Uncertainties surround LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy. He doesn’t see eye-to-eye with board members on a host of issues. Questions are swirling about whether he’ll quit or be fired. That was last year. But here he is again, weeks away from his next performance review, and not much has changed. This time, Deasy finds himself...

LA Unified officials said today they anticipated the concerns raised by an independent report on the district’s one-to-one iPad program, which found that schools are not using the devices to teach the new Common Core curriculum. What’s more, said Bernadette Lucas, director of the District’s technology project, they were thrilled to get the bad news....

LA Unified is still scrambling to troubleshoot technical issues as the deadline for staffing schools approaches, the school board learned at its latest meeting yesterday. “Norm” day,” as it’s called, is set for Friday but problems with the new student data management system, MiSiS, have forced the district to devise a new plan: “The process...

* UPDATED With a new contract on the line, the LA Unified teachers union, UTLA, is stepping up its attack on Superintendent John Deasy, blaming him for problems large and small and the opening line the district has taken for a new contract with teachers. Union president Alex Caputo-Pearl ratcheted up the tension at the...

The LA Unified School Board returns tomorrow with a full agenda although a lot of the juicy stuff will be discussed in closed session. In addition to the usual topics — personnel issues and ongoing litigation — the board will review labor negotiations, which at this point is down to the on-going talks with the...

Under withering criticism over the iPad program, a new student-tracking computer system and discordant relations with the teachers union, LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy said today that the attacks feel politically motivated at the expense of his agenda to improve the lives of district students. “I serve at the pleasure of the board,” he said...

It’s long. It’s detailed. And it’s dry. But here it is, LA Unified board member Monica Ratliff’s report to her colleagues on the work of The Common Core Technology Project Ad Hoc Committee. She was chair. By now, most people know the iPad program didn’t go swimmingly, leading Superintendent John Deasy to suspend it this...

It might be the new school year, but it was a series of old problems awaiting the LA Unified school board yesterday as it met long into the night with a full complement of seven members for the first time in eight months. After the swearing in of newly-elected District 1 member George McKenna, a...

*UPDATED LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy told members of the school board yesterday that he is halting the district’s contract with Apple, Inc., effectively ending his grand plan to put an iPad in the hands of every district student. Following the disclosure of emails that suggest he and aides had tailored the bid process to...

As a further indication of how far off a labor agreement is between LA Unified and the teachers union, UTLA, the two sides met yesterday and each focused on an entirely different matter — the district, salaries; the union, the problematic student data base system, MiSiS. In a statement released by UTLA shortly after the...