Superintendent Ramon Cortines has suspended all out-of-town travel and off-campus meetings for LA Unified’s teachers, administrators and classified staff, calling the time away from the classroom “unacceptable.” Cortines, who has wasted no time issuing new directives to the staff that he inherited this month from John Deasy, relayed the decision today in a letter to employees,...

Amid reports that LA Unified staff experts were working through the weekend to determine the cause of errors in some student transcripts, Superintendent Ramon Cortines issued a letter to parents today, ensuring them that issues will be addressed. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the experts were attempting to determine if the problems were...

Barely a week into his job as LA Unified superintendent, Ramon Cortines is pushing back against the school board that hired him, voicing opposition to using any more of the $1.3 billion in bond money to buy digital devices equipped with curriculum for use in classroom instruction. Three times since his first day on the...

In his first open address to the LA Unified school board since he was rehired as superintendent last week, Ramon Cortines promised accountability, transparency and constant communication. “I know the buck stops here,” he told the seven members during a brief address that included an update on the district’s flawed student data software program, MiSiS....

In case there were any chance LA Unified‘s new superintendent, Ramon Cortines, had forgotten just how bizarro school board meetings can be, his first one back today as head of the district included accusations of embezzlement, murder and sexual harassment. Welcome back, Mr. Superintendent. While the school board voted unanimously to approve the $300,000 a year contract Cortines...

Now that John Deasy has stepped down as superintendent of LA Unified, replaced on an interim basis by Ray Cortines, it’s open season on speculating who might be considered as a permanent superintendent. In the second largest district in the nation, the challenges of finding a candidate who is qualified, interested in the job and gels with the...

A tutoring company billing itself as “The trusted name for specialized tutoring” may not be so trustworthy after all. Unless, that specialty is in defrauding the federal government. The Academic Advantage, whose website is endorsed by The Governator himself — Arnold Schwarzenegger — and former LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, was busted scamming millions from federal...