LA School Report

LA Schools budget debate: more teachers, custodians, health services The Los Angeles Unified school board is scheduled to discuss Superintendent John Deasy’s 2014-2015 proposed budget at its meeting Tuesday – and it promises hours of debate over long lists of competing wants. Board members commended the superintendent’s $6.8 billion proposal when it was released last...

Sometimes it takes a rally to get things done. Nearly 200 parents and their children from Bright Star Stella and Bright Star Secondary gathered on Saturday to campaign for a new charter school in West Adams. The families have identified an abandoned facility that they want turned into a new school that would house all...

Via The Nation | By JoAnn Wypijewski  Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as “teacher jail”: she doesn’t belong there....

More than 40 education and community groups signed a full-page ad that ran in today’s Los Angeles Times, urging the LA Unified school board to provide more support for high needs students in the up-coming budget. The ad appears a day before a board meeting when issues of the budget will be a large part of...

Anyone attending a recent LA Unified School Board meeting has heard Monica Ratliff talk about “providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students” by boosting the district’s custodial staff. Tomorrow she’ll lay out her plan for doing it. Item No. 47 on another loooooong agenda, represents Ratliff’s attempt to hire 108 new full-time...

State’s new computerized exam tryout plagued by glitches New state standardized exams, given for the first time on computers this spring, really have been a test. But not always a test of math and English. Students had trouble logging on; then many were logged off, sometimes for inactivity while they read lengthy passages. Some devices...

LA Unified has claimed a second victory in a major academic competition. Marshall High School won the 2014 U.S. Academic Decathlon Online competition, scoring 39,461 out of a possible 48,000 points. The win follows El Camino Real Charter High School’s victory in the 2014 U.S. Academic Decathlon championship last month. Marshall represented California in the...

Marshall Tuck, a former charter school executive, is challenging incumbent Tom Torlakson to become California’s next State Superintendent of Public Education. The race includes Lydia Gutierrez, a former teacher who also ran four years ago. The three are on the statewide June 3 primary ballot. We caught up with Tuck at a forum last week, and...

Fifth in a series of profiles of candidates for LA Unified’s open District 1 board seat. At 33 years old, Alex Johnson is the youngest of eight candidates running for the open LA Unified school board District 1 seat. He has raised the most money of anyone in the field. He has the support of...

Via the Los Angeles Times | By Stephen Ceasar An initiative intended to foster a college-going culture in East Los Angeles will grant guaranteed admission to Cal State L.A. to certain students at Garfield High School and East Los Angeles College, officials announced Thursday. The collaborative program, named “GO East LA: A Pathway for College...