In L.A. School Board Race, Sky-High Spending Continues Record spending will continue in the last remaining race for a seat on the Los Angeles school board, as a political action committee has put together a war chest of about $600,000 to use on behalf of a candidate endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. LA Times See...

The Coalition for School Reform’s District 6 (East San Fernando Valley) runoff election coffers have been replenished thanks to big donations received from Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad and StudentsFirst, Michelle Rhee’s education advocacy group, among others. According to reports just filed with the LA City Ethics Commission, Broad gave the Coalition $250,000. StudentsFirst contributed another...

Earlier this month, LA School Report interviewed education players in California about AB 375, sponsored by Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), which would streamline the dismissal process for teachers accused of sexual abuse and other forms of misconduct.proposal. EdVoice, LAUSD, and others generally said they were happy something was being done to improve the current teacher dismissal process....

Bill Restricting ‘Willful Defiance’ for Suspending Students Moves Ahead With new data showing that more than half of all suspensions and a quarter of expulsions in California schools are for “willful defiance” of school authorities, the Assembly Education Committee voted 6-0 on Wednesday to move forward a bill that would restrict the use of the...

A bill sponsored by State Senator Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) that would expand the current “parent trigger” law to include more of California’s lowest performing schools was scheduled for a hearing by the Assembly Education Committee earlier today. The current 2010 version of the law has a cap limiting parent trigger takeovers to 75 schools...

LAUSD Board Votes to Improve Abuse Investigations With 278 Los Angeles Unified educators sitting in “teacher jail,” the school board voted Tuesday to streamline and improve the investigations of those accused of serious physical abuse or sexual misconduct. LA Daily News See also: LA School Report, LA Times L.A. Unified Board Ratifies ‘Parent-Trigger’ Partnership The...

The agenda for today’s School Board meeting is packed with hot-topic resolutions, including a plan to streamline LAUSD’s teacher misconduct investigation process, a call to work with state legislators to pass a new teacher dismissal bill, and a plan to reduce student suspensions and discipline for “willful defiance” in LA schools. These topics have received...

L.A. School Board to Consider Faster Investigation of Teachers Sexual misconduct allegations at Miramonte Elementary School sparked a surge of investigations of Los Angeles teachers, pushing the ranks of those in “teacher jail” to more than 300 — and prompting officials this week to consider the rights of accused employees. LA Times See also: AP,...

Voters head to the polls in less than six weeks to decide the East San Fernando Valley District 6 School Board runoff between Antonio Sanchez and Monica Ratliff, but things are off to a pretty slow start when it comes to fundraising and spending. In terms of direct campaign fundraising, Ratliff hasn’t raised any money at all...

After the symbolic “no confidence” vote by the Los Angeles teachers union last week, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy gave the LA Daily News his thoughts and described his plans to bring “youth rights” to all students in LA schools: Watch and read the full Deasy interview at LA Daily News; read LA School Report’s coverage of UTLA’s vote here.