Last month’s New York Times Sunday Magazine feature story about students, stress, and standardized testing included an anecdote about Bright Star Charter Academy student Armando Rodriguez.  Rodriguez loves competition and generally thrives under pressure, but didn’t feel so good when he took the SATs: Occasionally, he’d look up from his exam to see everyone else working on their...

At first glance, the upcoming District 6 (East San Fernando Valley) runoff election between Antonio Sanchez and Monica Ratliff looks like it might share many similarities to the District 5 election two years ago. The 2011 runoff (for an area running from Los Feliz to Maywood) pitted reform candidate Luis Sanchez (no relation to Antonio) against...

For all the time and effort spent trying to unseat District 4 School Board member Steve Zimmer in the primary, the Coalition-funded TV ad campaign relied almost entirely on the single “Talking Benches” ad.  Here’s an alternative that might have had more effect — or backfired: a YouTube video showing  Zimmer touting his independence at the...

In September, I was talking about pension reform on my now-defunct weekly podcast, LA Redux with the LA Times’ David Zahniser, who covers City Hall (and is in my opinion one of the best reporters in Los Angeles). Zahniser said that he hardly ever uses the word ‘reform,’ in his stories, although editors sometimes ad it in. “‘Reform’ is just...

As you can see, life at Westeros Valley High is pretty brutal. You don’t really have to know much about Game of Thrones to enjoy. Via ONTD

As you may recall, Tuesday’s LA Times included an editorial calling for LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy to change the guideline he recently issued to principals that called for student achievement to be no more than 30 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. Thirty percent was perhaps too high a figure, according to the Times, and had been...

At the LAUSD Board meeting this Tuesday, March 19, Board Member Bennett Kayser is slated to introduce a resolution that would create new rules governing how new magnet schools are created — and who has the authority to approve them. Under the Kayser proposal, a majority of the full-time, unionized teaching staff at a school...

The union political action committee charged with re-interviewing District 6 runoff candidates last night voted narrowly to remove Antonio Sanchez and make Monica Ratliff its sole endorsed candidate for the May 21 runoff — but fell well short of the two-thirds majority required to make the recommendation official. UTLA’s governing body, the House of Representatives,...

In anticipation of tonight’s UTLA House of Representatives debate over the union’s District 6 runoff endorsements, an anonymous tipster sent LA School Report a copy of a flyer sent out by District 6 candidate Monica Ratliff during the primary campaign that touts her support from Republican LA County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and describes her as “the Republicans’...

In the last few days, many explanations have been tossed about for the Coalition for School Reform’s failure to unseat incumbent Steve Zimmer and replace him with challenger Kate Anderson in last week’s School Board election: Some have blamed a backlash against out-of-state money given by the likes of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch. Others...