Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the LA teachers union, UTLA, has been warning for months of “dangers” ahead, imploring his members to dig deeper in their pockets to fight them. He will soon find out if the message resonates among the union’s 35,000 members, now that ballots have gone out, asking for a $19 monthly raise...

It’s a such unique moment with the leadership of Sacramento that LAUSD should find a way to take advantage. That was the message from LA Unified board President Steve Zimmer to district staff at a board committee meeting yesterday: figure out how to ask for more money from the state, even more than the district’s fair...

LA Unified receives fewer public records requests per year than other governmental agencies or school districts of similar size, but district staff is now suggesting that the board consider pushing for legislation that would set a fee for complying with some of the requests. The recommendation came from Christine Wood, the assistant general counsel and...

Jayson Jones was my favorite person to call when I needed a substitute for my high-school English classes. Jayson was an aspiring teacher who was extremely popular with the students and related especially well with many of the at-risk kids. One day, I walked into the classroom at lunchtime, and he was sitting alone in...

It appears that the LA Unified school board is headed for a showdown with the giant chicken industry. As the second largest school district in the nation, LA Unified has traditionally been one of the largest purchasers of chicken in the country but in late 2014 adopted much stricter guidelines for the food it buys....

A delegation of educators from Beijing spent much of today visiting an Alliance College-Ready Public School to find out what they could incorporate into their curriculums. Members of the delegation seemed delighted in the idea of having a computer device for every student, which they don’t yet have in China. But, they were perplexed about...

By Alisha Kirby Approximately 44,000 school aged children in California will no longer be living in households considered low-income, according to the latest U.S. Census data, reflecting a positive shift since the recession ended nearly six years ago. While the number may seem impressive, the percentage decrease among children age five to 17 living in...

Some of LAUSD’s cafeteria freezers are more than three decades old. Some of the stoves in the kitchens don’t work anymore. The board has approved spending up to $856,635 to survey 477 public school cafeterias to see what needs to be upgraded, fixed or replaced. “Many of our kitchens are aged and have walk-in refrigerators...

A plan to improve Information Technology at LA Unified is close to getting every school wireless internet access and providing every student access to a computer. It’s a slower, more methodical strategy than the approach taken by former Superintendent John Deasy, which led to the botched $1.3 billion iPad program, an FBI investigation, his resignation and an abrupt end to the...

By Latosha Renee Guy “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eye of others…one ever feels his twoness—A teacher, and a teacher leader: two souls, two thoughts, two sometimes conflicting ideals in one body.” — The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois Driving home...