LA School Report

A practice run of the Smarter Balanced test taken by a sampling of LA Unified students last month exposed an alarming number of technological weaknesses that left a third of participating schools unable to access the computerized exam, a new survey shows. “The readiness test pointed out areas that need improvement and repair prior to...

The polls open remain open until 8 pm tonight to cast ballots in four Los Angeles Unified School District Board elections, as well as in some LA City Council seats, Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District seats and two proposed charter amendments that would give this year’s winners 5 1/2 year terms. Here’s...

Opponents of election date measures worry only special interests will benefit Charter Amendment 1 and Charter Amendment 2 would only benefit deep-pocketed special interests, opponents say. City News Service The Times’ L.A. city election ballot endorsements Voters in Los Angeles head to the polls Tuesday. Los Angeles Times LAUSD board president outpacing challengers in finances,...

Now that LA Unified and UTLA have agreed that they can’t agree, they’re headed for mediation later this month. The state Public Employment Relations Board has assigned a mediator to accomplish in three sessions what the two sides were unable to do in 18 meetings over seven months: negotiate a long-overdue contact for the 35,000-member...

With less than 24 hours to go before the polls open, LA Unified school board candidate Carl Petersen said today that he filed several ethics complaints against Tamar Galatzan, the District 3 incumbent he is challenging in tomorrow’s elections. Petersen levied the same complaints that were filed last week with the City Ethics Commission by candidate Filiberto Gonzalez,...

The fate of three LA Unified board incumbents — and the influence of charter schools and teachers — is on the line tomorrow when voters cast ballots to decide how satisfied they are with the seven-member board that runs the nation’s second-largest school district. Any candidate winning a majority is in. Without a majority winner,...

The Los Angeles Times| By Eric Sondheimer  Here’s a statistic from the Los Angeles Unified School District that should set off alarm bells: 58 percent of its coaches from 83 high schools were walk-ons or non-certificated employees during the 2013-14 school year. Only 42 percent were teachers, according to Trenton Cornelius, the district’s coordinator of...

Moving beyond a single measure of a school The State Board of Education is seizing the chance to redefine student achievement and reframe how schools are held accountable for performance. Ed Source Editorial: Mayor Eric Garcetti’s silence on L.A. issues helps no one Averse to controversy and hesitant to take sides, Garcetti has often avoided...

Together for the final time before Tuesday’s elections, the three candidates for LA Unified’s Board District 5 seat were determined last night to set themselves apart from each other. In a small church in a residential neighborhood in South Gate, incumbent Bennett Kayser, and his opponents, Andrew Thomas and Ref Rodriguez, spoke only to the...

The Los Angeles Times | By Teresa Watanabe California may be a blue state, but a Republican-led effort to scale back federal intervention in educational reform is drawing support here. As the House of Representatives moves to vote this week on reauthorizing a 50-year-old education reform law, Republicans are pushing to sharply curtail what they...