LA School Report

Check out this Huffington Post blog penned by Carl Finer, a teacher who taught at LAUSD for seven years but switched to a Los Angeles charter school last year. A member of a pro-reform teacher voice organization called Teach Plus, Finer explains why he made the move, and what charter and district schools could learn from each...

LAUSD ‘Running On Fumes’ Going Into November Tax Votes Trying to toe the line without crossing over into advocacy, Los Angeles Unified’s finance chief on Tuesday outlined the impacts of the two proposed tax-hike initiatives that would pump revenue into an education system she said is now “running on fumes.” Daily News ‘No One Left...

School board member Tamar Galatzan (pictured) is quite possibly the busiest elected official in the city. One of two board members who has chosen to serve part-time (along with Nury Martinez), Galatzan also has a full-time job at the City Attorney’s office, and is the mother of two boys in elementary school. (She’s the only board...

There are some fun parts to this novelty video put together by some filmmaker parents at LAUSD’s Aldama Elementary, including the chorus (“Our budget’s been cut, school’s hitting the skids, We’re coming for you, and we’re bringing our kids.”) Obviously, these parents want voters to support increased funding for schools proposed in some of next month’s...

Should California’s Teachers Vote With The Governor? Nearly half a million of California’s voters are teachers. Like other voters, they will soon have to decide how to mark their November ballots. They will certainly scratch their heads over Propositions 30 and 38, competing measures that would ease the damage of four years of steady budget...

Tomorrow morning at 10 am, the Board of Education’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee will meet (see agenda here). According to LAUSD spokesman Tom Waldman, one of the issues to be discussed tomorrow is propositions 30 and 38, and what effect they will have on the district should they pass or fail. Both propositions are...

Reviews of the new release “Won’t Back Down” vary widely and tend to conform with pre-existing views on education reform issues. Critics like The Nation’s Dana Goldstein describe it as a mean-spirited caricature of classroom teachers funded by a conservative millionaire who wants to destroy public schools — a 2012 version of  “Waiting For Superman.”...

US Grant Funds $20,000 Teacher Bonuses at ‘High-Need’ LA Schools Los Angeles Unified Schools Superintendent John Deasy said that a $49 million federal grant awarded to the district this week to improve teacher effectiveness will help pay for a new multiple-measure teacher evaluation system and more professional development programs, including a bonus for certain teachers...

A new Los Angeles Times / USC poll shows support for Governor Jerry Brown’s Prop 30 ballot initiative – which would temporarily raise income tax on high earners – has slipped to 54%, down 10 points from March. Despite the erosion, Democratic voters still overwhelmingly favor it, 69-20%.  Meanwhile, Molly Munger’s competing tax measure, Prop...

A neighborhood blog you may not have heard of called The Eastsider has a good (if partial) list of public, charter, and private school websites, as well as other useful parent groups and addresses for a variety of Eastside neighborhoods (School Yard Links).  There’s also an interesting entry from a parent who’s concerned about LAUSD...