Just over a year ago, I won re-election to the Los Angeles Unified School District board. It was an unlikely victory in what may have been the most expensive school board race in U. S. history. The wealthiest of self-styled reformers – Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Michael Bloomberg and Michelle Rhee’s followers – put in over $4-million...

As if this wasn’t a busy enough time of year for charter schools, they now have an added “to-do” on their list of state mandated documents to submit before the end of the year. Every charter school in the district — and that includes 52 affiliated and more than 200 independent schools — must craft...

A week after his education liaison left to join LA Unified, Mayor Eric Garcetti is reconsidering whether he will even have an education deputy on his staff. Jeff Millman, spokesman for Garcetti, told LA School Report the mayor’s office “has not decided” if it will seek a replacement for Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, who...

Do you know how many students attended the LAUSD school board meetings last month? In my circle of friends, you’d be lucky if a single person could name a school board member or tell you what the school board does. As an active LAUSD student who cares about my community, I wonder how the second-largest...

SEIU Local 99, one of the most powerful and influential unions in the LA Unified School District, is holding an exclusive forum next week for union members to meet the candidates running for the open District 1 board seat. With more than 30,000 cafeteria workers, special education assistants, custodians, bus drivers and others, the union...

The defense rested its case today in Vergara v. California after an examination of an LA Unified administrator that was designed to show that the state laws under challenge did not impede the district’s effort to get rid of ineffective teachers. On Monday, court resumes with the plaintiffs’ opening a short rebuttal phase of the trial,...

The board of directors of the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, voted last night to recommend that the union endorse three teachers for the vacant District 1 board seat. The special election is June 3. In recommending Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, Rachel Johnson and Hattie McFrazier, a retired teacher, the board chose to withhold endorsing the fourth teacher in...

The battle to influence the Los Angeles Unified School board on how to spend Governor Jerry Brown’s new Local Control Funding Formula budget boost and statewide tax revenues for education continues to rage on. Parents, educators and community organizers rallied outside of LA Unified headquarters today before a special school board meeting primarily focussed on...

The Los Angeles Unified School District is losing an average of 2.6 percent of students attending traditional public schools — that’s about 56,000 kids — and it’s costing the district hundreds of millions dollars each year. By the current formula, which calculates how much money goes to districts based on student attendance, about $292.4 million will...

Not only are students at Western Elementary School in south Los Angeles learning the basic math, reading and writing skills, but they’re also learning how to be good digital citizens. LA Unified, its Common Core Technology Project (CCTP) team, the Common Sense Media team along with students, parents, staff, and elected officials kicked off the...