Apparently not content with its recent poll on LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s performance, UTLA is now embarking on a “Superintendent Performance Review” that calls on teachers to review Deasy’s work. The union’s announcement of the new Deasy survey appears somewhat more neutral than it was for the last survey, which indicated what the union thought...

The education publication Education Week is reporting that eight major civil rights groups have written a letter to US Education Secretary Arne Duncan asking him to reject a request made by LAUSD and several other local school districts to give them a waiver from some of the key provision of the federal No Child Left...

California Teachers Association President Dean Vogel has issued a sharp response to criticism of the proposed teacher dismissal bill being championed by Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), focusing in particular on those of former state lawmaker Gloria Romero: “Far from jumping late onto any dismissal bandwagon, CTA has led support of efforts to expedite the dismissal process, maintain existing safeguards...

Here’s USNews & World Report’s annual list of high schools for 2013, which includes a bunch of LA schools: Click the link to see the full list or search without magnet or charter schools.

The LA Times‘ most recent education story tells you several things you already know about the District 6 (East Valley) School Board runoff, including recent contributions to the Coalition for School Reform account and the stalemate over the dual UTLA endorsements of Monica Ratliff (pictured) and Antonio Sanchez that “helps Sanchez by keeping UTLA on the...

There were lots of interesting tidbits thrown out during the Yale School of Management education summit session on community mobilization held earlier this month in New Haven, and no shortage of quips from panelist organizers Jeremiah Kittredge and Derrell Bradford, Kristen Wiegand, and Derwin Sisnett (moderated by Suzanne Tacheny Kubach). But the conversation at the end about the...

Most of the news coverage surrounding last week’s union straw poll on LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy focused on the whopping 91 percent of teachers who expressed “no confidence” in his leadership and treated the result as if it had some sort of real-world impact. What got left out or minimized along the way was the...

While LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy says that a federal waiver from the law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) could free up $80 million for student and teacher support services for the district — without reducing school accountability — and the Obama Administration has begun reviewing the LAUSD waiver request, state education officials and...

Over the weekend, the California Democratic Convention declined to provide exhibition space to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst or her husband’s Stand Up nonprofit (citing space constraints), gave CTA president Dean Vogel time to deliver this fiery anti-reform speech, and passed this anti-reform resolution. Via LA Times and CTA blog.

The Sacramento-based school advocacy group StudentsFirst recently hired Fabian Nunez in an effort to beef up its advocacy efforts in California. In a telephone interview last week, Nunez gave LA School Report his take on education politics in Sacramento, recent shifts in union priorities after last year’s controversial debate over teacher dismissals, and his vision for higher-performing...