The Morning Read
Your Daily Roundup of LAUSD news from across the web | 10.05.21
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Why is there so much money being spent in this school board race? District 4 candidates respond
LA Unified’s District 4 school board race has prompted more than half a dozen candidate forums, a constant stream of mailers, commercials, and phone calls, and near-record campaign spending. But it wasn’t until Monday night’s forum at the Skirball Cultural Center that the big question was asked publicly. “Why is there so much money being spent...
By Mike Szymanski | February 28, 2017
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Commentary: The reason unions fight in school board races
By Aaron Churchill Electoral politics are front and center as Los Angeles voters prepare to cast their ballots for three school board seats on March 7. Not surprisingly, the races have heated up — and gotten expensive. Independent expenditure committees funded by teachers unions have forked over $1.2 million to support incumbent board President Steve...
By Guest contributor | February 28, 2017
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Meet an LAUSD school board candidate — District 6’s Gwendolyn Posey: ‘Parents, students, and teachers desperately need an advocate’
LA School Report covers the 2017 LAUSD school board race: See all 13 candidate profiles Name: Gwendolyn R. Posey Board district: 6 Job: event planner, community activist, and advocate LAUSD schools attended: Pacoima Elementary School, Maclay Junior High School, and Polytechnic High School Children in LAUSD Schools? Yes, two graduates and a sixth-grader. Platform: school safety (increasing the LAUSD...
By LA School Report | February 27, 2017
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Commentary: When big money becomes the new normal — contrasting LA’s and Denver’s school board races
By Beth Hawkins At the start of the decade, a survey of elected school board members found a whopping 87 percent spent $5,000 or less on their most recent campaign. Even in larger districts, those with at least 15,000 students, only 10 percent spent $25,000 or more, the National School Boards Association reported. What an...
By Guest contributor | February 27, 2017
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Meet an LAUSD school board candidate — District 4’s Steve Zimmer: ‘This election is about losing children to the charter movement’
LA School Report covers the 2017 LAUSD school board race: See all 13 candidate profiles Name: Steve Zimmer Board district: 4 Age: 46 Lives in: Hollywood Job: two terms on LA Unified’s school board, adjunct instructor at Occidental College in the Urban and Environmental Policy Department Married: No Children in LAUSD: No LAUSD schooling: No...
By Mike Szymanski | February 27, 2017
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Unreported UTLA spending comes under review as official outside money in LAUSD board race tops $4 million
With just over a week to go before the primary election, outside spending in the LA Unified school board race has topped $4 million with pro-charter and education reform groups making up more than half that total, while an unknown amount has been spent by UTLA on a public relations campaign in support of board...
By Sarah Favot | February 24, 2017
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Tucker Haynes: Why ‘Hidden Figures’ should be required viewing at every U.S. school
It took a devastating World War and the threat of domination by an expansionist Communist empire to propel the government of the United States past its prejudices. It was in 1943 — when the country desperately needed every competent mathematician it could find — that Dorothy Vaughan, a black female math teacher in Virginia, went...
By Cynthia Tucker Haynes | February 24, 2017
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Commentary: DeVos confirmation calls for Angelenos to unite
By Nadia Diaz Funn Betsy DeVos’ narrow confirmation by the Senate as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education made one thing clear: now more than ever, the entire Los Angeles education community — including LAUSD, its labor partners, charter leaders, education advocates, philanthropy, and families — must set aside its ideological and political differences to...
By Guest contributor | February 23, 2017
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After reported opposition, DeVos defends ending transgender protections to friendly CPAC crowd
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos briefly defended the Trump administration’s decision this week to rescind protections for transgender students in remarks to a supportive conservative crowd Thursday. “This issue was a very huge example of the Obama administration’s overreach to suggest a one-size-fits-all approach … to issues that are best dealt with and solved from a...
By Carolyn Phenicie | February 23, 2017
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What’s behind the federal raids on Celerity?
Questions about Celerity Educational Group, a Los Angeles charter school management organization now under federal investigation, and its relationship with affiliated nonprofit entities have been probed by LA Unified for nearly a decade, according to public documents and school board meetings, and the concerns are widely thought to have prompted last month’s highly publicized raids by seven federal...
By Mike Szymanski | February 22, 2017