The Morning Read
Your Daily Roundup of LAUSD news from across the web | 10.05.21
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Commentary: School districts need local control over high school testing — let us use the SAT
Christopher Lund, assistant superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District, says all school districts have the same questions: How do we close achievement gaps? How do we improve graduation rates? How do we get more students into college and prepare them to graduate from college? The answers are hard work and education policy that...
By Rick Miller | September 17, 2018
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Los Angeles schools accelerate support for LGBTQ students as data show more than half have been bullied in high school
Los Angeles Unified is increasing supports for students and their families as new data reveal more about LGBTQ students’ emotional harm in school. According to data presented at last week’s school board meeting, 56 percent of LGBTQ high schoolers in the district have been bullied at school, and 60 percent have seriously considered suicide. The...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | September 16, 2018
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New textbooks and guidance help California K-12 teachers cover LGBT issues and historical figures in the classroom
As the new academic year gets rolling for California public schools, instructional materials are available for the first time that ensure every K-12 classroom has access to accurate and unbiased depictions of the sexual orientation and gender identity of historical figures. The state’s FAIR Education Act — FAIR stands for Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful —...
By Beth Hawkins | September 16, 2018
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It gets worse for LAUSD: This week both the county and the state showed up to say, ‘Get your fiscal house in order or else we’re taking over’
LA Unified board members were jolted last month when a top county official showed up unannounced to say, You’re spending more money than you make and the savings you’ve been living off of are about to run out. It got worse this Tuesday, when she came back and brought a top state official with the...
By Laura Greanias | September 12, 2018
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Antonucci: The inevitable Los Angeles teachers strike — does Chicago hold the key to a solution?
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles continued their preparations for a strike by approving the transfer of up to $3 million from the union’s strike fund to its general fund in order to be ready for immediate use. The first mediation session is scheduled for Sept. 27,...
By Mike Antonucci | September 11, 2018
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UTLA wanted immigrant parents’ support for a teachers strike. Instead, parents wanted to know, ‘How would this strike guarantee a high-quality education for our children?’
What will we do with our kids if the teachers go out on strike? To find answers to that question, about two dozen public school parents gathered Monday morning at a prominent Latino community organization in downtown Los Angeles. They had invited a teachers union representative to their monthly meeting so they could learn more...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | September 10, 2018
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How to reach your LAUSD school board member — without sleeping overnight on the sidewalk
LA Unified’s seven school board members — or six for now — make vital decisions impacting more than 570,000 students. Parents, community members, and the general public want their concerns to be heard, but what’s the best way to connect with the board members? Besides email and phone, there are board meetings most Tuesdays with...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | September 10, 2018
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How schools & philanthropists are joining forces to fight back against fake news: Inside the renewed push for social studies, media literacy, and civic engagement
Two of the oldest questions in Western education, going back to the ancient Greek philosophers, are: What is true? And how do you know? Thousands of years later, as superstition and pseudoscience have been replaced by conspiracy theory and ideological dogma, finding answers to those questions is as thorny as ever. The modern heirs to...
By Kevin Mahnken | September 5, 2018
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Commentary: Kids should not be collateral damage in teachers strike
With talks between United Teachers Los Angeles and LAUSD at a tense impasse and teachers voting overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, there’s one group caught in the middle that’s largely been left out of the discussion: L.A.’s kids. A strike would have a dramatic impact on the kids and families of Los Angeles, where 84...
By Katie Braude | September 4, 2018
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From the schoolhouse to the state house: These 5 teachers are running for office to say ‘No more’ to slashed education funding
If you don’t count high school student body president, Aimy Steele has never held political office. But as a teacher and school administrator, she’s run classrooms and schools, and now she’s running to represent her district in North Carolina’s state house of representatives. Steele and thousands of teachers around the country got a taste of...
By Laura Fay | September 4, 2018