Days before Marguerite LaMotte died last December at the age of 80, Daymond Johnson, a school safety officer and consultant, filed papers with the City Ethics Commission to run for her LA Unified District 1 board seat when her term expired in 2015. Whether she intended to seek reelection or not, his rationale was to...

Alex Johnson has no greater supporter in his bid for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat than Mark Ridley-Thomas, the LA County Supervisor he has served as an education aide. But it’s more than Ridley-Thomas’s vocal support that’s helping Johnson in his quest to beat George McKenna in the Aug. 12 runoff after McKenna outpolled him in...

Alex Johnson has gone negative. In two recent mailings (here and here) to “most likely” voters in LA Unified’s District 1, the Johnson campaign is questioning George McKenna‘s accomplishments as the two candidates seek the open school board seat. “We always knew that at some point, our campaign has to address to the myth of George McKenna,”...

A Supreme Court ruling today in a case involving home health care providers in Illinois could have a bearing on a California lawsuit involving teachers who object to paying union dues that are used for political purposes. Split along ideological lines with the conservatives prevailing, 5-4, the Court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that “partial...

A ballot measure that goes before California voters in November seeking to amend the state Constitution has a controversial section that deals with strings attached to money school districts have controlled on their own. In effect, the state would have the right to place a cap on how much money a district can keep in...

While much of the state waits out the appeal process in Vergara v. California, one member of the California assembly is moving forward with an effort to expand tenure to teachers in smaller school districts who have no tenure at all. The state law that grants tenure after two years was one of the five...