Green Dot Redux

Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Unified school board all but spat in the collective faces of Steve Barr and his Green Dot schools when they rejected Green Dot’s eight charter petitions. Now, the board has miraculously reversed its position and gotten very lovey-kissy with the idea of Barr being part of the reconstitution of troubled Locke High School.

Are politics at play here? Oh, heck, yeah. The main Green Dot antagonist was Valley board member, Jon Lauritizen, who’s locked in a death-match run-off to keep his board seat. But when outraged howls went up from both LA papers and various education bloggers, (ourselves included) Lauritzen clearly decided it might be wise to pick voter desires over union pressure. (Did I mention Lauritzen takes a healthy chunk of campaign change from the teachers union?) This is all good news, but it would have been far simpler if Lauritzen and company had just done the right thing in the first place.

Very smart Daily News education writer, Naush Boghossian has been following the story.

(Is it my imagination or does she often seem singlehandedly to cover more stuff than the whole LA Times ed team?)