The L.A. Times reports on the suit filed against LAUSD to save the Cocoanut Grove nightclub:
In an effort to keep intact the landmark Cocoanut Grove nightclub at the former Ambassador Hotel, the Los Angeles Conservancy has again sued the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, contends the district broke the law when it decided recently to demolish most of the Cocoanut Grove structure and asks a judge to require the school system to spare the nightclub or prove why it can't. It also asks a judge to halt the project while a determination is made.
"We believe they need to be held accountable," said conservancy Director Linda Dishman.

Read the full story here.

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a single San Fernando Valley school is in the running to participate in two key reform efforts widely touted by the mayor and schools chief as a key to boosting performance at Los Angeles Unified.
Superintendent David Brewer III said Thursday that he has cut five of the six Valley schools named in his original reform effort targeting 44 low-performing sites.
And Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has 34 confirmed meetings with LAUSD schools through November to determine which two high schools and their related elementary and middle schools he'll manage - but none of them are in the Valley.
While some say Valley schools are being unfairly left out of the reform efforts, others note the schools have specifically asked to be excluded.
Whatever the reason, however, exclusion of Valley schools in reform efforts could be politically risky for both the mayor and the superintendent.

Read the full story here.

The schools that were removed from what is planned as a separate
district that would operate under a different governance structure are
Reseda, Franklin, Hollywood, Monroe, Fairfax, Polytechnic, Arleta,
Panorama, Santee and Miguel Contreras.

The schools that remain are: Audubon MS, Bell SH, Belmont SH, Bethune
MS, Carver MS, Clay MS, Cochran MS, Crenshaw SH, Dorsey SH, Drew MS,
Edison MS, Fremont SH, Gage MS, Garfield SH, Gompers MS, Harte MS,
Hollenbeck MS, Huntington Park SH, Jefferson SH, Jordan SH, L.A.
Academy MS, Lincoln SH, Los Angeles SH, Mann MS, Manual Arts SH,
Markham MS, Muir MS, Roosevelt SH, Sylmar SH, South Gate SH, Stevenson
MS, Virgil MS, Washington SH and Wilson SH.

Brewer plans to implement his mini-district beginning in the 2008-09
school year--the same time the district will roll out the two families
of schools that will be managed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The mayor is in the process of meeting with school communities to
determine which two high schools, and their feeder elementary and
middle schools, will take part in the partnership.

Interestingly, the two schools widely believed to be the ones the
mayor's most interested in including in his partnership--Roosevelt and
Crenshaw--are both already named in Brewer's pilot project.

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent David Brewer said Thursday that he
had reduced his proposed district of 44 "high-priority schools" from
44 to 34 schools. He said those that didn't meet the criteria for
being low-performing, were on the cusp, had shown improvement or had
just opened their campuses, were taken out.

The schools that were removed from what is planned as a separate
district that would operate under a different governance structure are
Reseda, Franklin, Hollywood, Monroe, Fairfax, Polytechnic, Arleta,
Panorama, Santee and Miguel Contreras.

The schools that remain are: Audubon MS, Bell SH, Belmont SH, Bethune
MS, Carver MS, Clay MS, Cochran MS, Crenshaw SH, Dorsey SH, Drew MS,
Edison MS, Fremont SH, Gage MS, Garfield SH, Gompers MS, Harte MS,
Hollenbeck MS, Huntington Park SH, Jefferson SH, Jordan SH, L.A.
Academy MS, Lincoln SH, Los Angeles SH, Mann MS, Manual Arts SH,
Markham MS, Muir MS, Roosevelt SH, Sylmar SH, South Gate SH, Stevenson
MS, Virgil MS, Washington SH and Wilson SH.

Brewer plans to implement his mini-district beginning in the 2008-09
school year--the same time the district will roll out the two families
of schools that will be managed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The mayor is in the process of meeting with school communities to
determine which two high schools, and their feeder elementary and
middle schools, will take part in the partnership.

Interestingly, the two schools widely believed to be the ones the
mayor's most interested in including in his partnership--Roosevelt and
Crenshaw--are both already named in Brewer's pilot project.

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, 37, and the world's youngest queen, will visit Los Angeles Unified's William Howard Taft High School Wednesday to hear from student leaders regarding their work to eradicate prejudice and promote cross-cultural understanding on campus.

Here's what the LAUSD press release says:
"Her Majesty Queen Rania, 37, expressed a desire to visit a local school to hear what LAUSD students are doing to address themes close to Her Majesty’s own heart: challenging prejudice and promoting cross-cultural understanding. Taft is one of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission’s six zerohour schools committed to sustainable human relations programs to reduce prejudice, discrimination and intergroup conflicts on their campuses. This is Queen Rania’s only public appearance in Los Angeles (besides her speech at the Governor and First Lady’s Women’s Conference in Long Beach on October 23.)"

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law on Sunday a measure designed to provide up to $640 million to Los Angeles schools from a voter-approved bond.

The governor signed AB 1014, authored by Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, designed to fill a loophole in Proposition 1D, the school-construction measure approved last November as part of Schwarzenegger's package of bonds aimed at improving California's infrastructure.

A provision in the measure, however, would have placed severe limits on the ability of the Los Angeles Unified - the largest school district in the state - from getting its fair share of the funds.

Bass' measure changed the formula for funding from looking at new-student growth to considering traditionally overcrowded school districts, such as the LAUSD.

To read the rest of Rick Orlov's article in the Daily News, click here.

Click here for the L.A. Times article.

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just days after unveiling an overhaul plan for dozens of Los Angeles' lowest-performing schools, Superintendent David Brewer III on Thursday targeted nearly 100 underachieving and long-neglected middle schools for reform.

Brewer said he hopes to roll out "personalized learning environments" at all 92 of the district's middle schools by the 2009-10 school year to raise achievement and retention rates.

The move is significant for Los Angeles Unified School District middle schools, overlooked for years as the district focused on improving elementary schools, then high schools.

"It's our way to try to create more smallness out of largeness, so we can do something more immediate," said Michelle King, deputy chief instructional officer at the LAUSD. "There's a fear there about sending youngsters to the middle school campus. ... So it's critical that we look at those needs and be able to address the concerns and allay the fears of our students and of our parents and the communities."

Click here to read the rest of the L.A. Daily News article.

Here's the L.A. Weekly's take on the payroll crisis at Los Angeles Unified.

The Daily Breeze also takes on the payroll fiasco in today's paper.

And the L.A. Times writes about four key senior executive posts filled by LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer.

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Superintendent David Brewer III unveiled a plan Tuesday to carve out a separate, targeted district for 44 of the neediest schools. There are no details yet, but the final plan will go to the school board for approval by Nov. 13. For the full story, click here.

And my colleagues at the L.A. Times and the Daily Breeze wrote on another key school board action Tuesday, which put on hold a much needed Wilmington campus--even though the project is two years along and LAUSD has already put in $4.3 million.

For Howard's take click here.
For Paul's version, click here.

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Antonette gets 70% on a 10-problem test, 80% on a 20-problem test and 90% on a 30-problem test. If the three tests are combined into one 60-problem test, which percent is closest to her overall score?
(A) 40 (B) 77 (C) 80 (D) 83 (E) 87

This is one example of the types of math questions students in the eighth grade and below will try to tackle in the American Mathematical Competition Nov. 13 hosted by Los Angeles Valley College. The event is being touted as the "premier mathematical competition held throughout the world each year to gear students toward the International Math Olympiads.

Each year six high school students from each country all over the world meet in a host country to compete in mathematical problem solving requiring problem solving skills at an extreme level, but only using mathematical knowledge at a high school level, according to the press release.

This year, the competition was held in Hanoi, Vietnam and the USA team scored fifth behind Russia, China, Vietnam and South Korea. The eighth grade test is the first test for a student to take on the road to being a competitor for the U.S. team in a future year.

Contact Steven Davis at 714-334-8859 to reserve a seat and for more information on the tests. More information is also available at http://www.unl.edu/amc.

For the answer to the question and to see other sample questions go here:
And to see sample questions from previous years, go here and click on the years listed next to "Brochure Sample Questions."

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The board of education's new Charter and Innovation Committee met for the first time Thursday to discuss new reform strategies including the partnership with the mayor's office to manage two families of low-performing schools.

While board President Monica Garcia--who created the committee--and committee chairperson Marlene Canter lauded the committee's mission to create innovative partnerships, provide oversight for charter schools and facilitate reforms in the district, a couple of the board members did not try hard to mask their skepticism.

Board member Julie Korenstein repeatedly emphasized that she had not been informed about the plans with the mayor, going out of her way to make it clear during the public meeting that she believed the deal was struck behind closed doors with no board input. Korenstein also expressed her frustration that the local district superintendents of the schools that will end up in the mayor's partnership would have no oversight of those schools.

Korenstein also wondered who would be liable--the city or the school district--if something happened at the campus of one of the partnership schools. The mayor's education adviser Marshall Tuck said that was still being worked out and would be determined before they finalized the contract with the district.

And her colleague Marguerite La Motte, another vocal opponent of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts to have a role in the school district, said any partnership should include the option of ending the program anytime before the five-year contract is up if it's not positively affecting students.

A frustrated Canter said she understood there was some tension based on contentiousness surrounding the fight to stop the mayor's failed legislation to have a significant role in the school district--Assembly Bill 1381--but "this is not the 1381 fight."

The Charter and Innovation Committee will meet the first Thursday of every month at 1 p.m. in the LAUSD board room at 333 S. Beaudry Ave., Los Angeles. Agendas are available online at www.lausd.net.

Posted by Naush Boghossian at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)