Ever wonder just how many TFA (Teach For America) teachers there are in LAUSD?  Sometimes it can seem like they (and their alumni) are everywhere.  Other times, they can be hard to find. Here are the latest numbers, via David Stanley, TFA LA executive director: Last year there were 260 first- and second-year teachers (about...

When former UTLA head A.J. Duffy helped found Apple Academy, a charter school, in 2011, it seemed like the ultimate case of a zebra changing his stripes. Nearly a year later, Duffy still gets quoted in the Times, but he’s no longer head of Apple, which didn’t enroll enough kids to justify his salary, and...

LAUSD’s social media director, Stephanie Abrams (pictured) has already been the subject of a smattering of news coverage and is featured in next month’s Scholastic Administrator magazine.   In the meantime one of Abrams’ biggest projects, a social media survey of the district, is out, and The Journal has some coverage.  Here’s LAUSD’s Tumblr announcement....

Prop 32 would have huge implications for LAUSD politics, drastically limiting the amount of money unions could spend on local races. In 2011, UTLA spent over $2 million on school board races. And at first it seems like a straightforward, partisan issue– Democrats and Unions vs. Republicans and rich guys. But one Democrat has stepped forward to support...

Per yesterday’s post about Congressional deliberations over alt cert teachers, LAUSD says that there are 24,466 fully credentialed classroom teachers [I’m assuming these are folks who came through an alternative route but are now done with their credits and fully certified], plus 199 NCLB-compliant interns [I’m guessing all or most of these are TFA corps members...

Speaking of court cases (see below), the House education committee held a hearing about alternative certification yesterday in Washington, trying to figure out what to do about the quickly-expiring NCLB exemption for alternative route candidates in LAUSD and nationally.  All indications are that Congress is going to extend the alt cert program, but if it...

Michelle Rhee’s organization, Students First, a Sacramento-based ed reform group, has produced a very bizarre TV ad, that Rhee showed on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday:

A Superior Court Judge has ruled in favor of parents of Desert Trails Elementary, who now become the first parents in the country to successfully take over a public school under provisions of the new and controversial Parent Trigger law. “People throw around the word historic a lot,” said Ben Austin, Executive Director of Parent...

LAUSD to fight judge’s ruling in charter case, and more. LAUSD is fighting a court order to give more space to charter schools. The district says enforcement would lead to school busing. LA Times, KPCC RiShawn Biddle argues that the NAACP should get on board with public school choice All sorts of media outlets are...

From KPCC: When allocating space to charter schools, the law requires the district to look at all space at a school site, look at the total number of students served at that site, and make an equitable offer to charter schools based on the same allocation, said Ricardo Soto, the general counsel for the Charter...