LA School Report has learned that parents at 24th Street Elementary School, in concert with Parent Revolution, have been gathering signatures for a so-called “parent trigger” petition to revamp the struggling school and plan on delivering it to LAUSD offices this week. Mayor Villaraigosa is a vocal proponent of the parent trigger, along with a...

LAUSD School Board candidate Kate Anderson is officially launching her campaign this Saturday, January 12 at her new offices in Mar Vista. Anderson is challenging incumbent Steve Zimmer in District 4 – which stretches from the Pacific Palisades to Hollywood. Volunteers will have a chance to do some canvassing, calling, and on-the-ground campaigning. To view...

The Tuesday, January 15 board meeting promises to be even longer than usual, as it is packed with no less than 20 votes on various charter school issues and a slew of other controversial issues. For example, Board Members Tamar Galatzan and Nury Martinez are scheduled to propose a resolution related to speedy dismissal of...

The most recent quarterly campaign fundraising numbers are in (courtesy of the wonderful City Ethics Commission’s website), and the big winners so far are school board President Monica Garcia and challenger Kate Anderson. These figures cover direct contributions to the candidates’ campaigns, which are capped at $1,000 per person, through December 31. They don’t include...

One of the biggest problems with the student transfer provision under the federal No Child Behind (NCLB) Act is has been that it relies on the school system both to inform parents of their right to transfer their child out of a failing school and to pick the schools they can transfer to. California’s 2010 Open...

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy praised the budget proposal California Gov. Jerry Brown released today, saying in a press release, “the changes announced today are quite positive for our students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.” In his proposal, Governor Brown would fund school districts based on the number of its students and the level...

What would a monthly school board meeting be without at least one shot across the bow from one board member to another? According to the just-released morning agenda for the Tuesday January 15 meeting (see here), board member Marguerite LaMotte will introduce a resolution limiting the School board President’s term to two consecutive years. Currently, the position of president...

“When you were a kid you imagined that your teachers lived in closets and subsisted on coffee grinds and eraser gum,” notes this LA Weekly item (Cassandra McGrath’s Stories to Make You Cry).  Instead, the 28 year-old teacher has published an anthology of stories called “Rising From The Ashes,” featuring the work of former Belmont High School...

United Teachers Los Angeles announced in the latest edition of its weekly newsletter that it plans to push back harder against LAUSD’s so-called “teacher jails,” where teachers accused of misconduct are sent to wait while the district investigates their cases. As LA School Report contributor Hillel Aron wrote in a recent LA Weekly report, teachers sent to “jail” are usually...

A study released Tuesday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation showed that the controversial method of measuring teachers’ effectiveness with students’ test scores can be useful, but only when balanced with other factors, such as student feedback and classroom observation. Teachers unions, including UTLA, have long insisted that grading teachers based on their student...