On Friday, LAUSD issued a new guidance telling principals to make student achievement 30 percent of a teacher’s evaluation starting next year. Almost immediately, UTLA President Warren Fletcher objected, arguing that the 30 percent figure was too high and a district-wide process was overly prescriptive. Since then, the LA TImes has reported that District 4 School Board...

On Friday, the LA Weekly first reported that all of the mayoral candidates but one — Eric Garcetti — had indicated support for the parent trigger. Then, in a 5:00 pm update, the alternative weekly reported that Garcetti was supporting the parents at 24th Street Elementary who have initiated a trigger process — “but he...

An education-related event dubbed March As One took place over the weekend, and numerous political candidates were there:”Garcetti, Greuel, James, Perry, and Pleitez shared their platforms for education,” writes organizer Catherine Aguilar, “as well as the School Board candidates: Garcia, Montanez, Zimmer [pictured], Anderson [pictured], Cano, and Ratliff.” The crowd marched three miles and gathered at...

Reactions so far to the LA Times editorial page endorsements have been mixed. Nearly everyone agrees that newspaper endorsements aren’t likely to make or break a close School Board race.  Opinions differ on whether the LA Times editorial page is pro-union or pro-reform. Indeed, the Friday endorsements were a mixed bag and doled out criticism of both UTLA...

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has issued guidelines to all principals regarding the new teacher evaluations, which will be implemented by the start of the 2013-14 school year. But UTLA President Warren Fletcher says that the guidelines may violate the underlying agreement, which was ratified by UTLA on January 19th and approved by the School Board on Tuesday.

An election mailer sent out this week by UTLA-PACE is just the latest negative entry in the high-stakes LAUSD election. UTLA-PACE’s new mailer targets candidate Kate Anderson, who is running against LAUSD Board incumbent Steve Zimmer for a seat representing the Westside and Hollywood’s District 4. Among other things, the mailer accuses Anderson of wanting...

Held in the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex, Wednesday night’s packed United Way of Greater LA School Board candidates forum provided a somewhat clearer picture of the politics and priorities of the four East LA District 2 candidates who were present. But some candidates were more direct than others about their views on a range of sensitive...

The first episode of the Oprah Winfrey Network reality series, “Blackboard Wars,” has been moved up to this weekend. Check out the first five minutes here: I had the chance to watch the first two episodes and I have to say that I liked it — not because it’s necessarily accurate or even particularly new...

Watch the video of last night’s two-hour event, via United Way of Greater LA, or scroll through the #laboardrace tweets below from during the event.

A pro-charter, pro-accountability group called Democrats for Education Reform has issued a report card on District 2 incumbent Monica Garcia and District 4 incumbent Steve Zimmer, based on “parent choice and quality schools; school district transparency; district leadership; and teacher effectiveness and quality.” Meantime, Zimmer has followed UTLA’s lead and issued a response to the news that...