LA Unified teachers will return to school next week with no new UTLA contract. Negotiators met for the second time yesterday, and the next session is not scheduled until Aug. 21 — nine days after school starts. While the teachers union put out a press release yesterday, chiding the district for not being cooperative, the...

Since the June 3 primary that produced Alex Johnson and George McKenna as the finalists for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat election on Aug. 12, the candidates have engaged in no public debates that would give voters a better opportunity to learn their views on contemporary issues. As a result, LA School Report has...

With school about to open for 2014-2015, Alex Caputo-Pearl embarks on his first year as president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). He couldn’t have found a busier time to begin his first term, with negotiations underway for a new collective bargaining contract, a curriculum transition to Common Core and a host of other issues...

Until recently, only one group had gone negative in the campaign between Alex Johnson and George McKenna for the open LA Unified school board seat. The African American Voter Registration, Education and Participation Project (AARVEP), which supports Johnson, sponsored three mailers, calling into question McKenna’s background as a school administrator, prompting the McKenna campaign to...

Via the Atlantic | Megan E. Murphy For an entire school year Hillsborough, New Jersey, educators undertook an experiment, asking: Is the iPad really the best device for interactive learning? It’s a question that has been on many minds since 2010, when Apple released the iPad and schools began experimenting with it. The devices came...

The LA-based legal team that prevailed in Vergara v. California, convincing a California judge to strike down state laws governing teacher employment, has been brought into a similar lawsuit now underway in New York. Students Matter, sponsor of Vergara, said today that Vergara lawyers, including Ted Boutrous and Marcellus McRae, would represent the plaintiffs in...

In his annual State of the Schools address, LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy today called to mind Robert F. Kennedy, apartheid in South Africa, Cesar Chavez and national immigration reform. He even hammered home this year’s theme, “My Brother’s and Sister’s Keeper,” with an Oprah-like moment. Deasy instructed every LA Unified employee in the audience — about...

After a strong start in the number of autonomy model schools over the last two years, the pace of growth has slowed. For the school year opening next week, LA Unified is adding only a handful of Pilot, Local Initiative Schools (LIS), and Expanded School-Based Model Management (ESBMM) schools. LA Unified and the teachers union,...

As LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy prepared to deliver his “State of the District” speech to school leaders and educators at Garfield High School today, he sat for a wide-ranging interview with LA School Report yesterday, addressing the possibility of a teachers strike, implementation of Common Core, his relationship with the board and the importance...