* UPDATED The City Clerk’s office today completed verification of petitions to qualify for the March primary in LA Unified’s four school board races. After a random draw of letters, the ballot order is now set for how candidate names will appear. Here’s the way they will be listed: District 1 George McKenna, incumbent (No...

“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...

Via The Los Angeles Times | By the Editorial Board Ideally, high school history courses would not be so overwhelmingly focused on the accomplishments of white males and would pay more attention to the roles played by others. There has been progress in that direction — in fact, the College Board has come under withering...

UPDATED* LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines has corrected a statement he made at Tuesday’s board meeting, telling the members in an email that he erred in saying charter schools receive more in state funding than traditional public schools. “One of the problems is the funding of charters versus regular schools. And the charters in the state get...

* UPDATED Members of an LA Unified board committee were told today that the district would need 10 times current funding to address the capital needs of all district schools. The board’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee was shown a power point presentation that said the cost of capital improvements necessary to modernize every district...

At its meeting this week, the LA Unified board directed Superintendent Ramon Cortines to expand the teacher prep Career Ladder program, which helps supports district employees who want to become teachers. The resolution opens the program by another 300 participants, beginning next July. According to statistics cited in the resolution, enrollment in teacher preparation programs across...

A judge has ruled that LA Unified’s lawsuit accusing its former chief risk officer of stealing confidential documents related to the Miramonte school sex abuse case and leaking them to the media will move forward, as it does not violate the defendant’s First Amendment rights, City News Service reported. The lawsuit against Gregg Breed was filed in...

Via Los Angeles Times | By Steve Lopez  This is not exactly a be-careful-what-you-wish-for story, but it sort of is. Monica Ratliff was a reasonably happy teacher at San Pedro Elementary School on the edge of downtown Los Angeles. “I just love the classroom,” said Ratliff, for whom teaching was a second career. The Ivy...

One of the more contentious moments at yesterday’s LA Unified board meeting was a debate over a resolution to “Promote Healthy Relationships and Prevent Teen Dating Violence” No one disagreed with the intent or with asking Superintendent Ramon Cortines to deliver a report to the board early next year on how to implement such a program....