Teachers should be given more leadership roles with real authority, including the power to evaluate other teachers and set agendas for meetings, a new study concludes. And while leadership opportunities for teachers is on the rise, the study says, without proper structure and implementation, the leadership roles often fail to have a positive impact on...

Via The New York Times | By Frank Bruni  More than halfway through Joel Klein’s forthcoming book on his time as the chancellor of New York City’s public schools, he zeros in on what he calls “the biggest factor in the education equation.” It’s not classroom size, school choice or the Common Core. It’s “teacher quality,”...

Superintendent Ramon Cortines has suspended all out-of-town travel and off-campus meetings for LA Unified’s teachers, administrators and classified staff, calling the time away from the classroom “unacceptable.” Cortines, who has wasted no time issuing new directives to the staff that he inherited this month from John Deasy, relayed the decision today in a letter to employees,...

The scene of a fatal tragedy near a Hollywood middle school eight months ago was populated yesterday by city leaders, parents and students who celebrated new safety improvements at the site and a pilot program aimed at improving pedestrian safety near local schools. A woman was killed and her 10-year-old daughter injured when they were...

Governor Jerry Brown today dropped by John Marshall High School to talk about energy efficiency and the millions of dollars LA Unified schools can expect to receive from the state as a result of Proposition 39. The governor, who’s up for re-election next week, was on the Los Feliz campus with Tom Steyer, the Democratic...

LA Unified is unveiling a new program today, one directed at a small group of students with exceptional needs: those returning to schools from juvenile justice programs. Designed to serve students from probation camps, juvenile halls and residential situations, the program aims at helping them mount a successful return to school, with a special emphasis...

Via The Los Angeles Times | By the Editorial Board With John Deasy no longer in charge at the Los Angeles Unified School District, the school board needs a new superintendent who shares his passion for improving the lives of children in poverty, but not his adversarial approach or his refusal to listen to critics....

LA Unified high school seniors counting on grant money to attend state colleges and universities got a reprieve today as the district announced a month-long extension for when student grade information needs to be verified for financial aid. Merit-based Cal Grants require that the school district verify a student’s grade point average (GPA), and the...

Time magazine is in hot water with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and other teacher unions over what they say is an unfair and misleading cover. On its Facebook page, UTLA posted a link to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) online petition that calls for Time to “apologize to America’s teachers for the misleading and...