Los Angeles Unified School District

Los Angeles Unified School District Braces For First Parent Trigger Take Over

Los Angeles Unified School District will finally become a target of a Parent Trigger, a California law that allows parents to take over a failing school in which their children attend, according to L.A. School Report. Parents at 24th Street Elementary School, with the help of Los Angeles-based educ ... More >>

Why L.A. Schools Should End Their Ban on Hugging

By Dr. Paul Abramson and L.J. Williamson Riot Act is a semi-regular column that challenges conventional wisdom in controversial issues Last month, Tennessee, the state where Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old first cousin and John Thomas Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution, made waves ... More >>

A Child Left Behind

Paul Chapel, Ex-Teacher at Telfair Elementary, Is Latest Alleged Molester That LAUSD Kept Under Wraps

Seriously, what is with all these old men (allegedly) touching kids at L.A.'s low-income schools? The October 8 arrest of a former third-grade teacher at Telfair Elementary -- Paul William Chapel, 50 -- is the latest big reveal in the media hunt for more LAUSD child molesters, after Miramonte Eleme ... More >>

LAUSD's Adult Schools May Be Cut From Budget Entirely: Protesters Rally in Defense of 350,000 Endangered Students

KCETEvans' marquee may go blank next year.​By far the most concerning cut on the Los Angeles Unified School District's most recent budget proposal: The entire Division of Adult and Career Education. If all the adult schools and career centers are eliminated, as planned, close to 350,000 stude ... More >>

Boyle Heights High-Schoolers Plan 4-Mile Walkout to LAUSD Board Meeting Over School Bus Cuts

flickriverNo more school buses in Los Angeles?​A few hundred students from Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Boyle Heights will trudge over four miles through whizzing downtown streets today. Fittingly, the brave urban hike will end in a plea to local Board of Education members: Don't you d ... More >>

Outing Lemon Teachers at LAUSD

33,000 teachers, now always stamped "satisfactory," might finally get graded

Charter Schools Do-Over

Preferred-parent policies get the ax

Progressives Find Religion on LAUSD Reform

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

More L.A. Leaders Come Out Against Teachers Union, in Support of 'Don't Hold Us Back' Reform at LAUSD

The L.A. Civic Alliance gives this ad -- which recently appeared in the Times, Daily News and La Opinion -- a big fat thumbs up.​In case you haven't heard, the door to much-needed education reform in L.A. will either be thrown open or slammed shut this fall. More specifically, the Los Angeles ... More >>

California Has Most Failing Schools in Nation

PHOTO BY TED SOQUIOnly 3 percent of kids at McKinley Elementary in Compton will go to college one day​Here, we'll give you the good news first: The U.S. Department of Education is handing out $3.5 billion to the America's worst-performing schools this year! And lord (slash Obama) knows they n ... More >>

Huntington Park High School Becomes Guinea Pig for Radical LAUSD Reform: 50 Percent of Teachers to Get the Boot

Huntington Park High School Alumni Association​Updated after the jump: Hundreds of Huntington High students walk the four miles to LAUSD headquarters to fight for their teachers. Here's where the reform debate gets sticky. Usually, teacher cuts can be blamed on the recession -- but these are ... More >>

LAUSD Follows Lead of Los Angeles Times, Adopts New Value-Added Method of Grading Student Progress, Teachers

Sean TeagardenThe dance is over for LAUSD's lemons ​Updated after the jump with the differences between the Times' and LAUSD's grading criteria. When the Los Angeles Times unrolled a list of 6,000 Los Angeles teachers, ranked in order of whose students were showing the most improvements on st ... More >>

Kirk Spiegel, Second-Grade Teacher at LAUSD's Pinewood Elementary, Commits Suicide off 210 Freeway Overpass

FacebookSecond-grade LAUSD teacher Kirk Spiegel​Updated throughout. Early this morning around 2 a.m., 49-year-old Kirk Spiegel -- a Los Angeles Unified School District employee, according to LAUSD -- jumped to his death off the 210 freeway overpass in La Canada Flintridge. "He was a second-g ... More >>

Political Action Group MoveOn Holds 'Rally to Defend American Dream:' Urging Senators to Ease Proposed $100 Billion Budget Cuts

Adrienne Hatrick, retired city employee, believes in 'the people that brought you the weekend.' ​Yesterday evening MoveOn, a political action group, hosted a "Rally to Defend the American Dream" outside of the west side's Palms Ranch Library. The message? It was for Senators Barbara Boxer an ... More >>

March 8 2011 Los Angeles Election Results at Your Fingertips: Click Here for Winners and Losers

Will Mona Field, a college trustee for years, be called to account by voters?​Beginning at 8:30 pm tonight, the Los Angeles City Clerk will issue the first Election Day results for seven Los Angeles City Council races where Jose Huizar, Bernard Parks, Tom LaBonge and other long-timers face ch ... More >>

How Is Firing 5,000 LAUSD Teachers Preferable to Chipping at Their Huge, Union-Protected Health Benefits?

Merry Retirement​Either we're missing something here, or this is the biggest no-brainer in the history of L.A. education (teehee, oxymoron). The Los Angeles Unified School District is facing at least a $408 million budget shortfall for the 2011-12 school year. No matter what, someone -- make ... More >>

Gardena High Student Trendell Gholar: School Officials Locked Me in Nurse's Office for 40 Minutes With Gunshot Wound to Neck

Gardena High, located in Harbor Gateway​When a 17-year-old Gardena High School student brought a gun to school last week and "accidentally" shot two of his classmates, the chaos that ensued -- police influx, lockdown, manhunt -- may have overshadowed the most basic needs of one victim. The bu ... More >>

LAUSD School Board Promotes John Deasy To Superintendent -- Without So Much As A Job Interview

John Deasy, man of the hour​Well, we were right: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's superintendent of choice made it past the L.A. School Board yesterday. Board members voted him in 6-0; only Steve Zimmer, of Board District 4, abstained. John Deasy will now be promoted from deputy superintendent to ... More >>

ATTEMPTED LYNCHING

Melrose Elementary Kids Get Their Hands Dirty with Woolly School Gardens and Chef Andrea Cavaliere El Cholo Feeds Teachers Tonight

J. RitzChef Andrea Cavaliere from Cecconi's and schoolyard gardeners in training.​ There must be statistics, somewhere, detailing the amount of chain link fencing in the possession of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It seems entirely possible that the sum of the practical-yet-dreary ... More >>

Has Ray Cortines Got Cojones?

If not, LAUSD board could buckle to union over L.A. Times teacher-test-score expose

Slate's Jack Shafer Weighs In On L.A. Times LAUSD Education Series

Jack Shafer​Slate's Jack Shafer, the online magazine's raffish, tough press critic, looked at the L.A. Times ongoing education series and gave it a rousing endorsement. To review, the reporters have created a database using math and reading scores and then conducted a "value-added analysis" th ... More >>

Will LAUSD Ever Adopt Merit Pay For Teachers?

Michelle Rhee, the hard-charging chancellor of Washington D.C.'s public school system, won a major battle over performance-based pay the other day, which now ties teachers' salaries to classroom results not seniority and improves teacher evaluations. LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines​That news c ... More >>

L.A. School District Decries Arizona's Immigration Law; Board President Says It's 'Un-American'

​The Los Angeles Unified School District's board late Tuesday approved a resolution denouncing Arizona's controversial immigration law, a move that puts it in line with the city and county of Los Angeles. The move will also have the district explore how to cut economic ties with Arizona-based ... More >>

Villaraigosa Decries Teacher Layoffs At Los Angeles Unified Schools

​Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday decried layoffs at the Los Angeles Unified School District because, he argued, they often end up leaving the most vulnerable schools with the newer, less-experienced teachers. At a press conference scheduled Tuesday afternoon the mayor was expected to "c ... More >>

L.A. Country Club Pays Ultra Low Property Tax Rate; Faces Possible Review

​The Los Angeles Country Club, protected under Prop. 13 limits and loopholes, pays an ultra-low rate of about $200,000 a year in property taxes based on 313 acres of prime Westside property that could be worth nearly $20 billion or even more if it were developed, according to the Garment & Cit ... More >>

Will Mayor Be Emboldened To Dive Into Gov's Race?

A Los Angeles Times/USC poll over the weekend stated that California Democrats are not happy with having only one major gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown, who has not even officially announced his intent to run in 2010. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's withdrawal from the race last month made t ... More >>

L.A. Medical-Pot Shops Peddle to LAUSD Pupils

As kids flood weed outlets, Ramon Cortines admits there's no plan

Girl Shot at New Helen Bernstein High School in Hollywood

It's a gorgeous high school just off the 101 Freeway, lauded a few years ago by school officials as the new face of once-rundown Hollywood and named after Los Angeles education reformer Helen Bernstein.But earlier today a girl was shot and seriously wounded when she got in the crossfire of street ga ... More >>

Is a Fat Tax the Solution to California's Economic Woes?

Americans are fat, and they are getting fatter. A recent study by the Urban Institute and the University of Virginia says that unless consumption patterns change, 40 percent of the country's population will be overweight or obese by 2015. Even here in the Golden State, where body image is so importa ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

This Property Is Condemned As had been predicted following massive fourth-quarter losses, Mereulo Maddux Properties, the largest owner of downtown L.A. properties, is seeking bankruptcy protection. L.A. TimesHate Is Enough Progressive radio station KPFK 90.7 FM has temporarily suspended its "La Caus ... More >>

Ramon Cortines' bizarre letter to Schwarzenegger

Somebody provided us the strange letter Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines purportedly sent today to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, about the governor's plan to allow school districts to reduce the school year, increase class size, and/or drop a key science course tha ... More >>

Stage Raw: Arts Freeze

ARTS FREEZE FOR THE HOLIDAYS In a cost-cutting measure, the Los Angeles Unified School District has frozen district funds until the state legislature returns to Sacramento in January to sort out the State budget gridlock. Arts for L.A. has been quick to point out that the freeze includes existin ... More >>

Shutting Down Public-Access TV

AT&T and L.A. City Hall quietly lead a national push to silence the little guy

L.A. Architecture: What We Lost in 2007

In a tear-down city, bulldozers and redesigners reigned

Ferris Bueller's Off Day

Summer-school students pillory Sacramento’s latest crop of dropout reforms

Come Home, Wayward Angelenos

Antonio’s call to the faithful

Power Grabs Antonio Villaraigosa Should Make Once He's Done With the Schools

the Truancy Files

E. Raymond Brown, Ghetto Fabulist

First-time author and South Los Angeles native

Statement of Wendell Greer

Handy Print-Out Voters Guide

Fiasco This!

The crime of politics robs students of a school

The Belmont Site Cannot Be Made Safe

It is both unique and uniquely dangerous

Abandon Belmont

L.A. Unified can’t be trusted to handle this risk

Offer They Can Refuse

Gas Attack

The district’s Belmont strategy heads for a blowup

Los Angeles' Shuttered School Yards

Special Inquiry at LAUSD

School officials cleared of bogus records; questions remain