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Brown touts education accomplishments, priorities in State of the State
Gov. Jerry Brown highlighted his education accomplishments in an upbeat State of the State on Wednesday that marked the final address of his current term and laid out priorities for the coming year and his likely reelection campaign. EdSource

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Gov. Brown reemphasizes local control of state’s public schools
Commentary: In his State of the State speech on Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown made it clear again where he thinks the action should be when it comes to school reform – at the local level. Instead of “prescriptive commands issued from headquarters here in Sacramento,” he said, the school funding reforms he and the Legislature have put in place “set more general goals” that “put responsibility where it should be” – in the classroom and school. EdSource 

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Advocates want to limit uses of student data
As computerized testing becomes the norm in CA schools and many students are using computers to turn in class assignments, tiny bits of data useful to school administrator are captured along with it. An advocacy group is concerned about who else is using that data: software and publishing companies who created the tests and assignments and use it to improve products, increase sales and target advertising. KPCC

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LA84 Foundation awards $1.7 million in grants to youth organizations
The LA84 Foundation awarded $1.7 million in grants to Southern California youth organizations. The money comes from surplus funds from the 1984 Olympic Games. More than $220 million has been given back. Among the recipients was $450,000 to Kids in Sports, a Los Angeles-based organization that specializes in providing sports opportunities for underserved youth. LA’s BEST, an after school program in the LAUSD, received $300,000. LA Times

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Caution urged as politics plays out on transgender law
While fate of a new state law extending protections for transgendered students remains uncertain, school response has been varied – some adopting policies incorporating the law, some not. But legal experts have in recent weeks advised school administrators to set their own anti-discriminatory protocols for handling gender identity questions – balancing both the civil rights and needs of transgender students with the privacy of all students. SI&A Cabinet Report 

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War on teachers’ rights won’t improve access to a sound education
Commentary: Last year a group calling itself Students Matter filed a lawsuit, Vergara v. the State of California. The lawsuit challenges a number of labor protections for California’s teachers, including due process rights for dismissals and seniority rights during layoffs. EdSource