The national television program PBS NewsHour dedicated a segment on Friday to LA Unified’s disastrous MiSiS computer system and the problems it has caused for the district’s students and administrators, as well as asking what lessons other districts in the country might learn from the crisis. The segment features an interview with Los Angeles Times...

Via SI&A Cabinet Report | By Kimberly Beltran California charter schools operating out of privately-owned buildings may use the public tax dollars generated by a 2012 ballot measure to make energy-efficient upgrades to those facilities, state officials said late last week. Rules for dispersing the money from Proposition 39 – half of which is dedicated...

Announcing the next phase of the digital device program to buy more iPads and Chromebooks was the easy part. Carrying it out is another issue. While LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines was pretty clear on how he expected it to proceed, others in the district are not so sure. The district’s Chief Facilities Director says...

A man known for aggressive and sometimes belligerent public comments at LA Unified school board meetings was arrested outside a board committee meeting at district headquarters on Oct. 28 and charged with three misdemeanor counts of making “annoying” phone calls to board member Tamar Galatzan months before. The man, George Buzzetti, 67, has been speaking...

Via The Los Angeles Times | By The Editorial Board The sexual abuse of students at Miramonte Elementary School was creepy beyond measure, involving a “game” in which third-graders were blindfolded and fed cookies tainted with their teacher’s semen. But the astonishing $139-million legal settlement — on top of an earlier $30 million settlement with...

As if the recent efforts to fix MiSiS weren’t enough, LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines has called the feds. In an email to school board members and their staffs on Friday, Cortines said U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, offered the district a lifeline. “I spoke with Secretary Duncan today regarding various issues related to...

A decision by LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines to proceed with the next phase of the district’s controversial iPad program appears to contradict statements he made a month ago, opposing the use of construction bond money to pay for devices pre-loaded with curriculum. Three days ago, Cortines gave the go-ahead to spend capital improvement funds...

Via The Hechinger Report | By Peter Cunningham Whether the little guy was a Kansas farmer whose earnings were manipulated by commodities traders in Chicago, a woman denied the right to vote, an underpaid working man seeking union representation, blacks oppressed by segregation, or a low-level civil servant forced to pay homage to a powerful political...

Let the iPads roll. Again. LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines today approved moving ahead with the next phase of the district’s iPad program, officially known as Phase 2B of the Common Core Technology Project. It’s actually, iPads et. al. The goal with this action is to complete the second round of buying digital devices by...