Some think it is a threat to the public education system. Some welcome it. Members of the LA Unified school board have reacted quite differently to the announcement that the Broad, Keck and Walton Family Foundations are planning to expand the number of charter schools in the district to serve well beyond the 101,000 students...

The Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, attacked a proposed expansion of charter schools in LA Unified with a robo-call to district teachers from union president Alex Caputo-Pearl, vowing to fight the education reform foundations behind the effort. Mentioning Eli Broad by name in the call, Caputo-Pearl told the teachers that these groups, which include the Broad, Keck...

As the school year begins next week, Mónica Garcia is celebrating her 10th year on the LA Unified School Board and her 15th year working in District 2, where she served as an academic advisor. A lifelong East L.A. resident, her parents met at Stevenson Middle School in the 1950s and they remember more of...

LA Unified board member Mónica García, a leading voice for education reform efforts, said she is open to plans by a group of foundations that wants to expand the number of charter schools in the district well beyond the 285 that are now serving district students. “I’m open to any strategy that helps children and families. We...

Four Democratic California lawmakers joined forces yesterday to promote new bills aimed at creating more stringent regulation of the state’s charter schools. If passed, the package of bills would bring big changes to the charter schools, including a requirement that they be run as non-profits, that charters be considered government entities and that all of...

As part of its contract negotiations, the teachers union, UTLA, is asking LA Unified for a new approach to school oversight, a demand that seeks to move decisions on school management and operations into the collective bargaining process. In effect, the proposal would insinuate UTLA into areas now the sole province of the board and...

UPDATED* LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines has corrected a statement he made at Tuesday’s board meeting, telling the members in an email that he erred in saying charter schools receive more in state funding than traditional public schools. “One of the problems is the funding of charters versus regular schools. And the charters in the state get...

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) issued its annual report today on the growth of charter school enrollment, and the results show another year of significant increases both in LA Unified and across the country. For the 2013-14 school year, charter enrollment in LA Unified jumped 15 percent, giving the district a total...

* UPDATED If you are required to do it, is it still “volunteering”? That is the question at the heart of a report issued yesterday by Public Advocates, which researched 555 charter schools in California and found that 30 percent of them require parents to do work at the school for a set quota of...

The Los Angeles region has seen the largest increases in the state in new charter schools this academic year, with 33 new charters opening, according to data released today by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). With the growth in LA and elsewhere, California remains the state with the most charter schools and students in the nation....