LAUSD Board Member Nury Martinez is hosting a town hall meeting in the San Fernando Valley on Saturday, October 27 to educate parents and community members about how propositions on the upcoming election ballot will affect LA schools. Martinez will speak along with LAUSD’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Megan Reillyhas, about the drastic budget cuts...

A new article in The American Prospect magazine traces Teach For America’s efforts to support its former teachers who want to run for public office (and who generally adhere to a common set of education priorities including charter schools, teacher effectiveness, test-based school accountability. The article includes a link to LA School Report’s recent interview with LAUSD board...

There are two likely opponents running against Steve Zimmer – Jeneen Robinson and Kate Anderson, a handful of candidates who have already filed official papers to run against Monica Garcia, and rumors but no names yet for the spot being vacated by the departing Nury Martinez. But these incumbents and their opponents won’t be doing all the campaign planning, strategy, and media...

There’s a big City Hall event this morning hosted by the California Charter Schools Association. There are now nearly 1,100 charters in the state, and LA added 40 new ones this year alone. (See AP story: California Sees Record Number of New Charter Schools). It’s the 20th anniversary of the charter school concept — semi-autonomous public schools with more...

Last week, the Wall Street Journal Magazine gave out its innovator awards, and among the recipients was Eric Eisner (pictured). Eisner has a program called Young Eisner Scholars and has been written up before in the Huffington Post & Vanity Fair. According to the press release (below), Eisner was recognized by the WSJ Magazine for “his work recruiting, tutoring and...

The helpful blog Hope Change Choices reminds parents and others not to forget that November 16 is the deadline to apply to magnet schools. That might seem like it’s a long way off, but it’s really just three weeks from tomorrow.  They’ve got a “one stop” set of links and calendars to help you go...

The deadline for the fourth round of school proposals for Public School Choice (PSC) is due next week, on October 31. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has identified 13 low-performing schools to participate in what is called PSC 4.0.  This is a decrease from the previous year, when 33 schools were part of the process. Only...

In a Friday memo to the school board, Superintendent John Deasy has outlined the “devastating” financial impacts on LAUSD should Proposition 30 (Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed tax measure) not pass. Deasy says that the only way the district could deal with such drastic cuts is by ending the school year “shortly after April.” The district would...

LAUSD school board member Bennett Kayser will host a town hall on Wednesday night, October 24, at 6 PM to talk about Propositions 30 and 38. Kayser introduced a non-binding resolution at the August 21 board meeting to endorse both tax measures (see School Board To California Voters: Send Money). Read the press release here.

Mediator Don Raska has been appointed to try to help resolve the teacher evaluation negotiations between LAUSD and the teachers union (UTLA), according to a UTLA newsletter. The October 19th issue of the United Teacher states that, “the union continues to push back against LAUSD’s proposal to link a percentage of a teacher’s evaluation to...