By the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board The LA Times weighed in today with its endorsements for the LA Unified school board, backing two of three incumbents in the March 3 elections but both with language that suggests moderate misgivings. The editorial board recommends Tamar Galatzan for board District 3 although the support “comes with...

  Via LA Times Editorial Board Two candidates with different styles and viewpoints are vying to join the Los Angeles Unified school board, replacing longtime board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, who died in December. Both of the candidates also hold different beliefs than did LaMotte, who was a fiery opponent of most school reform. This is an opportunity...

Via The Los Angeles Times |  By Soumya Karlamangla The White House on Wednesday will designate a swath of Los Angeles a “Promise Zone,” a move intended to marshal millions of dollars in federal resources for pockets of poverty under a signature program of the Obama administration. Marking the 50th anniversary of President Johnson’s launch...

If the editorial boards of Los Angeles area newspapers were charged with filling the vacant LA Unified school board seat left by the sudden death of Marguerite LaMotte, it would be easy: they are unanimous in that finding a successor should come through a special election, rather than an appointment. But politics is never easy,...

Via the LA Times | By Stephen Ceasar When Carmina Rosas visited her son’s first-grade classroom, she got a lesson of her own. She learned that her 6-year-old, who attends New Open World Academy in Koreatown, could read 59 of the 96 “high-frequency” words he should have known by that time in the school year....

LAUSD iPad program gets mixed review from committee An advisory panel overseeing Los Angeles Unified’s iPad project signed off Wednesday on a $45 million request to expand the technology program to 45 more schools, but it rejected plans to spend $90 million on tablets for every principal and teacher in the district and for students...

A  story published in the Los Angeles Times yesterday reported that LA Unified’s plan to purchase district-wide iPads would cost significantly more than originally estimated. But according to district officials there’s been no change at all to the cost of the iPads since the district signed the contract with Apple in July. “This is not...

Last week’s visit from Governor Jerry Brown in support of his proposed new funding formula garnered lots of media attention and the enthusiastic support of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy (who’s depending on the $188 million bump in funding for LAUSD that would come from the Brown overhaul). But Brown hasn’t yet persuaded lawmakers in Sacramento...