I finally got around to reading the newish, longish LA Magazine profile on Superintendent John Deasy, The Takeover Artist, by Ed Leibowitz, and it’s a good read I’d recommend everyone check out. Leibowitz is a fantastic writer, comparing LAUSD’s structure to “the work of a madman,” getting Deasy critics to make juicy remarks, and dishing up...

New accountability demands coming for charters – startups and renewals SI&A Cabinet Report: SB 1290 by Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, would require that charter authorizers must consider pupil academic achievement for all subgroups as measured by the API “as the most important factor” for renewal and revocation. Push for a Downtown Charter School Includes Big Fundraiser...

As you may recall, Superior Court Judge James Chalfant ordered LAUSD, the teachers union (UTLA) and the administrators union (AALA) to provide a September 4 progress report on a negotiations over new way of evaluating teachers and administrators that includes some measure of pupil progress. So what’s the update? LAUSD has made a proposal, according to the...

Ditching private schools LA Times (editorial): Private school students are choosing to move to charters in unexpected numbers. That’s a good thing for the education system. LAUSD must pay $2.4 million to football player who broke neck LA Times: A 19-year-old North Hollywood High School student who broke his neck during a football tryout practice has won a...

The first thing I notice when stepping into the office of Steve Zimmer, the 42 year-old LAUSD school board member, is the Cesar Chavez poster on the wall — a copy of which Deasy has, too. The second thing is the expansive view from the 24th floor of LAUSD’s massive hilltop headquarters looking out over...

Failure of teacher evaluation bill clouds CA’s NCLB waiver SI&A Cabinet Report: Withdrawal of the teacher evaluation bill in the final days of the legislative session last week likely removes an easy path for California schools to relief from federal sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act, state officials said last week. [Also: The California Teachers...

The Daily News reports (see: LAUSD makes its best showing ever on STAR tests) that LAUSD students made significant improvement over last year in their performance on the state-required standardized test results, also known as the STAR tests: “48 percent of LAUSD students scored proficient or advanced in English, up from 44 percent last year. Math proficiency...

After much-last minute scrambling, Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes decided to withdraw AB 5, the controversial bill to overhaul how public school teachers are evaluated in California. Fuentes (pictured) issued a statement Thursday evening, reading in part: “I could not in good conscious [sic] allow the proposed amendments to be voted on without a full public hearing… I believe...

California test scores: State to release results at 10 a.m. KPCC: The tests in English and math measure whether school districts meet state education standards. Students between the second and 11th grades take the exam. Steinberg’s school accountability rewrite set for passage SI&A: Legislation approved Thursday would remake the state’s accountability system for public schools by reducing the...

It was a mad scramble in Sacramento yesterday, and well into the night, with state legislators trying to get every bill they possibly could out the door before recess, Friday at midnight. And perhaps nowhere was the scramble madder than in the Senate education committee, where lawmakers desperately tried to amend AB 5, a bill...