On Dec. 1 it will be a year since FBI agents showed up at LA Unified’s headquarters with a federal grand jury subpoena and carted off 20 boxes of documents related to the district’s controversial iPad program. Since that day little if any new information has been publicly revealed about the investigation’s status, and that...

It doesn’t matter if the next superintendent is a he or she, but it does matter if the he or she is bilingual. The person should be good at communicating and love Los Angeles. And, the candidate should have been a teacher at one point in his or her career. Those are some of the...

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl released a 12-minute video on YouTube today in which he asks members to vote for a dues increase. According to Caputo-Pearl, the union has not updated its dues structure since its inception 45 years ago, which now “literally threatens the future of UTLA.” In the video, Caputo-Pearl points out that UTLA’s...

Ever since the FBI seized documents in December related to LA Unified’s controversial iPad program, there have been no public updates on the case, but now it appears that the LA Unified school board and its legal department see trouble coming. It is just a single line in the agenda for tomorrow’s closed board meeting,...

An open and transparent search, background as an educator and under no circumstances someone from the Broad Academy. Those are the three major criteria that UTLA wants in the next LAUSD school superintendent. Alex Caputo-Pearl, the president of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, told the LA School Report that he has made it known to...

* UPDATED UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl said the teachers union is planning an aggressive campaign to oppose Eli Broad and other wealthy foundation leaders who have announced plans for a major expansion of charter schools in LA Unified. In a wide-ranging interview that focused on the state of charters in the district, Caputo-Pearl was highly...

Looking to calm any last-minute fears that the start of the new school year will mirror last year’s troublesome beginning, LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines is promising that the MiSiS computer system has been fixed and will operate smoothy when schools open later this month. “MiSiS is the heart of this district,” he said in a statement from...

The LA Unified board takes its first step in choosing a new superintendent, with a largely closed door meeting scheduled for tomorrow night. It’s a baby step, with the seven-member board most likely deciding on the parameters and requirements for a head-hunting firm that will bring them the top names for the position. While it’s a lofty...

The end of another school year this week brings to a close one of LA Unified’s most crazy, controversial and dysfunctional academic years. It’s a real testament to students, teachers and other school personnel that they persevered through so much disruption and tumult. So, a tip of the hat to the nation’s second-largest school district...

Lost in the focus on double-digit salary increases in the tentative deal between LA Unified and UTLA is an agreement to overhaul the process by which the district’s 30,000 teachers will be evaluated. Under the new plan, which begins next year, both sides agreed to an interim three-tier final evaluation system, with three ratings: “exceeds...