LA School Report

There’s a big City Hall event this morning hosted by the California Charter Schools Association. There are now nearly 1,100 charters in the state, and LA added 40 new ones this year alone. (See AP story: California Sees Record Number of New Charter Schools). It’s the 20th anniversary of the charter school concept — semi-autonomous public schools with more...

Board Member Nury Martinez Wants Schools to Serve Healthier Food Los Angeles Unified board member Nury Martinez has introduced a resolution promoting the school district’s efforts to ensure that its 700,000 students have access to healthful food that is locally grown with sound environmental practices. Daily News Charles Munger Drops Another $13 Million Into Ballot...

Last week, the Wall Street Journal Magazine gave out its innovator awards, and among the recipients was Eric Eisner (pictured). Eisner has a program called Young Eisner Scholars and has been written up before in the Huffington Post & Vanity Fair. According to the press release (below), Eisner was recognized by the WSJ Magazine for “his work recruiting, tutoring and...

The helpful blog Hope Change Choices reminds parents and others not to forget that November 16 is the deadline to apply to magnet schools. That might seem like it’s a long way off, but it’s really just three weeks from tomorrow.  They’ve got a “one stop” set of links and calendars to help you go...

The deadline for the fourth round of school proposals for Public School Choice (PSC) is due next week, on October 31. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has identified 13 low-performing schools to participate in what is called PSC 4.0.  This is a decrease from the previous year, when 33 schools were part of the process. Only...

Support Plunges for Prop. 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s Tax Initiative Only 46% of registered voters now support Prop. 30, a drop of 9 percentage points over the last month, and 42% oppose it. LA Times See also Ed Source Molly Munger’s Prop. 38 Is Spoiling Jerry Brown’s Prop. 30. She’s Not Sorry. Both proposals could...

In a Friday memo to the school board, Superintendent John Deasy has outlined the “devastating” financial impacts on LAUSD should Proposition 30 (Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed tax measure) not pass. Deasy says that the only way the district could deal with such drastic cuts is by ending the school year “shortly after April.” The district would...

LAUSD school board member Bennett Kayser will host a town hall on Wednesday night, October 24, at 6 PM to talk about Propositions 30 and 38. Kayser introduced a non-binding resolution at the August 21 board meeting to endorse both tax measures (see School Board To California Voters: Send Money). Read the press release here.

Lessons From Los Angeles Unlike New York City–where philanthropic funding supported a top-down approach to reform, a fairly similar set of reform ideas (school level autonomy, choice, and accountability) have spread more slowly and organically in Los Angeles. Education Week (commentary) Education Prize Eludes Corona-Norco District The Corona-Norco Unified School District is a finalist for...

Mediator Don Raska has been appointed to try to help resolve the teacher evaluation negotiations between LAUSD and the teachers union (UTLA), according to a UTLA newsletter. The October 19th issue of the United Teacher states that, “the union continues to push back against LAUSD’s proposal to link a percentage of a teacher’s evaluation to...