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Antonucci: How is UTLA spending that dues increase?
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Two years ago, members of United Teachers Los Angeles voted by a large margin to raise their dues by 33 percent. UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl warned that if the increase failed, the union would be “bankrupt or dramatically weakened.” UTLA did have a dues system that was...
By Mike Antonucci | March 13, 2018
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What do parents need to know when choosing a school — LAUSD considers what information to include as it refines its unified enrollment system
When parents are choosing a school for their children, what do they need to know and how can they best compare schools? That’s what LA Unified is asking as it continues to build its unified enrollment system. The first evolution of its new online application system launched last fall, and since then over 72,000 families...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | March 12, 2018
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Sacramento’s game of hide-and-seek with public education
Editor’s note: This week the State Board of Education will vote on the latest iteration of California’s plan to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), including if and how the state will choose to identify and improve its lowest-performing schools and provide targeted support to high-need students. Sacramento is playing hide-and-seek with our...
By Rae Belisle | March 12, 2018
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LAUSD 2040 and the search for our next superintendent
Dear Board Members García, Gonez, McKenna, Melvoin, Rodriguez, Schmerelson, and Vladovic: Your choice for LAUSD’s next superintendent will be one of the most important decisions in the history of the district. No one envies the complex choices and tradeoffs you face in the years ahead as you navigate monumental decisions related to fiscal stability and...
By Russ Altenburg and Margeaux Randolph | March 12, 2018
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LA parent voice: What do I do when educators don’t believe my child can learn?
Every week, we sit down with Los Angeles parents to talk about their students, their schools, and what questions or suggestions they have for their school district. (See our previous interviews.) When Elizabeth Gómez was told by school administrators that her fourth-grade son can’t and won’t learn because he has Down syndrome, she made it her mission...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | March 7, 2018
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Antonucci: It will be a busy spring at UTLA
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. United Teachers Los Angeles spent the early months of 2018 promoting and then celebrating the ratification of their healthcare agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District. But if school board members think this bought them some time and good will when it comes to contract negotiations,...
By Mike Antonucci | March 6, 2018
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50 years after the Chicano Blowouts, still waiting for justice and the need to reject more police in our schools
Fifty years ago, on March 1st, 1968, several hundred Mexican American and Chicana/o students at Wilson High School initiated an impromptu walkout protest in response to the cancelation of a school play by their principal. Their action sparked into motion a yearlong set of discussions, strategizing, and organizing among eastside Chicana/o students, activists and teachers...
By Manuel Criollo | March 6, 2018
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California’s funding formula tries to close the achievement gap for disadvantaged youth — but how is the money spent?
This article first appeared in The Chronicle of Social Change. California Governor Jerry Brown’s budget includes full funding for a state program meant to boost support for foster youth and other vulnerable populations in schools. But advocates are criticizing the program for its lack of expenditure tracking and transparency on how schools spend the state’s money. The...
By Holden Slattery | March 5, 2018
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Does the March 5 DACA deadline still matter? 5 things to know about a meaningless Monday — and why Dreamers should still be worried
All eyes have been on March 5 since the Trump administration announced last September that in six months it would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has provided work permits and deportation relief to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. That timeline, the Trump...
By Mark Keierleber | March 4, 2018
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Los Angeles educators are honored with the first Sal Castro Award for continuing the legacy of the ‘68 East LA Walkouts
As LA Unified commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Walkouts, the district honored eleven educators who are continuing the legacy of Sal Castro, the social studies teacher who guided 15,000 students who left their East Los Angeles classrooms on March 1, 1968, to fight for educational justice. The winners were selected from the Walkouts’ five...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | February 28, 2018