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COPY KATS? Daily News Story on Ousting of LAUSD’s Adult Edu. Director Looks Mighty Similar to WitnessLA’s Earlier Story Breaking that Same News


Dear Daily News Editors, a gentle request: the next time we break a story, and you use our points outright
as you did here in the first five paragraphs of the lead of your own story (posted a day and a half later), either change it up a little more so it isn’t quite as obvious, or be polite and give us some kind of shout out.

Thanks in advance.



WITNESSLA VERSION,

(Posted on Feb. 29, 1:19 a.m.)

1. We have heard that Los Angeles Unified School District Adult and Career Education director, Ed Morris, was fired on Tuesday afternoon.

2. According to our source, Morris received the news around 4 pm from Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, Jaime Aquino, who is Morris’ direct supervisor.

3. There is no word yet on why Morris was let go.

4. The news came on the same day that WitnessLA reported statements made by Morris (and to a lessor degree, Deasy) in an interview with an NPR reporter, in the course of which Morris harshly denigrated the value of the GED test.

5. Adult Ed teachers found the remarks particularly egregious in that GED prep classes have long-been considered an important part of the Adult Ed curriculum—the budget for which is on the chopping block, its fate scheduled to be voted on by the LAUSD board in mid March



DAILY NEWS VERSION

(posted March 1 8:40 pm (with earlier version at 5:38 pm)

1. Assistant Superintendent Ed Morris has been ousted as head of LAUSD’s popular, yet embattled, Adult Education Division, the Daily News has learned.

2.. Morris was notified of the decision about 4 p.m. Tuesday by Deputy Superintendent Jaime Aquino, sources said.

3. A district spokesman said Morris had been placed on administrative leave and that no additional information would be provided. Morris could not be reached for comment.

4. The action came just days after Morris was quoted in an National Public Radio interview questioning the long-term value of earning a GED or high-school equivalency certificate, one of the programs offered by his division.

5 “If I were prepared today with a GED, and that’s what I had as an 18-year-old, I’d be scared to death of the future,” he said in the Feb. 18 story, in which Superintendent John Deasy also raised concerns about the adequacy of a GED.

You can read the rest of the DN story here.


Cat stamp design from the Licorice Tree.

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