While state teacher unions are spending time, energy and money fighting the landmark Vergara v. California ruling through appeal, one group of teachers in Los Angeles is helping shape what a post-Vergara world could look like. In a presentation yesterday at the California Community Foundation, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined L.A.-based teaching policy fellows with...

Guess what: The two candidates for State Superintendent for Instruction — incumbent Tom Torlakson and challenger Marshall Tuck — debated Wednesday night, and almost no news outlets covered it, including LA School Report. No matter, here’s the video. It starts at the 11 minute, 43 second mark and runs an hour, 38 minutes.  

United Teachers Los Angeles opens its annual Leadership Conference today, and strike talk will be a prominent theme. As part of the three-day gathering at the Concourse Hotel at LAX, local union leaders will hear from union chiefs from other cities who used the threat of a strike to get a new labor agreement. They’ll...

LA Unified officials said today they anticipated the concerns raised by an independent report on the district’s one-to-one iPad program, which found that schools are not using the devices to teach the new Common Core curriculum. What’s more, said Bernadette Lucas, director of the District’s technology project, they were thrilled to get the bad news....

LA Unified’s ambitious plan to get computer tablets into the hands of its 650,000 students just received its first evaluation, producing decidedly mixed results. In a 95-page report from the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a Washington, D.C. research group hired by the district to evaluate the Phase 1 rollout of the program, students and...

Teachers are responding with enthusiasm to a website that helps them find grant money for classroom projects and professional development, according to the LA Fund for Public Education, the non-profit that launched the program last spring. Called Grants HQ, the website puts hundreds of millions of dollars in educational grants online in one place and is...

More than 13,000 LA Unified employees of labor groups that struck new contract deals with the district are receiving a 2 percent lump sum payment this week. Among those that found the extra bump in their bank accounts are members of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), which includes school principals, assistant principals, administrators...

Seven education bills are currently awaiting the signature or veto of Gov. Jerry Brown – and before too many more stack up, we thought a review was in order. For more check out Edsource’s EdTracker, a tool that follows the ins and outs of education legislation in Sacramento. “Willful defiance” bill AB 420 would limit the...

The possibility that LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy will no longer be at the helm of the nation’s second largest school district – whether by choice or by force – is looming ever larger as the deadline for his annual evaluation approaches, leaving some district officials to speculate over how to replace him. The seven-member...

Lawsuit challenges teachers’ compulsory dues A lawsuit working its way through the courts is striking at the core of the CTA’s power: its authority to automatically deduct hundreds of millions of dollars a year in dues from the paychecks of both members and non-members. Edsource LAUSD police to give up some weaponry obtained in federal...