By Lee Hale My editor, Steve Drummond, isn’t that old of a guy. He’s from Michigan — Wayne Memorial High School, class of ’79. But when he starts talking about backpacks, he dips into a “back in my day” tone that makes you think of a creaky rocking chair and suspenders: “You know, Lee, when...

Where’s Zimmo? Dressed as the popular “Where’s Waldo” red-and-white-striped children’s book character, LA Unified School Board President Steve Zimmer took to the Vine Street Elementary School twice today to encourage parents and teachers to get involved in the superintendent’s search. He used his appearances to say he is extending the deadline for people to complete...

* UPDATED A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order against Alliance College-Ready Public Schools late yesterday, ordering its administration to cease stifling a unionization effort. The LA teachers union, UTLA, is currently attempting to unionize the teachers at the charter school organization, which is LA Unified’s largest with 27 schools and...

A survey by a civil rights group shows that Muslim students in California get bullied twice as much as the national average. The full report from the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) reflects interviews with more than 600 Muslim students, ages 11 to 18. It found that 55 percent of Muslim students have...

LA Unified board President Steve Zimmer has announced he will be wearing a Halloween costume tomorrow when he visits schools. Oh, it’s not to join festivities planned for many of the LA Unified schools. Rather, he wants to give one last-ditch effort to push people to provide input into the superintendent search by filling out a...

A resolution approved by the LA Unified school board on Oct. 13 didn’t receive a lot of attention, but the vote to approve a pilot program with the online company Schoology has the potential to completely change how students, teachers, parents and administrators interact. The resolution launches a two-year pilot program that will test an...

Sure, they can go to any of the community meetings. Sure, they can fill out a survey online. But, ultimately, outside groups say they want a seat at the table when deciding the next LA Unified school superintendent. At a special session after a closed session on Tuesday, the school board voted against a proposal...

By Louis Freedberg Against the backdrop of enthusiasm regarding new reforms underway in California, from the Common Core to the Local Control Funding Formula, the just-released scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, brought a brush with reality. Mirroring national results, scores in California on 4th-grade math dipped by 2 points and...

At his final appearance before LA Unified’s Committee of the Whole yesterday, chief lobbyist Edgar Zazueta introduced his successor — Leilani Yee. “I am terribly nervous because I don’t feel like I’m good at public speaking, like Edgar is,” Yee told the board, her first appearance as the heir apparent to the job — the board still...