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State decides no API for schools until 2016
Faced with a complete sea change of its K-12 education system and having been relieved of its duty to meet some federal accountability requirements, the State Board of Education on Thursday temporarily suspended its school performance measurement tool known as the API. As a result of this decision, no Academic Performance Index scores – used to indicate how a school’s students are performing on standardized tests will be calculated for the next two years. SI&A Cabinet Report
Common Core learning curve
Editorial: If a sentence contains the phrases “New York state” and “Common Core,” chances are that somewhere between the two is the word “botched.” New York and California have taken opposite approaches to implementing the new academic standards, which have been adopted by 45 states but are now the target of a backlash. California’s approach bucked the Obama administration’s rules, but as it turns out, California was right. LA Times
Testing waiver acknowledges California’s commitment to Common Core
Editorial: California lawmakers were absolutely right last fall to suspend our outdated standardized tests a year earlier than planned, allowing teachers, administrators and students to devote more time and energy to the new Common Core state standards. San Jose Mercury
LAUSD employees should get a well-deserved raise
Guest Commentary: When I joined the school board in July 2011, the employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District were in a state of shock. Many colleagues had been laid off the month prior. By then we were three years into the recession, and multiple rounds of layoffs and cuts in hours and services had devastated every facet of our public education system. LA Daily News
Westside parents oppose LA schools’ breakfast in the classroom
For the first day of breakfast in the classroom for all students at Castle Heights Elementary Thursday, the menu included whole wheat pancakes, syrup, wildberry juice and milk. But most students didn’t bite. Castle Heights is in the affluent Cheviot Hills neighborhood in West Los Angeles and only 30 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced lunch, way below the district average of 85 percent. KPCC
National report highlights racial disparities in suspensions
In schools across the nation, African American boys receive harsher penalties than white students for the same offense; there is no evidence that “bad” students need to be removed from class so “good” students can learn; and poverty does not fully explain racial disparities in discipline, according to the findings of a series of reports released Thursday. EdSource