LA School Report

In a dramatic move that may be a sign of larger changes to come, the LAUSD School Board voted Tuesday afternoon to limit the term of the Board President to two consecutive one-year terms*. The swing vote in the 4-3 decision was none other than recently re-elected Board member Steve Zimmer, who had supported Board...

The LAUSD Board voted today, 4 to 3, to limit the School Board president’s term to two years per individual. This will end Monica Garcia’s role as the Board’s president, a seat she has held for six consecutive years. Board member Steve Zimmer was the deciding vote, joining his colleagues Marguerite LaMotte, Bennett Kayser, and...

The teachers union’s on-again, off-again plan to survey its members on what they think about LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s job performance is back on again. However, this time around the union has a much stronger idea of what kinds of negative views its members should express. The union first mentioned in January that it planned...

Want to know what’s happening at today’s LAUSD Board meeting as it happens? Follow LA School Report’s Hillel Aron here, who is livetweeting from the School Board Meeting: [widgets_on_pages id=”Twitter Live Posts”]

Ama Nyamekye, the executive director of Educators 4 Excellence Los Angeles, an organization that advocates for teachers to take a more active role in shaping education policies, wrote an op-ed in last week’s Huffington Post LA calling for a more “courageous” LAUSD School Board: “Our school board needs to get to work tackling a tall order of...

Why Antonio Villaraigosa Fell Short as LA’s Education Mayor As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa prepares to step down in June, among the achievements he takes credit for during his eight years in office is improving one institution that the law gives him no authority over: the public schools. KPCC CTC to Survey New Teacher Prep Grads...

Tomorrow is the first LAUSD School Board meeting since the March primary. Many of the items (see agenda here) are familiar:  months-old resolutions that keep getting offered up and then postponed. But there are a handful of new and/or controversial items that may generate heated debate or difficult votes — including the proposed co-location of...

Referencing the recent District 4 primary between Kate Anderson and Steve Zimmer, StudentsFirst head Michelle Rhee last week boasted that  the Coalition for School Reform effort she helped fund “came within three percentage points of unseating an incumbent, union-backed Board member – something that would have been unthinkable just a couple of election cycles ago.” But...

“UTLA has treated the parents, the process, and the law with respect. They deserve real credit for their actions in this regard, and we recognize and appreciate the professional nature in which they have approached this important effort.” – Blog post from Parent Revolution (read full text here) Previous posts: You Say You Want a Revolution; Contrasting Reactions...

Start your week off listening to this panel discussion about politics, policy, and advocacy from last week’s 20th Annual California Charter Schools Conference in San Diego.  Featured panelists include Daniela Kim, a teacher with PUC Schools and a member of Teach Plus, Brian Johnson, former Assembly candidate and current VP of Leadership For Educational Equity, and Joshua...