LA School Report

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has issued guidelines to all principals regarding the new teacher evaluations, which will be implemented by the start of the 2013-14 school year. But UTLA President Warren Fletcher says that the guidelines may violate the underlying agreement, which was ratified by UTLA on January 19th and approved by the School Board on Tuesday.

An election mailer sent out this week by UTLA-PACE is just the latest negative entry in the high-stakes LAUSD election. UTLA-PACE’s new mailer targets candidate Kate Anderson, who is running against LAUSD Board incumbent Steve Zimmer for a seat representing the Westside and Hollywood’s District 4. Among other things, the mailer accuses Anderson of wanting...

Held in the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex, Wednesday night’s packed United Way of Greater LA School Board candidates forum provided a somewhat clearer picture of the politics and priorities of the four East LA District 2 candidates who were present. But some candidates were more direct than others about their views on a range of sensitive...

The first episode of the Oprah Winfrey Network reality series, “Blackboard Wars,” has been moved up to this weekend. Check out the first five minutes here: I had the chance to watch the first two episodes and I have to say that I liked it — not because it’s necessarily accurate or even particularly new...

LA Times Announces Endorsements for L.A. School Board  We would prefer to see more candidates who fall between the two ideological poles, but the realities of L.A. Unified politics sometimes make this impossible. LA Times School Board Candidates Debate Bloomberg’s $1-Million Donation A record-setting donation to Los Angeles school board contests quickly became a topic...

Watch the video of last night’s two-hour event, via United Way of Greater LA, or scroll through the #laboardrace tweets below from during the event.

A pro-charter, pro-accountability group called Democrats for Education Reform has issued a report card on District 2 incumbent Monica Garcia and District 4 incumbent Steve Zimmer, based on “parent choice and quality schools; school district transparency; district leadership; and teacher effectiveness and quality.” Meantime, Zimmer has followed UTLA’s lead and issued a response to the news that...

Independent expenditure committees have already begun going negative on their candidates’ opponents — on budget cutting/layoffs (against District 2 incumbent Monica Garcia) and cutting the arts and spending too much on the Robert Kennedy Community School building (against District 4 incumbent Steve Zimmer). The latest LA Weekly reminds us it’s likely to get much worse in...

LA Unified School Board Race Could Break Fundraising Records This Election The 2013 school board races have barely started and they have already attracted more than $4 million in donations. KPCC See also: LA School Report Union Wins Right to Represent Valley Charter School The Los Angeles teachers union announced Wednesday night that it has won...

LA School Report has learned a little of the backstory behind a recent election-focused post that was published on former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch’s blog. As you may know, Ravitch urged her readers to support District 4 (Hollywood and Westside) incumbent Steve Zimmer and oppose his challenger Kate Anderson, based in large part on an email from a Zimmer supporter...