LA School Report

LA School Report‘s unstoppable reporter, Hillel Aron, will be at today’s School Board meeting. You can follow our live updates here: As you already know from today’s morning news roundup, the issue of layoffs is likely to be a topic of serious debate.  For highlights of the other issues the Board is likely to debate, click...

New independent expenditure (IE) numbers posted late yesterday on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission website show a spike in spending on behalf of supported candidates, including $138,000 spent by UTLA-PACE, the political arm of United Teachers Los Angeles, the first such spending that’s been posted. In the meantime, the Coalition for School Reform has...

Challengers at last night’s District 2 debate in El Sereno rarely invoked School Board President Monica Garcia‘s name, even though she was sitting there onstage with them. But they attacked the incumbent indirectly, with vehement criticisms of LAUSD policies and decisions (regarding standardized tests,  charters schools and budget cuts) as well as Superintendent John Deasy, who...

LAUSD School Board to Consider Laying Off Nearly 200 The Los Angeles Unified School Board will take up whether to lay off 194 staff in the 2013-14 school year. KPCC See also: FOX LA, KTLA, LA School Report L.A. Unified Aviation Training Center Gets $100,000 Donation The mechanics vocational school had been facing closure or...

Tonight’s District 2 School Board debate in El Sereno (see flyer here) is not one of the candidate forums that have been organized by United Way and sponsored by numerous nonprofits, but the Monday night event may be one of the first and only times incumbent School Board President Monica Garcia will appear on the...

The Coalition for School Reform has unveiled a somewhat curious new 30-second TV ad for District 4 School Board challenger Kate Anderson. Titled “Talking Benches,” most of it is devoted to blasting incumbent Steve Zimmer.  “Zimmer voted to fire 5,000 teachers,” says an incredulous narrator, “and cut basics like art and PE, while supporting the costliest building project in America...

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has suspended its plan to send union members a survey asking them to rate LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s performance, according to a recent union newsletter. The UTLA Board of Directors voted to suspend the survey, which had been set to go to members early this month. UTLA has not yet...

At its Tuesday, February 12 meeting, the LAUSD School Board will vote on whether or not approve phase one of Superintendent John Deasy’s plan to equip every student and teacher with a tablet computer by the end of 2014. As you may recall, the Bond Oversight Committee recently voted to recommend that the Board approve...

Outside Groups Trying to Influence L.A. School Board Races Outside groups are mounting campaigns to influence the outcome of three races for seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education. LA Times See also: LA School Report L.A. Schools Need Technology, but Can We Afford It? On Tuesday, the Los Angeles School Board will consider...

LA School Report has learned that the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission is at fault in an election disclosure discrepancy reported here earlier today. According to the Commission, due to human error, the City Ethics site did not make public independent expenditures (IEs) made by the teachers union political arm, UTLA-PACE, for LAUSD school board...