Education establishment put kids and taxpayers last

By Larry Sand
03/13/2018
Three hundred “must place” teachers in Los Angeles don’t work, but are still on the payroll. What does a school board do with teachers whom no principal wants to hire? In New York, that problem was “solved” this past fall when Mayor Bill De Blasio and school chief Carmen Fariña, began to unload the so-called...

TAGS: Bill de Blasio, Clayton Christensen, George McKenna, Janus v. AFSCME, Larry Sand, LAUSD, Mike Antonucci, Nick Melvoin, Prop. 13, Richard Vladovic, teachers union

LA Unified can’t top its high-performing charter schools, so it’s tormenting them to death with bureaucratic rules

By Steven Greenhut
11/06/2017
Sacramento – The Los Angeles Unified School District and some of the nation’s highest-performing charter schools are engaged in what one report has called a “game of chicken” – with the fate of 14 of these schools and their nearly 4,600 students hanging the balance. But that suggests this is about two parties engaged in...

TAGS: Charter schools, LAUSD

The best defense is to be offensive

By Larry Sand
09/19/2017
Anti-school choicers are getting desperate. The traditional public education monopolists are using some truly bizarre arguments to ensure that children remain in government-run schools. In July, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten intimated that parents who opt out of government schools are equivalent to southern segregationists. Then later in July, Katherine Stewart penned possibly...

TAGS: American Federation of Teachers, Betsy DeVos, CAHSEE, credit recovery classes, graduation rate, Heartland Institute, Larry Sand, LAUSD, Mackinac Center, Randi Weingarten, school choice, teachers union, vouchers

Teachers’ unions losing the long battle over parental choice

By Steven Greenhut
05/22/2017
Sacramento — Supporters of charter schools, homeschooling and other forms of school “choice” are so used to fighting in the trenches against the state’s muscular teachers’ unions that they often forget how much progress they’ve made in the last decade or so. Recent events have shown the degree of progress, even if they still face...

TAGS: LAUSD, school board, teachers unions

LAUSD – Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez, pro-school-choice candidates defeat union-backed rivals

By California Policy Center
05/19/2017
Incumbent Steve Zimmer, lost to challenger Nick Melvoin in the District 4 race for the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, while seventh grade teacher Kelly Gonez was leading in early election results Tuesday night to represent District 6 on the LAUSD Board of Education. cityclerk.lacity.org/election/results.html

TAGS: education, LAUSD, Los Angeles Unified School District

UTLA’s Eli Broad Rage

By Larry Sand
11/15/2016
Los Angeles teachers union turns down millions of dollars from the philanthropist earmarked for schools that work. Last year, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation formed Great Public Schools Now (GPSN), an organization whose goal was to create 260 new charter schools in Los Angeles. The plan was to enroll at least 130,000 students in...

TAGS: Cato Institute, Eli Broad, Great Public Schools Now, Larry Sand, LAUSD, Myrna Castrejón, teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles, UTLA

LA Story: The Poorer You Are, the More Likely You Are to Support Charters

By Adam Jacobs
09/29/2016
Los Angeles school teachers gathered in August in the posh, iconic – and for the group, weirdly ironic – Westin Bonaventure Hotel. They heard their union’s leaders extol their role as revolutionary defenders of the city’s poorest communities against the wealthy. But that’s not how the city’s poor have seen it. The poorer you are,...

TAGS: Charter schools, LAUSD

LAUSD Spends More Even as Enrollment Drops

By David Schwartzman
09/15/2016
Editors Note: By almost every objective standard, the educational outcomes delivered by the Los Angeles School District are among the worst in the nation. The following article documents how LAUSD has spent millions, hundreds of millions, on budget items that have little impact on the quality of classroom education, all the while attempting to blame...

TAGS: LAUSD, Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers of Los Angeles

ACLU Turns its Back on LA's Poorest Students in Attack on Charter Schools

By Blake Dixon
09/08/2016
The ACLU has aimed its considerable legal firepower at charter schools. The reason? They aren’t enough like our failing traditional public schools. In a recent report, the ACLU condemns 253 California charter schools for what it sees as a violation of discrimination law, citing examples of charter schools requiring consistent attendance and, in some cases,...

TAGS: ACLU, Charter schools, LAUSD, Vergara v California

Los Angeles Unified School District bid to dodge Parent Trigger Law fails

By Private: Gloria Romero
12/02/2014
The California Senate Legislative Counsel issued last week a sweeping opinion, concluding a controversy as to whether a school district – Los Angeles Unified, in this case – can proclaim itself exempt from California’s historic Parent Trigger law, which enables parents of kids in chronically underperforming schools to transform it if a majority of parents...

TAGS: California Center for Parent Empowerment, LAUSD, Los Angeles Unified, Parent Revolution, parent trigger law, underperforming schools