LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King signed off on new health benefits for teachers assistants and playground aides even though the agreement stated that it will help push district reserves into the red by half a billion dollars within two years. And the question in the document asking how the district would replenish those reserves was left blank....

By Judy Lin More than 50 civil rights and education reform groups are using Jerry Brown to remind Jerry Brown of his pledge to help black and Latino students following an interview with CALmatters in which he suggested that disparities will persist despite government intervention. In a letter dated May 3, dozens of advocacy groups...

California’s new education budgeting process, known as Local Control Funding Formula, was designed to shrink the achievement gap among students by funneling more money to schools’ neediest pupils, but a year-long study of LA Unified shows the district has so far failed to fulfill that mission. The report by UC Berkeley and Communities for Los...

Gov. Jerry Brown had a few words to say about public education in his State of the State address today. In effect, he saluted his effort to return more control over spending to the state’s school districts. Here’s what he had to say: “Last year, I spoke of the principle of subsidiarity, a rather clunky...

A ballot measure that goes before California voters in November seeking to amend the state Constitution has a controversial section that deals with strings attached to money school districts have controlled on their own. In effect, the state would have the right to place a cap on how much money a district can keep in...

Gov. Jerry Brown and the the California legislature reached a deal on a $108 billion budget for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Here, as examined by John Fensterwald of EdSource, are some of the major education components: Proposition 98: $60.8 billion for K-12 schools and community colleges in 2014-15 through Proposition 98, the voter-approved school funding...

*UPDATED The revised budget is in the hands of the LA Unified Board of Education, but the public has a final opportunity tomorrow to weigh in on how the district’s $7 billion budget will be spent. The board has set a limit of 30 speakers to address the six members for two minutes each, to...

The new state funding formula that is sending more money into LA Unified is enabling the district to expand programs for foster youth, a group of students who have been under-served by the district for years. The LAUSD student population currently includes between 8,500 and 11,600 foster youth, as much as 12 percent of the...

The LA Unified Board of Education got one step closer yesterday to approving Superintendent John Deasy’s 2014-15 school budget. And unless the six-member board makes radical changes over the next two weeks, his work, which includes plans for divvying up $332 million in new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) monies, will carry the day. Passage...