Education Issues

Wendy Greuel And Eric Garcetti Debate, But Expected Fight On Education Fizzles

Mayoral candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti met on Thursday night for their first one-on-one debate. But on the hot topic of the week -- education reform -- an expected confrontation fizzled.Greuel did challenge Garcetti on the issue, but she passed up an opportunity to put Garcetti on the def ... More >>

LAUSD Superintendent Fires Lemon Teachers

Once nearly unheard of, heads are rolling under John Deasy

LAUSD School Board District 4 Election: Absentee Ballot Results Show Steve Zimmer Leading Kate Anderson

With just under 24,000 absentee ballots counted by the city clerk, incumbent Steve Zimmer has a significant 16-point lead over challenger Kate Anderson. Zimmer has tried as best he can to hold the middle ground between the teachers union and the reformers. But middle grounds are hard to come by in ... More >>

Eric Smidt, L.A. Dem who Owns Harbor Freight Tools, Gives $50,000 to Elect Kate Anderson, Antonio Sanchez and Monica Garcia to LAUSD

Eric Smidt must be L.A.'s least-written-about, super-rich, self-made guy pouring money into Democratic races in the U.S., and now he's given $50,000 to the Coalition for School Reform to elect Kate Anderson and Antonio Sanchez to the powerful LAUSD Board of Education, and to re-elect incumbent Monic ... More >>

Mayoral Candidate Kevin James and Education Reformers Speak Out About Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel's Silence on Parent Trigger

UPDATE, 5 p.m.: Eric Garcetti breaks silence on Parent Trigger. After the jump. UPDATE, 4 p.m.: Wendy Greuel tells L.A. Weekly she supports the Parent Trigger. Eric Garcetti is now the only mayoral candidate who remains to be silent. After the jump. After Los Angeles Unified School District board ... More >>

Los Angeles Unified School District Approves Historic Parent Trigger, L.A. Mayoral Candidates Weigh In Or Stay Mum

Elected board members of the Los Angeles Unified School District -- the second largest public school system in the country -- unanimously approved a Parent Trigger for the 24th Street Elementary School in West Adams. It's a first for L.A. Unified, and Los Angeles mayoral candidates are weighing in o ... More >>

The Waltons

10 Stupidest California Bills That Legislators Are Trying to Slam Through at Final Hour

The last possible moment for California's bumbling state senators and assemblymen to nudge their pet bills onto Governor Jerry Brown's desk is this Friday, August 31 at midnight. Needless to say, the state Capitol is in a state of fluttering papers/utter mayhem right now. It's hard enough to know ... More >>

Assembly Candidate Brian Johnson Appears Defeated; Education Reformers Spent $1.5 Million On Losing Effort

Update, Monday: Final update shows Johnson down by 31 votes. Waiting for Johnson to pull the plug.Brian Johnson -- the anointed candidate of the charter school movement -- appears headed to defeat in his costly race for the 46th Assembly District.With nearly all the ballots counted, Johnson, a Democ ... More >>

5 Crazy Sex Myths You Learned in High School

Once upon a time, I taught sex ed to high schoolers. Not to brag or anything, but I could roll a condom onto a banana in front of a classroom of 15-year-olds and maintain my composure. No big deal. What I had a harder time maintaining composure about, though, were the egregiously misguided myths a ... More >>

'Parent Trigger' School Reform Effort in Adelanto Attacked by Charter-Fearing Parents, Teachers, L.A. Times (Deja Vu)

Update, February 22: "'Parent Trigger' Petition Rejected by Adelanto School District After Teacher-Backed Rescission Campaign." A historic first for K-12 school reform might be chronicled tomorrow in the small desert town of Adelanto, two hours east of Los Angeles. If the Adelanto Unified Elementa ... More >>

One for the Books

Pulling the Trigger on Failing Schools

Parents aim for revolution — again

LAUSD Contract Deal Between John Deasy and Warren Fletcher: Bad Teachers Might be Ousted at Schools Freed from Old Rules

John Deasy, Los Angeles schools supe, might finally have something to grin about.​ By Hillel Aron It was a real kumbaya moment at the LAUSD school board today as Superintendent John Deasy and teachers union President Warren Fletcher held hands and announced that, after months of contract talks ... More >>

Eli Broad, L.A. Elite, Offers $250K Prize to Charter Schools That Serve Low-Income Kids

New YorkerEli Broad, lover of L.A. art and equality in education.​Opponents of the burgeoning charter-school industry like to paint it as a corporate wolf in "reform" clothing -- stealing money from struggling district-run schools while receiving an even steadier cash flow from billionaires. ... More >>

Progressives Find Religion on LAUSD Reform

Is this finally the tipping point in turning around LAUSD schools?

Gay History Bill: Why Is the Los Angeles Times Spreading Sex-Ed Lies Birthed by 'Stop SB 48'?

​Hide your little boys and girls... 'cause California's scheming, sexed-up politicians are about to sneak gay porn all up in their kindergarten classrooms! Heh. That's the gist of the "Stop SB 48" campaign, which seeks to repeal a new California law requiring the contributions of LGBT-identif ... More >>

Will Royals Will and Kate Pop into Las Familias Del Pueblo When Visiting Skid Row?

Ted SoquiAlice Callaghan of Las Familias del Pueblo​Prince William and his wife, Kate, are heading to Skid Row on Sunday to visit Inner-City Arts school, which is all fine and dandy. But we suggest the royal couple also hang out at Las Familias del Pueblo, the Skid Row childcare center with a ... More >>

Gloria Romero: Watching Out for the Kids

Yolie Flores, Departing L. A. Unified School Board Member, Got Pushback From Student Anti-Reform Pawns

Ted SoquiYolie Flores​Yolie Flores, lifelong voice for families and students, recently decided not to return to her chair on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board. Her disheartening enlightenment about the state of the district is chronicled in this week's L.A. Weekly print story 'The Educ ... More >>

Why Compton Unified Rejected the Parent Trigger (and Why It's in No Position To Do So)

YouTubeCUSD Board President Mae Thomas​On Tuesday night, as reported by the Weekly, the Compton Unified School District rejected a parent petition to change McKinley Elementary into a charter school. In this seven-page document, CUSD board members detail all the ways in which they feel the pe ... More >>

My Mondo Valentine

Parent Trigger Showdown in Compton Gets Increasingly Heavy; Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama M.I.A.?

Governor Jerry Brown​Update: Former state Sen. Gloria Romero accuses Compton Unified of strong-arming parents to stop charter school. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and another huge law firm join Parent Trigger effort pro bono. Things get increasingly heavy in Compton today when the McKinley Parent ... More >>

Compton's Parent Trigger Feud

PTA opposes charter school. Moms sick of McKinley Elementary fight back

Steve Zimmer Anti-Reform, Yolie Flores For Reform: The Stark LAUSD School Board Drama Unfolding After Historic ACLU Settlement

Anti-reformer Zimmer ​Steve Zimmer, elected by "sophisticates" on the Westside, is starkly shown as the leading anti-reformist on the LAUSD Board of Education in a fascinating LA Times story about how United Teachers Los Angeles got snookered by the pro bono American Civil Liberties Union, Pub ... More >>

Gloria Romero's Race to the Top

Can a scrappy L.A. reformist beat a big union to become Supe of California's schools?

California's Big Whiff on Education-Reform Money

What the hell led to the "Race to the Top" rejection from Obama?

New And Underperforming L.A. Schools To Be Run By Outside Groups

File photo.​Protesters gathered outside Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters Tuesday afternoon as its board of directors pondered recommendations to allow 10 outside operators to take over several new campuses and underperforming schools. United Teachers Los Angeles, the union rep ... More >>

LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons

Why firing the desk-sleepers, burnouts, hotheads and other failed teachers is all but impossible

County School For Juvenile Offenders Accused Of 'Abuse, Retaliation'

L.A. County Probation​The ACLU and an alliance of organizations are suing the county over its administration of the Challenger Memorial Youth Center for youths on probation, where education mandates are ignored and kids are neglected, the groups allege. The suit contends that the Lancaster sc ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Protest Student Claims Blackballing An "A" student says she was barred from delivering her school's valediction, and dropped from a tutoring job, because she participated in a sit-in against increased class sizes and the ending of college-prep courses. L.A. TimesCounty Air Doubles Cancer Risk An EPA ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

The Emptying Sky Both LAX and LA/Ontario airports are experiencing substantial decreases in their numbers of travelers, despite a wave of fare reductions. L.A. TimesFreeway With a View Rows of noise-break trees have been cut down by the side of the 405 Freeway in Sherman Oaks, and by an apartment co ... More >>

Oh Sandra, You Came and You Gave Without Taking

Ladies and Gentlemen, Canada's Perv Griffin!

Features

The Takeover King

Is Mayor V betraying his old-time union allies? Or rescuing L.A.’s troubled public school system? Whatever the answer, he faces the biggest risks of his political career.

The Battle for L.A. Unified

Antonio, Roy and the UTLA sharpen their swords

Fast One, Roy

Now that L.A.-schools chief got his school bond, he can watch enrollment drop by 100,000

The New Math of High School Graduation

School board passes A–G requirement

Reviving Education

Grassroots advocates for public schools are raising their voices — and getting heard

New Jack Activists

The Coalition for Educational Justice is fighting generations of neglect with a secret weapon — students

A Personal Triumph — AT RISK

Classroom aide who overcame cerebral palsy could lose job under school reform

Schools on Steroids

Some clues about education under Riordan and Schwarzenegger

He’s Back

This time, it’s the Riordan-ator

'The Main Problem Is the Role of Money in Politics'

Excerpts from an editorial-board interview with Arianna Huffington

An 'A' in Fraud

It was too good -- and too bad -- to be true. For three years, investigators conclude, Manual Arts High School administrators graduated ineligible students and tampered with students' grades

Dumb and Dumber

School board learns why shady deals are done in the shade

Letters

Whose Children Do We Cherish?

L.A. education advocates are raising the question — and, finally, getting answers