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Analysis: LAUSD board contemplates enrollment drop
“Forty years ago we were in competition with private schools. Now, we’re in competition with charters.” That was LA Unified board vice president Steve Zimmer yesterday, speaking at a board committee meeting where the issue at hand was district enrollment. The number of kids attending the district’s traditional schools has been declining since 2003, now...
By Michael Janofsky | December 12, 2014
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Analysis: LAUSD offer to UTLA a march to progress or a strike?
LA Unified’s latest offer to the teachers union, UTLA, represents either a hint of progress in negotiations for the teachers’ first contract in more than seven years or fertile ground for moving toward a strike. Here’s why the uncertainty: The 6 percent package includes the same salary increase that the district has offered all its...
By Michael Janofsky | December 5, 2014
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Is LA Unified the target of FBI probe, or could it be a contractor?
*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,...
By Michael Janofsky | December 3, 2014
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El Rancho might have answers for LAUSD Ethnic Studies plan
El Rancho Unified, a small, majority Latino school district of a dozen schools in Pico Rivera, is way head of LA Unified in setting up an Ethnic Studies program, which the LA Unified board approved just this week. By next year in El Rancho, a high school course in Ethnic Studies will be required for...
By Michael Janofsky | November 20, 2014
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MiSiS system ‘not feasible unless modified,’ says analyst for LAUSD
* UPDATED In a scathing critique of LA Unified’s implementation of its new student data tracking system, a team of independent analysts found problems from the beginning, including an overall “lack of communication or understanding of application stability” critical to the project’s success. In short, Arnold Viramontes, an outside expert hired by former superintendent John...
By Michael Janofsky | November 6, 2014
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In words of congratulations, Zimmer blasts ‘reform billionaires’
Steve Zimmer was the only member of the LA school board with a public response to yesterday’s victory by Tom Torlakson, who won a second term as state Superintendent for Public Instruction. In it, Zimmer makes clear his disdain for the wealthy funders who backed the losing candidate, Marshall Tuck, congratulating the state teacher unions...
By Michael Janofsky | November 5, 2014
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Commentary: On a momentous day, where was Vladovic?
What a momentous day it was. One superintendent out. Another steps in. The LA Unified community and social media were alive with chatter — people sorry to see John Deasy go, people celebrating his departure, people happy to see Ray Cortines return for a third deployment, people wondering what the school board was smoking in...
By Michael Janofsky | October 17, 2014
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Cortines on returning to LAUSD a third time: ‘They called my bluff’
No one was more surprised that Ray Cortines became the latest LA Unified superintendent than Ray Cortines. “I hadn’t been planning to return, and I didn’t negotiate with the board,” he told LA School Report today. “The only caveat I put out was that it would have to be a unanimous vote, and I didn’t...
By Michael Janofsky | October 16, 2014
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In resignation letter, Deasy ‘overwhelmed with pride’
In his resignation letter to the LA Unified school board, out-going Superintendent John Deasy used most of his words to describe a school district that is far better off today than the one he took over in 2011. “I am overwhelmed with pride in what this administration has accomplished for the youth of Los Angeles...
By Michael Janofsky | October 16, 2014
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BREAKING NEWS: Deasy expected to step down
John Deasy, the beleaguered superintendent of LA Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, is expected to step down as soon as Thursday, according to five district and school board sources with knowledge of the situation. After weeks of negotiations between lawyers for Deasy and the seven-member board, he submitted his resignation and signed a separation...
By Michael Janofsky | October 15, 2014