* UPDATED A new Field poll shows that the race for state Superintendent of Public Education is tightening. Some might say it’s now nip and tuck. A survey conducted over the last two weeks in August of 467 people who said they were likely to vote in November found that the incumbent, Marshall Tuck, a former...

Questions persist over troubled iPad deployment in LA schools With the huge purchase plan suspended, Superintendent John Deasy has alternated between assertions of his acceptance of the slowdown as a chance to regroup and denunciations of others who he said had politicized the process. Government Technology Universal preschool spending draws wide support in national poll...

Via EdWeek | by Carl Finer As a veteran urban educator and career union member, I care deeply about both my students and building the systems to ensure that all students and teachers have what they need to be successful. In the legal precedent laid out in the controversial Vergara decision relating to teacher tenure...

LAUSD teachers are paid less than others in California Records obtained by the Daily News show that those LA teachers averaged $2,148 — about 3 percent — less in pay than peers at a majority of California schools last year. LA Daily News Why don’t more men go into teaching? Analysis: Across the country, teaching...

Governor Jerry Brown and his Republican challenger, Neel Kashkari, spent a few testy minutes in their debate last night talking about public education. Their exchange largely focused on the recent decision by Brown, as a loser in Vergara vs. California, to appeal the ruling, which struck down laws protecting teacher employment rights. Brown was asked...

Ryan Smith, whose work as Director of Education Programs and Policy for United Way of Greater Los Angeles helped improve the educational prospects for students of color and those living in poverty, is leaving his post to become executive director of Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based non-profit focused on many of the same objectives. In his...

Lydia Gutierrez, a candidate for the LA Unified school board seat next year, says a former campaign manager misrepresented her positions in speaking to LA School Report earlier this week. Gutierrez disputed statements from Jose Gonzalez, who identified himself as one of her campaign managers, saying she would not vote to fire Superintendent John Deasy...

Activists win further regulation of LCFF money School administrators are still balking at attempts by lawmakers and other student advocacy groups to further tighten accountability restrictions under the state’s new school funding system. S&I Cabinet Report Superintendent Deasy explains Pearson, Apple meeting More than a week after new questions arose regarding the bidding process for...

Via NY Times | by Farhad Manjoo Halfway through the last school year, Leila Campbell, a young humanities teacher at a charter high school in Oakland, Calif., received the results from a recent survey of her students. On most measures, Ms. Campbell and her fellow teachers at the Aspire Lionel Wilson Preparatory Academy were scoring...

State awards Common Core test contract With the State Board of Education’s approval, California became the ninth state Wednesday to award a contract to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium for the standardized tests in the Common Core State Standards that students will take next spring. EdSource Truancy package marks half-step in reforms It’s September –...