As we told you yesterday, the quarterly fundraising reports for city elections including LAUSD board members just came in. Monica Garcia, the sitting Board president, raised just over $75,000 in the last three months, bringing her fundraising total to $174,288. Of that, she’s spent $43,959, over half of which went to her campaign consultant, Charlotte Dobbs....

The rise of outside money in LAUSD board elections has coincided with a spate of negative campaign advertising in recent elections. It’s a tactic that nobody claims to enjoy, but it seems to work. So it’s likely the upcoming campaigns leading to the March LAUSD election will continue the trend. “Welcome to the brave new...

In recent weeks, Superintendent John Deasy has been warning about the dire circumstances confronting LAUSD if voters don’t approve one of the two measures to raise money for public education on the ballot in November.   However, even if Governor Jerry Brown’s Prop. 30 and Molly Munger’s Prop. 38 both pass, only the top vote-getter...

Today is the latest deadline for Board candidates to file campaign finance documents with the City Ethics Commission.  The quarterly reports will tell us how much money candidates for city offices raised between July 1 and September 30. As you may recall, there are three spots being contested — currently held by Board members Steve...

It was a slightly less crowded, slightly less emotionally charged LAUSD school board meeting Tuesday — at least compared to the last few, thanks largely to board member Steve Zimmer’s postponed resolutions rejecting the use of student achievement in teacher evaluations and scaling back charter school growth. That didn’t stop the meeting from lasting more...

Superintendent John Deasy delivered his “State of the District” speech Monday night at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools. He highlighted gains made by the district in recent years, including rising test scores and the highest-ever district-wide graduation rate. He then pivoted, somewhat jarringly, to a dire warning of what would happen to the LAUSD...

The clamor to support arts education in LAUSD just got a lot more visible with the launch of a $4 million ad campaign that will appear on public buses and bus stops though out the city. Arts education in Los Angeles has been drastically reduced for budgetary reasons and runs the risk of being altogether...

Late Monday afternoon, LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer announced an updated, much-softened charter school oversight proposal. It replaces the previous moratorium on new charter schools with a request for charters to “voluntarily delay requesting action on new charter applications” until a new oversight scheme can be developed. The new version also asks the Superintendent to...

While they recently agreed to a new contract with LAUSD, the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) lashes out at Superintendent John Deasy in the latest issue of their weekly newsletter about the district’s myriad plans and programs: “Plans, plans and more plans – Attendance, Safety, Single School, Accreditation, Common Core, Master, Discipline, Parent Involvement and Autonomy—all plans!...

When the Board meeting agenda came out last week, it initially included Board member Zimmer’s resolution regarding use of student achievement data to evaluate teachers (see PDF here).The Zimmer resolution sought to block LAUSD from using a new student achievement measurement called Academic Growth Over Time (AGT) when evaluating teachers – even in combination with other...