LA School Report

Have a great Fourth of July Weekend. We’re off July 4th and 5th but will be back on Monday the 8th.

The best part of the LA Times’ recent exit interview with former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is that education reporters Howard Blume and Teresa Watanabe also published an annotated version of the full transcript — at Villaraigosa’s request. And the best parts of the transcript are Blume and Watanabe’s footnotes — see examples above — which betray no small amount of...

While California was the first state in the nation to adopt the parent trigger law back in 2010, the state is no longer alone. Since then, an additional six states —  Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas — have passed trigger legislation into law, according to a recent overview in Stateline. Parent trigger laws generally allow...

While high-profile School Board votes are often said to be “baked” ahead of time — negotiated and known by the key participants well before the public vote — it’s not at all clear that was the case yesterday at the LAUSD School Board meeting, where the result was a 5-2 vote for Richard Vladovic as...

Reactions from Los Angeles education groups and leaders to yesterday’s news that Board member Richard Vladovic will be LAUSD’s new School Board President were generally positive, albeit mild: In a press release, SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Courtni Pugh wrote that Vladovic “has demonstrated a true respect for the role that school nutrition, transportation, campus safety, and...

The Daily News has a very nice slideshow of yesterday’s eventful Board Meeting, which saw Board members Monica Garcia, Steve Zimmer and Monica Ratliff all get sworn in, and Dr. Richard Vladovic get elected Board President. A sampling: There’s also a nice picture in the LA Times of Ratliff and her mother embracing during the swearing-in process....

In one of the more dramatic meetings in recent memory, the newly installed 2013-2014 LAUSD School Board selected Dr. Richard Vladovic (standing, left) as its next President by a vote of 5 to 2. Newly sworn-in Board member Monica Ratliff joined Steve Zimmer, Marguerite LaMotte, Bennett Kayser and Vladovic himself in the majority. Outgoing Board...

Parents may be surprised to learn that LAUSD has a suspension rate of 2.7 percent — far below the state average of 5.7 percent, according to data from the California Department of Education. However, at some schools, suspension rates are as high as 20 and 30 percent. And the suspension rate is particularly low in the...