A voter's-eye view of the city election

By Raphael J. Sonenshein
Published on May 14, 2013

This year, for the first time, the Pat Brown Institute at CSU Los Angeles went into the polling field.

Turning teens into police officers

By Ryan Torok
Published on May 1, 2013

Roberta Weintraub, a 77-year-old political activist and former president of the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education, has always had a soft spot for the men and women in blue.

Eating with an eco-conscience

Published on April 24, 2013

A small group gathered in the sanctuary of Temple Isaiah on April 11 to do what Jews do best: talk about food and then eat some.

Steve Zimmer holds middle ground

By Bill Boyarsky
Published on March 28, 2013

After surviving opposition funded by the mayors of America’s two biggest cities, newly re-elected Los Angeles Unified School District board member Steve Zimmer says his win has preserved a “system of checks and balances” in running L.A.’s huge school district.

Bullying and Reason

By David A. Lehrer
Published on March 12, 2013

School board race pits unions against billionaires

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on February 20, 2013

Probably the greatest impact of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $1 million gift last week to the Coalition for School Reform, an independent political group supporting a slate of three reform-minded candidates for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board seats, was on the potential for re-election by LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer.

LAUSD OK’s English-Hebrew charter school

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on January 23, 2013

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has given a green light to a proposal for a dual-language charter elementary school to be located in Van Nuys offering classes in English and Hebrew.

Jewish school lunch may be a mixed bag, but public school lunch is no picnic, either

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on August 14, 2012

Save the Academic Decathlon

By Bill Boyarsky
Published on March 28, 2012

In a city where some of the very rich are willing to pay $1 billion-plus for the bankrupt Dodgers baseball team, why can’t anyone spare $500,000 to support an Academic Decathlon program that brings luster to the often criticized Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)?

Sexual abuse charges against a Hamilton High School teacher could lead to a swift dismissal

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on February 3, 2012

Shorter summer challenges camps

By Rachel Heller
Published on January 26, 2012

“Early-start” is finally starting. After delaying implementation of a new, earlier school calendar last year, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will begin classes three weeks sooner this fall for the majority of students.

Bill Boyarsky: LAUSD reaches out to middle class

By Bill Boyarsky
Published on July 26, 2011

Los Angeles’ new school superintendent, John Deasy, says one of his top goals is to persuade middle-class families, including Jewish parents, to return to the Los Angeles public schools. “It’s one of the major projects I have to deliver,” he said.

The Education of LAUSD’s Steve Zimmer

By Danielle Berrin
Published on July 5, 2011

It’s been dark for almost five hours, the city has slowed, and even the 101 Freeway is sparse and quiet. Steve Zimmer has just wrapped his last appointment, but rushing home seems foolish when a rare sit-down dinner is an option. Most days Zimmer hardly notices how alone he is, because he never stops working.

Algebra teacher among LAUSD teachers of the year

Published on June 14, 2011

Zachary Weiss, an eighth-grade algebra teacher at Luther Burbank Learning Complex, last week was named a 2011-2012 LAUSD Teacher of the Year, along with 13 other district teachers at the elementary through high school level.

Galatzan’s Concern for Public Schools Is Personal, Too

By Bill Boyarsky
Published on May 24, 2011

Much of the recent history of the Los Angeles Unified School District is also part of the past of Tamar Galatzan, who now sits on the governing board of that giant bureaucracy of a school district.

Save The Music

By Susan Freudenheim
Published on April 6, 2011

Phil Donney, who graduated in 2006 from Hamilton High School's Music Academy, home to many Jewish students as well as talented students throughout the city, has created this video in the face of huge looming cuts that threaten the very existence of the LAUSD public school Magnet programs, particularly the music programs like Hamilton's.

LAUSD schools accountable to new law

By Rachel Heller
Published on April 5, 2011

Los Angeles public schools could be poised for revolution due to a controversial state law gaining momentum locally. The landmark “Parent Trigger” law, passed by the California government in January 2010, grants parents at failing schools the power to force their district to make sweeping changes in a bid to improve school performance. Petitions are now under way at several Southland schools, but the law remains little known among many Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) families who could benefit from it most, according to Los Angeles education reform advocate Larry Sand.

LAUSD’s new calendar impacts camps, families

By Rachel Heller
Published on January 25, 2011

This summer was going to be the one — the one when Prissi Cohen’s daughter, Tillie, would finally get to enroll with a friend in a late-summer overnight session at Camp Ramah. But now Cohen’s not so sure. If Tillie, 10, winds up going to a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) middle school in the fall, she would have to be at her desk two days before camp ends.

LAUSD Students Protest Westside Pet Store

Published on April 20, 2010

“Shame, shame, shame! It’s time to go humane!”

Protestors circled for an hour near the pet store Barkworks at the Westside Pavilion shopping center in West Los Angeles on April 17. Among the protest participants were 60 LAUSD high school students involved with YouTHink, an education program of the Zimmer Children’s Museum, as well as representatives of the Companion Animal Protection Society (CAPS), a national nonprofit that investigates pet shops, puppy mills and breeders.

After-School Kabbalah Comes to LAUSD Campuses

By Rachel Heller
Published on April 2, 2009

Along with homework time, crafts and supervised games, grade school students in several Los Angeles Unified School District elementary schools this spring are getting something different at their after-school programs: spiritual awareness.

Q&A with Howard Blume: What’s next for LAUSD with Brewer gone?

By Julie G Fax
Published on December 18, 2008

" , , , Forces that have been impatient with the pace of reform feel that they have won a victory, because they were never entirely sold on Superintendent Brewer, although he vigorously defends his record . . ."

Two LAUSD board members retire,  Friedlander wins Shoah scholarship prize

Published on November 13, 2008

Veteran Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board members Julie Korenstein and Marlene Canter, both of whom are Jewish, announced in late October that they would not seek re-election for their terms, which expire in June.

City Voice: Keep education in the spotlight

By Bill Boyarsky
Published on February 28, 2008

I write about education a lot because it's important for the Jewish community to have a strong public school system. Education is part of the Jewish culture. Many Jews can't afford private schools, and their kids deserve an education good enough to send them to college. Moreover, strong public schools are good for everybody, Jews and non-Jews.

LAUSD president gets lesson in partnership

By Charlotte Hildebrand
Published on May 24, 2007

When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a news conference on Friday, May 18, to announce his decision to end a yearlong legal battle to take control of Los Angeles schools, Board of Education President Marlene Canter was standing by his side.

Don’t Let Affirmative Action Fade

By Charlotte Hildebrand
Published on August 17, 2006

Why is the Louisville case so important? Why should we, as Jews, care about its outcome, especially if our children may not even attend public schools? Is affirmative action even relevant in 2006, in our schools, in our world? What are the benefits of diversity in education anyway?

Letters

Published on April 20, 2006

Letters to the Editor

Parent Wins School Pesticide Battle

By Idan Ivri
Published on February 9, 2006

A new law that bans that use of experimental pesticides in schools is the latest achievement of Robina Suwol, a Jewish anti-pesticide activist.

Letters

Published on September 29, 2005

I support Rabbi David Wolpe's position entirely ("We Must Condemn Heartless Bilge," Sept. 16). Rav Ovadiah Yosef has made Israel look very bad.

Political Journal

By Idan Ivri
Published on August 25, 2005

Racially motivated brawls at Jefferson High School this spring made the school appear, at times, like a miniwar zone. Which makes it especially interesting that L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD) officials are learning lessons from Israeli and West Bank schools, where violence, even terrorism, is an ever-present undercurrent.

The person bringing those lessons to Los Angeles is USC professor Ron Avi Astor, who has spent his career studying school violence in Israel and the United States. His newest book, co-written with Israeli professor Rami Benbenishty of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, is titled, "School Violence in Contest: Culture, Neighborhood, Family, School, and Gender." The two scholars conducted studies encompassing 30,000 Israeli students at a time.

Battling Board Backs Bond

By Howard Blume
Published on August 4, 2005

What a difference a day makes.

In 24 little hours, the L.A. school board journeyed last week from chaos to harmony; from nothing to a November ballot measure; from no new taxes to a bond measure that will ask voters to raise their property taxes for schools "one last time."

If voters go for it, these local school bonds would be the fourth in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) since 1997, and would raise $3.985 billion to pay for new and repaired schools. Part of the money is needed to make up for the feverishly rising cost of school construction; the rest would fund a program that has expanded to some $15.2 billion, perhaps the nation's largest ongoing public works project outside of Iraq.

Conflicting Schools of Thought

By Howard Blume
Published on March 3, 2005

You don't have to go far to hear complaints about the L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD), the city's beleaguered public school system, nor very far to catch grumbling about Mayor James K. Hahn. But linking the two is a stretch for many, because Los Angeles' mayor has no authority over the city's schools -- none at all.

Yet one challenger in particular, Bob Hertzberg, has made LAUSD the centerpiece of his campaign by pledging, somehow, to break up the nation's second-largest school system. Politically, the strategy isn't off the wall.

Shalom Leases

By Wendy J. Madnick
Published on January 17, 2002

An announcement last week by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that it will not renew leases for its West San Fernando Valley properties will have an impact on two Jewish institutions: Kadima Hebrew Academy and the Rabbi Max D. Raiskin West Valley Hebrew Academy.

ADL Passover seder for the schools in Los Angeles Unified School District

Published on November 4, 1999

All evening Taumisha Freeman sat dutifully, listening to the story of the Exodus out of Egypt, tasting matzah ("It needs salt"), reciting the plagues, without any expression. It was hard to know if she was bored or if, given the fact that she had never been around anything Jewish before, it was just too strange to be here at this intergroup Passover, sponsored by the Pacific Southwest regional office of the Anti-Defamation League.

Assessing LAUSD

By Marlene Adler Marks
Published on November 4, 1999

The loss of goodwill between ethnic groups based on this one lapse is incalculable.

Completing the Revolution

By Marlene Adler Marks
Published on June 3, 1999

The question left pending until this Tuesday's run-off between incumbent Barbara Boudreaux and challenger Genethia Hayes is, will Tokofsky get to command a new majority?