Three days after the Obama administration warned that thousands of low-income California children would be shut out of federally funded Head Start preschool programs, the California Department of Education announced today distribution of $25 million in state “restoration” funds. The state money is intended to salvage preschool services as part of the California State Preschool Program, which...

A new state law changing the language of layoff notices is winning praise from Richard Vladovic, president of the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education. Vladovic had called for the changes after receiving complaints from employees in his district who interpreted the layoff notice as an accusation they committed some kind of offence. “In the...

The teachers union has filed an unfair labor practice charge against LA Unified over the new teacher evaluations. The union took the complaint to the Public Employment Relations Board, or PERB, a quasi-judicicial state agency that hears public employee disputes. In addition to the legal action, the union has distributed letters for teachers to give to their...

http://vimeo.com/72350730 “We The Parents” chronicles the story of parents in Compton, who, in the face of a failing elementary school, used California’s fledgling “Parent Trigger” law to make major changes at McKinley Elementary School. Director James Takata is appearing at the film’s last screening in Los Angeles to take questions from the audience — click here...

Capitol Weekly’s annual Top 100 list — what it calls a “subjective ranking of unelected political players” — is out, and for the second year in a row, Joe Nunez, the head of the California Teachers Association, is #2, just behind Ann Gust, who is Governor Jerry Brown‘s wife. The paper called the 325,000 member...