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Happy talk belies L.A. Unified’s grim financial picture

The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District passed a $7.5 billion 2017-18 budget this week on a 5-1 vote with Superintendent Michelle King touting the fact that the spending plan doesn’t include teacher layoffs or significant classroom disruptions.

Broad gets ammo in push to expand L.A. charter schools

Chris Reed January 1, 2016

As a huge fight draws near over charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District between the California Teachers Association and billionaire philanthropist and school reformer Eli Broad, a massive new study by UC Berkeley researchers gives Broad ammunition

Former Long Beach superintendent: Break up LAUSD

Chris Reed July 26, 2015

Carl Cohn, the former Long Beach and San Diego superintendent who is considered one of the wise men of California public education, has a radical idea: Break up the Los Angeles Unified School District. Since he left the State Board of

Vergara case backer files new lawsuit

Chris Reed July 20, 2015

The education reform group founded by a Silicon Valley billionaire entrepreneur that won a landmark 2014 lawsuit — Vergara v. California — over teacher job protections has opened a second front in its battle with the state’s education establishment. Student

L.A. budget gets good marks, but big obstacles ahead

Chris Reed May 30, 2015

A few years ago, the Los Angeles city government appeared to be hurtling toward the fiscal abyss because of heavy pension costs for police and firefighters and a sluggish local economy. But a pension reform measure and a relatively tough

Brown adds $2 billion to program that worries LAO

Chris Reed May 19, 2015

Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised 2015-16 state budget boosts from $4 billion to $6.1 billion the funding being given to the Local Control Funding Formula for public schools. That’s the program established by Brown via a 2013 state law to specifically

Hardball pays off with 2-year, 10% hike for L.A. teachers

Chris Reed April 20, 2015

Hardball paid off for the United Teachers Los Angeles late Friday when negotiators reached tentative agreement on a three-year deal that provides L.A. Unified teachers with a 10 percent pay raise in the first two years. That’s far more than

Black Caucus brings its clout to CA school funding fight

Chris Reed March 18, 2015

The Local Control Funding Formula, enacted in 2013, is supposed to make sure more education dollars are used in ways that specifically help struggling students. Gov. Jerry Brown pushed for the education funding change because he said it was crucial

Teachers want LAUSD to ignore state law, 2012 ruling

Chris Reed February 28, 2015

The United Teachers Los Angeles held a large rally Thursday showing strong rank-and-file support for the union’s demands that the giant Los Angeles Unified School District provide an 8.5 percent raise and cut down classroom sizes. LAUSD officials have offered

CalSTRS bailout cost: Pension tsunami laps at CA shores

Chris Reed February 24, 2015

Gov. Jerry Brown’s relative stinginess in seeking to hold the line on social services spending and in demanding an end to the practice of state education bonds paying for local districts’ construction dumbfounds some Democrats, who cite a healthier economy