The Los Angeles City Clerk’s Office may not announce the final roster of LAUSD Board candidates until as late as December 15, but here are the candidates who are qualified and/or awaiting final approval to run for school board: LA School Report will post the final lineup of LAUSD Board candidates once the City Clerk’s Office...

On Wednesday, the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced $25 million in grants to seven cities where charter schools and districts are working together in new and potentially effective ways.  Though LAUSD was one of the first districts to sign up for the Gates “compact” in December 2010, the district and its charter schools were...

From LA School Report contributor Hillel Aron, writing for the LA Weekly: “On the outskirts of LAUSD’s sprawling, mazelike Educational Service Center in Reseda sit seven long, shabby, peach-colored bungalows with barred windows and rotting wood, which all but scream Southern California public education. “In one of them is a roughly 35-square-foot room where 25 or...

SEIU Local 99 has endorsed Antonio Sanchez for school board in District 6, which covers the East San Fernando Valley, according to a longtime politico. The endorsement isn’t a huge surprise since Sanchez, a former employee of the LA County Federation of Labor, was always expected to be a union-friendly candidate. In addition to Sanchez, the...

There are lots of charter schools in LA, including some great ones and some not-so-great ones, but don’t think that LA has “more” of them than has become common in big cities around the country. As this new map from a national charter school association shows, lots of other cities have proportionately lots more charters...

As the 2013 race for three LAUSD School Board seats heats up, so will the political fundraising that pays for the candidates’ campaigns. Just as they have in recent elections, independent expenditure (IE) committees are again likely to eclipse direct donations to candidates’ campaigns. At least one IE committee is ahead of the game: UTLA-PACE,...

It was announced last week that Russlynn Ali, the Obama civil rights head within the US Department of Education, was leaving the administration after four years. Longtime LAUSD observers may recall Ali as head of the Education Trust – West and her work on efforts to expand AP access across the district. See EdWeek, Center for Public...

The 50-member UTLA Board of Directors [BOD] has recommended to the union’s House of Representatives that they endorse school board member Steve Zimmer, according to a teacher speaking to LA School Report on condition of anonymity, and it has also recommended that the House of Representatives endorse a handful of acceptable candidates in Districts 2 (Central and East Los...

According to multiple sources familiar with the fast-approaching LAUSD school board race, the competition for District 2, currently held by School Board President Monica Garcia, is likely to attract the most energetic attention from UTLA, the powerful teachers union. The candidate who may be the biggest challenge to Garcia is Annamarie Montañez.  The cousin of former...

Tomorrow, December 5,  is the deadline for LAUSD Board candidates to submit nominating petitions with at least 500 signatures to the City Clerk’s office in order to qualify for the March 2013 elections. There are 22 candidates who have declared their intent to run for a seat on the board. But as of this morning,...