One election’s not even over before the next one begins. Candidates have to declare their intent to run in the March 2013 municipal elections with the city clerk’s office. this week.  So far in District 2, candidates include Michelle “Hope” Walker, Robert D. Skeels, Mónica García (the incumbent and sitting school board president), Eleanor García, and Isabel Vazquez....

Looking for an independent source of information about how LAUSD is doing?  You might want to check out Ed-Data, which is managed by the Education Data Partnership and recently uploaded 2011 – 2012 Academic Performance Index (API) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores for school districts across the state. As you can see, LAUSD’s API score showed...

There’s a Friday deadline for teachers to nominate themselves to become part of the union’s House of Representatives, according to NewTLA, the progressive caucus within UTLA encouraging members to sign up for the job.  Though previous elections have often been uncontested, there are a number of standing committees, and in the past the HoR has even...

On Friday, the first hearing will be held in the Vergara v. California, the lawsuit that, in terms of its massive size and scope, one union lawyer described “Doe v. Deasy on steroids.” Brought about by an organization called Students Matter, which is funded by wealthy tech entrepreneur David Welch, the suit takes aim at five laws in...

Lots of school districts besides LAUSD failed to come to agreement with teachers unions about applying for the district version of Race to the Top funding from Washington. However, thanks to an all-out effort and a fair bit of compromise, Fresno was able to win an agreement with its local union, as were Denver, Las Vegas, and even...

This coming June, Los Angeles will lose arguably its most education-focused Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. What happens next isn’t very clear. As this recent Huffington Post entry describes (Being Education Mayor Is Different in LA), Villaraigosa never won control of the LA school system but he did start a nonprofit effort to help fix schools, and recruited...

Superintendent John Deasy submitted the district’s Race to the Top application to Washington yesterday without the support of UTLA — and without any real chance of wining approval — largely to score political points against the teachers union, according to Board-watchers. “I think both sides are ready to fight each other full steam on Tuesday [after the...

Two of the 23 schools recently stripped of their API rankings by the state for testing irregularities were elementary schools located in LAUSD, and three more were located within LA County.  You can read the irregularity reports for the two LAUSD schools (Capistrano Avenue and Short Avenue) posted by the LA Times here, or read the...

Starting Monday, November 5, LAUSD Board candidates for the District 2, 4, and 6 seats can take the next necessary steps towards running for office by filing a “Declaration of Intention to Become a Candidate” with the City Clerk’s office. Official announcement here. Official candidate and election information here. But they shouldn’t wait too long.  Prospective candidates have less than a...

Not too far removed from the seven-day strike that captured the nation’s attention in September, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has signed off on the district’s Race to the Top application. “Chicago — one of the most militant teachers unions in country — sees the light of day, and UTLA is still hiding under a...