The American Federation of Teachers and its California chapter, CFT, have just given a combined $60,000 to a super PAC named  Lots of People Who Support Eric Garcetti for Mayor. Although UTLA, the local teachers union, endorsed Garcetti back in February, this is the first time a teachers union has spent any money on the 2013...

School Board candidate Monica Ratliff met with 15 or so teachers and LAUSD employees Thursday night at an event sponsored by Teach Plus. During the hour-long discussion, the candidate for District 6 (East San Fernando Valley) did as much listening as she did talking, asking teachers about their concerns on issues such as local autonomy...

Earlier this week, a number of civil rights and school reform groups including Democrats for Education Reform (or DFER) sent a letter to United States Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan opposing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver that LAUSD and eight other California school districts had applied for. But the next day, Gloria Romero, head...

The Coalition for School Reform has already spent nearly $200,000 since the March 5th primary to support Antonio Sanchez‘s bid to replace Nury Martinez as District 6 Board Member. With around $1 million left in the bank thanks to recent donations by former Mayor Richard Riordan ($50,000), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($350,000), and philanthropist /...

The May 14 School Board meeting two weeks from today is shaping up to be a blockbuster event featuring mass demonstrations by two unions and a host of conflict-laden issues for the Board to decide on. The teachers union has promised to hold a large rally demanding that LAUSD hire more teachers, nurses and librarians....

The teachers union is none too pleased about a recent LA Times story by Howard Blume about rumors that District 6 School Board candidate Antonio Sanchez had worked out a secret deal with UTLA Vice President Gregg Solkovits. “It is sad that the Times has chosen to print rumors and innuendo, instead of doing the necessary research...

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy was in Sacramento Wednesday for a press conference in support of Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to shift more funding to school districts like LAUSD that have large numbers of poor and English Language Learner students. Brown’s central message to lawmakers: resistance is futile. “If people are going to fight it, they’re...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has given another $350,000 to the Coalition for School Reform, an independent expenditure (IE) group supporting Antonio Sanchez for School Board in the East Valley District 6 LAUSD School Board race that will be decided May 21. “For years, the funding in these sorts of races was only on...

At last week’s monthly meeting of the UTLA House of Representatives, President Warren Fletcher made a surprising announcement: he’s taking a pay cut, effective July 1. “Warren voluntarily took a pay cut to show solidarity with LAUSD teachers who have not had a raise in six years,” said UTLA spokesperson Suzanne Spurgeon in an email...

Last week, we reported that the charter school called Academia Semillas had not complied with an audit by LAUSD’s Office of the Inspector General, despite only barely being renewed last year. Yesterday, Superintendent John Deasy responded directly to the school: “If you can’t comply with this, then I can’t recommend that school’s renewal,” said Deasy. “It looks...