LA School Report

A resolution approved by the LA Unified school board on Oct. 13 didn’t receive a lot of attention, but the vote to approve a pilot program with the online company Schoology has the potential to completely change how students, teachers, parents and administrators interact. The resolution launches a two-year pilot program that will test an...

Sure, they can go to any of the community meetings. Sure, they can fill out a survey online. But, ultimately, outside groups say they want a seat at the table when deciding the next LA Unified school superintendent. At a special session after a closed session on Tuesday, the school board voted against a proposal...

By Louis Freedberg Against the backdrop of enthusiasm regarding new reforms underway in California, from the Common Core to the Local Control Funding Formula, the just-released scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, brought a brush with reality. Mirroring national results, scores in California on 4th-grade math dipped by 2 points and...

District accountability plans mushroom in size and complexity The burgeoning size of the LCAPs is raising questions about whether after just two years in existence they are turning into a daunting bureaucratic exercise. EdSource, By Michael Collier and Louis Freedberg L.A. teachers weigh in on discipline in reaction to South Carolina case The South Carolina...

At his final appearance before LA Unified’s Committee of the Whole yesterday, chief lobbyist Edgar Zazueta introduced his successor — Leilani Yee. “I am terribly nervous because I don’t feel like I’m good at public speaking, like Edgar is,” Yee told the board, her first appearance as the heir apparent to the job — the board still...

The effort to find a consensus candidate to follow Ramon Cortines into the superintendent’s office is playing out as difficult issues sometimes do in LA Unified, with good intentions undermined by political pandering and a bit of disingenuousness. While Steve Zimmer, the board president, has set in motion a thoughtful and reasonable approach to the...

Scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card, were released today, and LA Unified’s overall performance took a slight dip — same as scores in California and the nation. It was the first time scores slipped for the district and California since the state’s students started taking the test...

By Joshua Leibner As LAUSD searches for a new Superintendent, there has been a call not to “politicize” the process by people who mysteriously or calculatingly believe that the job itself isn’t political. Well let’s disabuse everyone of that notion right now. There is nothing in human experience more political than Education. Whatever education you and I...

LAUSD fires lawyer (again) who blamed student for sex with teacher Veteran attorney W. Keith Wyatt will no longer handle cases for the nation’s second-largest school system, the district confirmed Tuesday. Los Angeles Times, by Howard Blume A backgrounder on the Alliance — UTLA dispute The PERB sued Alliance College-Ready Public Charter Schools and its...

As LA Unified school board president Steve Zimmer pleads for more involvement with the public for the superintendent search, the board voted down yet another effort to give the community greater influence in the selection process. It was the latest example of how the district is urging the public to play a role in the...