By Steven Singer | Gadflyonthewallblog I was teaching my classes. I was grading assignments. I was procrastinating. I should have been working on my class rosters. My principals wanted me to calculate percentages for every student I had taught that year and submit them to the state. How long had each student been in my...

LAUSD school board, City Council race highlight today’s election Lacking a high profile race, such as a mayoral contest, the general municipal election is expected to draw less than 10 percent of registered voters. KPCC Polls open: L.A. voters to decide one council, three school races Three incumbents on the L.A. Board of Education are...

By Jane Meredith Adams The Statewide Special Education Task Force, which toiled for more than a year before producing a 220-page report in March, was recognized in Gov. Jerry Brown’s May revised budget with $60.1 million in proposed funding for several of its recommendations, most prominently increasing access to early interventions for children with special...

Attack ads plentiful in LAUSD board races Supporters of candidates for three seats on the Los Angeles Unified School District board will spend more than $5.5 million by the time ballots are cast Tuesday. Daily Breeze Where dropping out is going up Nationally, high-school graduation rates are improving. But in a few states, the numbers...

As the final weekend approaches before Tuesday’s runoff elections for three LA Unified board seats, Ref Rodriguez, the challenger in District 5, leads all candidates with the largest number of individual campaign contributions, 51, at the maximum amount allowable, $1,100. No surprise, then, that he leads all six candidates in money raised since the March...

By Andrew Ujifusa The largest state K-12 system in the nation is reformulating its accountability system. Where are things headed for California? A May 7 discussion at the state Board of Education may provide some key clues. The state’s in the process of moving away from its traditional accountability system, which has been in place since...

Spending in race for three LAUSD board seats reaches nearly $4.6 million The results of Tuesday’s election could shift the ideological balance of the seven-member board. Los Angeles Times Teachers, tenure hauled into LAUSD election debate Teachers are at risk of losing their closest ally on the board, Bennett Kayser. KPCC State Senate OKs bill...

By Keith Sharon The bigger boys surrounded him near the bus stop at Kettler Elementary School in Huntington Beach. They screamed an anti-gay slur at him in Spanish. They sashayed as they circled him, mocking his effeminate movements. Marcos Saldivar didn’t know what the slur meant exactly. He only knew that it hurt. He was...

What to do with a $4b surplus? Schools say they come first Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to unveil his revised May budget plan today on how to use nearly $4 billion in unanticipated revenue. SI&A Cabinet Report SoCal high schools violate graduation cap and gown law Some schools are not communicating the law to...

With expectations of a windfall from the state when Gov. Jerry Brown announces his updated budget tomorrow, various interests in LA Unified are eager to learn if the added dollars will reach them. It’s not likely. Despite the possibility that the district’s cut of the added revenues could reach $300 million or more, Superintendent Ramon...