The LA Unified’s Office of Inspector General told a school board committee this week that it needs an additional $570,000 to audit charter schools, according to a recent report. The OIG once had a staff of 83 and is now down to 57, according to Inspector General Ken Bramlett, whose office oversees a $7.6 million budget....

In what would appear to be a strategic shift, the organization leading an effort to open more charter schools in LA Unified now intends to expand its mission to support traditional public schools that serve low-income children. The organization, incorporated as Great Public Schools Now, is an outgrowth of a plan by the Broad and...

By Kerry Cavanaugh I am the parent of a Los Angeles Unified School District student, and I get robocalls from the district probably two times a week. These are not calls from my son’s elementary school. These are recorded messages from various district officials, informing me of some meeting or workshop or that parents should fill out some...

Seven years after city voters approved Measure Q, giving LA Unified the go-ahead to borrow $7 billion, the first bond sales from the measure will begin within a month or so, district officials said today. As the largest local school bond measure in California history, Measure Q was requested to upgrade older school buildings and reconfigure...

As the FBI agent played a video of a 16-year-old caught in a sex ring in Los Angeles, the audience of the Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline and Safety Committee yesterday remained hushed. Some wiped tears from their eyes. LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King reviewed the list of local schools where such crimes occurred and she...

*UPDATED LA Unified announced today that Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Ruth Perez is leaving the district and will be replaced by Frances Gipson, the current Local District East superintendent who will serve as chief academic officer. Perez, a former superintendent of the Norwalk-La Mirada school district, had been in her position since August of 2014 after she was hired by former...

By Eric Patnoudes As the parent of four kids, I had the pleasure of listening to Fredi Lajvardi give a keynote at CETPA’s annual conference last year, and it was the sort of talk that sends shivers down educators’ spines and gives them goose bumps.  It was an hour of awe-inspiring pure education magic — the type of story...

After 90 minutes of contentious debate, the LAUSD school board agreed on a list of desired characteristics for the superintendent candidates they will begin interviewing. The discussion ran the gamut from the definition of the word “bold” to whether the members wanted someone with experience in an “urban environment.” Ultimately, the one-page list of desired...

A poll released today by EdSource and the Learning Policy Institute shows that the majority of California voters are concerned about the teacher shortage facing the state and support the state’s taking action to help fix the problem. The survey of 1,002 registered voters, which was conducted by the The Field Poll, found that 64...

An LAUSD budget committee discussing the unlikely possibility of establishing an all-charter school district today found merit nonetheless in seeking waivers from state rules that grant charters a greater degree of autonomy than traditional schools have. Mónica Ratliff, chair of the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, said that it didn’t seem fair that the charter...