New research sponsored by the National Academy of Education seeks a deeper understanding of  why there are so few black male teachers in U.S. public schools. The backdrop for the work by Travis Bristol of Teachers College, Columbia University and Ron Ferguson of the Harvard Achievement Gap Initiative is the startling fact that black males, who are six percent of the...

In the note Jaime Aquino circulated last week, he blames his decision to resign on a “political climate” that blocks his ability to lead in a way he views as effective. He names no names, but he was clearly not happy with a decision to postpone implementation of Common Core, one of his prime directives. Here’s...

Sometime in hour five of yesterday’s marathon LA Unified school board meeting, the board approved a new set of guidelines to help principals, teachers and parents navigate the complex Parent Trigger process. That’s the state law allowing parents to take over a failing school and force a complete overhaul, so long as a majority of...

Meeting tomorrow for the second time in the new school year, the LA Unified school board will plunge back into a thorny debate over how to spend millions of new dollars flowing into the district from the state. It might not be pretty. Superintendent John Deasy is expected to respond to the board’s June directive to...

The teachers union has filed an unfair labor practice charge against LA Unified over the new teacher evaluations. The union took the complaint to the Public Employment Relations Board, or PERB, a quasi-judicicial state agency that hears public employee disputes. In addition to the legal action, the union has distributed letters for teachers to give to their...