’s School Board meeting was a marathon session that lasted well into the night — much of it accompanied by the sound of protesters drumming on the street outside. Among several key decisions the Board arrived at during the lengthy session were votes to award a...

More than a few eyebrows were raised when School Board member-elect Monica Ratliff appeared at a Thursday Educators for Excellence (E4E) event and seemed to signal support for some kind of a test-based pay system to attract and keep good teachers in LA classrooms. See LA School Report (Ratliff Supports Proposal Linking Teacher Pay to Test Scores)...

The headline act for Tuesday’s Board meeting — the last substantive  meeting of seven-member LAUSD oversight body until late August — will be the debate and voting on Superintendent John Deasy’s proposed budget. Next week’s agenda also includes a number of controversial items such as the proposed purchase of electronic tablets for Phase I of LAUSD’s technology...