LA Unified board member Steve Zimmer, who just spent a weekend with Superintendent John Deasy talking education policy in Washington D.C., is getting another side of the story next week when he hosts Diane Ravitch – and actor Matt Damon – at Occidental College. Zimmer is an adjunct instructor in Urban and Environmental Policy. Ravitch...

A coalition representing “tens of thousands” of parents, teachers and education reform organizations is petitioning Governor Jerry Brown to veto a bill letting California schools off the hook for testing students while the state transitions to a new curriculum and testing model. Gov. Brown has expressed his support for AB 484 and has has until...

Today is expected be another long day for LA Unified School Board members. Last week’s eight-hour session — only the second board meeting of the school year –was not long enough to hash out the details of the district’s Common Core implementation plan, so they’ve sandwiched in a Special Board Meeting between two others that...

While a bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature would end statewide testing for a year – he’s expected to sign it – state officials plan to use older test results to assure that California receives its annual Title I allocations. To comply with federal regulations that states must provide annual test results to qualify for...

Sometime in hour five of yesterday’s marathon LA Unified school board meeting, the board approved a new set of guidelines to help principals, teachers and parents navigate the complex Parent Trigger process. That’s the state law allowing parents to take over a failing school and force a complete overhaul, so long as a majority of...

An emotionally-charged debate erupted at the last school board meeting over the co-location of a charter on the campus of an elementary school in Boyle Heights. Parents of public school students at Lorena Street Elementary School were furious that the school was forced to relinquish space to accommodate Extera 2, a charter school, because of Proposition...

Michelle Rhee, the former Chancellor of Washington, D.C. public schools and a lightning rod for education reform, played to her audience of LA area teachers during a panel discussion last night at the Los Angeles Central Library, telling them that teachers need to be part of any debate about reform. “I definitely think that teachers...