Prop. 39 energy retrofit funds heading to California schools State officials have directed $381 million to California schools to retrofit aging campuses for energy efficiency, releasing a list Tuesday that shows how much each district will get. The money comes from voter approval last year of Proposition 39, which raises taxes on out-of-state corporations. Sacramento...

Ellie Herman is a writer and English teacher, who taught Drama, Advanced Drama, Creative Writing, English 11 and 9th grade composition at Animo Pat Brown Charter High School in south Los Angeles. A career union member, she is now immersed in a year-long journey, spending time in teachers’ classrooms at schools across the socioeconomic spectrum...

Via Los Angeles Daily News | By Barbara Jones A veteran Los Angeles Unified secretary who filed harassment allegations against school board President Richard Vladovic has identified herself publicly in an exclusive interview with the Daily News, saying she’s speaking out in an effort to end bullying by the district’s powerful officials. Lily Nuñez is...

 L.A. schools chief wants to extend iPad rollout by a year The rollout for a $1-billion school iPad program could be extended by a year, doubling the time originally allotted for getting tablets to every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The decision is a substantial concession to critics who questioned whether the...

Superintendent John Deasy is proposing a nearly half year-long extension in completing LA Unified’s much-ballyhooed iPad rollout, pushing back completion of the program to the end of 2015. As originally planned, all LA Unified students were to have iPads by the spring of 2015* over three phases of distribution. If his proposal is approved by the...

Via Los Angeles Times | Editorial Board Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to streamline the process for firing teachers, saying that he agreed with its goal but calling it an “imperfect solution.” Now he should follow up, taking the lead on this important but contentious issue much as he did when he...

4 L.A. schools defer iPads, citing security, liability issues Four Los Angeles schools, scheduled to receive iPads in this first rollout of the tablets, have pulled out of the initial phase, saying that they want to wait at least until security and other issues are resolved. The rejection apparently is temporary — the schools still...

How should LA Unified spend the new influx of money flowing in from the state? As part of Prop 30, school districts are required to improve transparency in school spending decisions.  Thus, LAUSD is sponsoring the final two town hall-style meetings this week to get feedback from the community about budget priorities: tomorrow night at...

Via The New York Times | By Tina Rosenberg Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a “flipped school” — one where students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at...