This is a guest post by Jason Mandell, Director of Public Affairs at United Way of Greater Los Angeles Recently I was talking with someone about the city’s March 5th election, which includes three hotly contested school board races, and this was her response: “I don’t have children in public schools, so I don’t really care...

LAUSD Board candidates running for a District 2 seat representing East LA will participate tonight in the final candidate forum hosted by United Way of Greater LA. Most of the candidates — Annamarie Montanez, Abelardo Diaz, Isabel Vazquez, and incumbent LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia — are expected to appear at the forum. Robert Skeels has not confirmed,...

On Tuesday, the Coalition for School Reform announced an eye-popping $1 million contribution from Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City — whom LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa described in a press release as “the most important voice in education reform today.” UTLA denounced the Bloomberg contribution in a press release sent out Tuesday night, calling it...

On the grounds that wireless internet radiation “causes cancer,” six people showed up to Tuesday’s School Board meeting to protest a $500 million plan that will give all students and teachers portable computing devices by 2014. But it was all to no avail. In a strangely contention-less meeting — the last before the March 5 elections...

He may never have won direct control over LAUSD and he may or may not ever get a Cabinet appointment.  He may have only a few more weeks before his replacement is picked. But outgoing LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa still enjoys some big days on the education reform front. Today included news that Villaraigosa had...

LA School Report‘s unstoppable reporter, Hillel Aron, will be at today’s School Board meeting. You can follow our live updates here: As you already know from today’s morning news roundup, the issue of layoffs is likely to be a topic of serious debate.  For highlights of the other issues the Board is likely to debate, click...

New independent expenditure (IE) numbers posted late yesterday on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission website show a spike in spending on behalf of supported candidates, including $138,000 spent by UTLA-PACE, the political arm of United Teachers Los Angeles, the first such spending that’s been posted. In the meantime, the Coalition for School Reform has...

Challengers at last night’s District 2 debate in El Sereno rarely invoked School Board President Monica Garcia‘s name, even though she was sitting there onstage with them. But they attacked the incumbent indirectly, with vehement criticisms of LAUSD policies and decisions (regarding standardized tests,  charters schools and budget cuts) as well as Superintendent John Deasy, who...

Tonight’s District 2 School Board debate in El Sereno (see flyer here) is not one of the candidate forums that have been organized by United Way and sponsored by numerous nonprofits, but the Monday night event may be one of the first and only times incumbent School Board President Monica Garcia will appear on the...

The Coalition for School Reform has unveiled a somewhat curious new 30-second TV ad for District 4 School Board challenger Kate Anderson. Titled “Talking Benches,” most of it is devoted to blasting incumbent Steve Zimmer.  “Zimmer voted to fire 5,000 teachers,” says an incredulous narrator, “and cut basics like art and PE, while supporting the costliest building project in America...