Ramon Cortines

LAUSD Superintendent Fires Lemon Teachers

Once nearly unheard of, heads are rolling under John Deasy

Ramon Cortines Had 'Adult' Relationship With District Manager Scot Graham: LAUSD Settles Sex Harassment Claim

Corrected to fix descriptions of the claim as a lawsuit. Headline has changed. See additional statements and info at the bottom. The L.A. public school system continues to appear dysfunctional after years and years of so-called reform, a board takeover by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his all ... More >>

LAUSD Hires Ex-Journo Stephanie Abrams as New Social-Media Director in Wake of Sex Scandal

One thing we can say about new L.A. Superintendent John Deasy, after a year on the job: He sure knows how to smooth over a scandal. After longtime Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt was arrested in early February for allegedly spoon-feeding his semen to third-graders, an explosion of similar ... More >>

Beth Barrett, Los Angeles Investigative Reporter, Wins Maggie Award for Best Public Service Series: The Dance of the Lemons

Award-winning Los Angeles journalist Beth Barrett​Investigative reporter Beth Barrett, the Los Angeles journalist whose scoop revealing that Antonio Villaraigosa was cheating on his wife caused him extensive political harm, has won the Maggie Award for Best Public Service Series, for her seari ... More >>

Can John Deasy Fix Huntington Park High?

LAUSD superintendent faces his first test at a disastrous, fractured school

L.A. Charter School Takeover: Teachers, Superintendant Cortines Defeated as Mayor, Reformers Get Their Way With 7 New Charters

Not this time, Cortines.​Private charter-school giants are pushing their way into the Los Angeles Unified School District one low-performing campus at a time -- or, as was the case yesterday, seven at a time, out of 13 district schools up for grabs. The Los Angeles Board of Education's reform ... More >>

School Reformer Yolie Flores Departs LAUSD to Fight From Outside

She forced through the most radical idea in recent lausd history. So why’s she leaving for a Bill Gates start-up?

LAPD Chief Says Jeffrey Stenroos, L.A. School Officer 'Shot in Chest' at El Camino High, Was Lying [UPDATED WITH PHOTO]

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who announced tonight that the officer-involved shooting may have been a farse​Updated after the jump with a PHOTO of Jeffrey Stenroos, who has admitted to shooting himself in the chest. Update: Word on the street is Stenroos probably shot himself. He's out of jail af ... More >>

El Camino High Police Shooting: Did LAPD Overreact? And Did Gardena High Shooting Receive Equal Attention?

Los Angeles Police DepartmentA composite of the El Camino cop shooter​Update: "LAPD Chief Says Jeffrey Stenroos, L.A. School Officer 'Shot in Chest' at El Camino High, Was Lying." The vast majority of media and community reaction to Wednesday's police shooting at El Camino High -- an unexpect ... 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 >>

First Day Of School Moved To Middle Of Hot L.A. Summer; On-Campus Ads Given The Thumbs-Up

School in August? Hot!​The Los Angeles Unified School District board did more in one meeting last night than it's done in months. (Still, theirs couldn't compete with Compton's. Hot damn.) Board members passed two major changes to L.A. schools: 1) The academic year will now start on Aug. 15, ... More >>

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 >>

A.J. Duffy should resign in wake of Ruelas suicide: UTLA chief, not the L.A. Times, is the rot in Southern California school wars

Does A.J. stand for a joke? ​Pipsqueak United Teachers Los Angeles chief A.J. Duffy, who has turned the L.A. teachers union into a national laughingstock and encouraged this region's teachers to think like infantile whiners, should resign after trying to blame the Los Angeles Times for the tra ... More >>

Has Ray Cortines Got Cojones?

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

L.A. School District Rescinds Plan To Charge Athletes for Tranportation

​L.A. public schools superintendent Ramon Cortines this week overturned a controversial district decision that would have charged parents of athletes $24 a year for game-day transportation. "I was livid this morning. ... I was not aware of this," Cortines told the Daily Breeze on Thursday.

Controversies Surround LAUSD's New Hire John Deasy

John Deasy​Board members of the Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to hire John Deasy as deputy superintendent yesterday, which will make him a major player in the operation of the nation's second largest public school system, and a possible successor to Superintendent Ramon Cortines. ... More >>

Voters Say No To Paying More Taxes For L.A. Public Schools

​County voters shot down a proposed tax that could have raised roughly $92.5 million for the struggling Los Angeles Unified School District. According to the Daily News, ballot Measure E would have added $100 per parcel to property owners' tax bills, saving the jobs of hundreds of teachers, ad ... 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 >>

On the Backs of Children

How UTLA's teacher-layoff rules are devastating inner-city L.A. schools

Layoffs Blocked At Trio Of L.A. Schools

​A day after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decried layoffs at a trio of struggling area public schools as discriminatory, a judge blocked the teacher cuts at the campuses, siding with an ACLU lawsuit's claims. The Wednesday ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Highberg ... More >>

Insiders Versus Charters at LAUSD

Strings were pulled, and Ramon Cortines was stopped by his own Board of Education

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 Grants Control Of Several Campuses To Outside Groups

LAUSDFile photo.​Despite a demonstration by members of the teacher's union, the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District Tuesday voted to roughly follow the recommendations of their superintendent and give some outside groups control of several campuses. A few exceptions were switched ... More >>

LAUSD's Cortines Resigns From $150,000-A-Year Side Gig

Ramon Cortines.​Los Angeles public schools chief Ramon Cortines on Thursday announced that he's resigning from a cushy, $150,000 a year side job because of the appearance of a conflict of interest. The Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent served on the board of schools supply c ... More >>

LAUSD Chief Benefits From Side Gig With LAUSD Supplier

Ramon Cortines.​LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines has been caught double dipping: According to the Los Angeles Times, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's man at the LAUSD has been serving on the board of schools supply company Scholastic, Inc., for about $150,000 a year. The company does $16 millio ... More >>

LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons

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

Expanding L.A. School District Shuts The Door On New Hires

​Even as the Los Angeles Unified School District is in the midst of a historic building boom that includes the massive and still-rising campus at the site of the Ambassador Hotel in Koreatown, Superintendent Ramon Cortines announced Monday that school hiring is being put in a deep freeze. He ... More >>

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

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

LAUSD's Finest: Los Angeles School Police

How an oblivious school board lets a tiny, scandal-ridden force endanger L.A. kids

Diva Debate, Percentage Points and Collective Comments on Cannibis

More Ozo, Pink Slips and Villaraigosa Misgivings

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Fixer-upper for Sale: $15 Million Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Ennis House in Los Feliz is being put up for sale. The nonprofit foundation with title to the house figures private ownership might save the troubled home from itself. L.A. TimesSchool Board Member Plays Hooky Long Beach Unified School Di ... More >>

Cortines' Many-Headed LAUSD Monster

Schools teeter on fiscal cliff while the superintendent tries "decentralization"

L.A. School Board OK's 8,846 Pink Slips

Faced with a rapidly deteriorating financial outlook (a $718 million budget shortfall), the Los Angeles Unified School District voted this afternoon to authorize up to 8,846 employee layoffs by the end of June. (About 2,000 teachers have already agreed to take early retirement.) While today's decisi ... More >>

Teachers' Union Marches Thursday

Last week A.J. Duffy, the president of the 48,000-member United Teachers of Los Angeles, appeared impatiently pleased. He'd just heard the news that school superintendent Ramon Cortines had decided not to decide who would be cut from the payroll in order to balance the L.A. Unified School District's ... More >>

Cortines: School's Not Out for LAUSD Teachers

On the day that California's unemployment rate continued to inch toward double digits, many L.A. Unified teachers are breathing a little easier following school superintendent Ramon Cortines' announcement that none will be laid off -- for the time being. Ten days ago the school board told Cortines h ... More >>

Chicago Schools vs. LAUSD

Their supe is Obama's new education man. Our supe is nice, but ...

Antonio's Kitchen Cabinet

A team advises the mayor how to fix troubled high schools. Most haven’t fixed any.

The Short Season of Howard Miller

School district’s No. 2 departs as suddenly as he arrived

Double-Standard Dick

School reformer Riordan is the mayor of inertia at the LAPD

Speech — Wild and Free

High cost of satire at Palisades High

Life Without Ramon

Massive changes await L.A. Unified

Letters

The Hot Seat

Ramon Cortines has Promised to Reinvent the City's Schools. But Can He Deliver?

Spacing Schools

Uh-oh! L.A.’s grand plan for creating classrooms won’t work

Rough Justice

L.A.'s school bureaucrats belong on the Belmont site

Bell Tolls for Belmont

L.A.’s bungled high school project finally done in by politics and money woes

Letters

Ruben Could Be Right

Forgotten reform plan of ousted L.A. schools chief could at least be a starting point

Pasadena’s Secret Sharers

Lawsuits suggest officials knew coach sought sex with boys