Morning Read: Child Sexual Abuse Surrounds District 6 Race
LA School Report | July 22, 2013
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Issue of Child Sexual Abuse Emerges in District 6 Race
The late-breaking controversy — which included one candidate telling her story of being abused as a child — has added a wild card to Tuesday’s special election to fill the eastern San Fernando Valley 6th District seat vacated by Tony Cardenas, who was elected to Congress. LA Times
LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy Ordered to Submit Succession Plan
Los Angeles Unified board member Bennett Kayser, part of a majority that has been increasingly critical of Superintendent John Deasy, sent a letter Friday to the schools chief demanding a plan spelling out who is in charge when he’s gone. LA Daily News
See also: LA School Report
School Districts Moving Quickly to Meet National Education Standards
The teams of Los Angeles Unified educators huddled around the auditorium of the Northridge middle school, brainstorming and debating innovative new strategies for teaching math. Their chatter filled the hall as they worked together on ways to keep kids from giving up on a troublesome formula, techniques for demonstrating multiple solutions to a single problem and methods for encouraging students to learn more from each other. LA Daily News
CORE Districts Leave Washington Without Waiver
Representatives of nine California districts did not head home from Washington on Friday, after two and a half days of intense discussions with federal officials, with the waiver from the No Child Left Behind law that they had been hoping for. EdSource
iPads on the Way for Education Overhaul
School districts are going on computer buying sprees as they ramp up for the introduction of the Common Core curriculum in fall 2014 and the state’s new online tests in 2015. The project pencils out at roughly $450 million, with the money coming from voter-approved bonds to fund school improvements. LA Daily News
As Arizona Governor, Napolitano Put Higher Education on Agenda
During her six years as Arizona governor, Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, secured a $1-billion bond to build new facilities for the state’s universities, signed a law that boosted state contributions to financial aid and approved a special fund to retain professors — all with a Republican-controlled Legislature. LA Times
Palmdale School Board Approves Furloughs and Pay Cuts
Trustees in the Antelope Valley district voted late Tuesday to cut salaries for its 2,500 employees by 3.8 percent this year and an additional 8.4 percent in 2014-15, and to impose nine unpaid furlough days for each of those years. Those cuts will be reversed if the district’s finances improve. LA Daily News
More Community Colleges Facing Accreditation Problems
Cutbacks are seen as one reason for lack of maintaining standards. Students’ credits can be in jeopardy if campuses lose their status. LA Times
CA Produces Only Half the Number of Special Ed Teachers Needed
Even as enrollment in special education programs statewide continues to escalate, California’s teacher credentialing system is turning out only about half the number of fully authorized classroom educators needed to serve students with disabilities. SI&A Cabinet Report
Work Paid Off for Watts Winners in National Engineering Contest
Four students from Markham Middle School in Watts poured 500 hours into a prosthetic arm design that took top honors in MESA USA’s national contest. “I feel like somebody now,” Jacqueline Sanchez says. LA Times
Change Agent in Education Collects Critics in Connecticut Town
Paul G. Vallas, a leader in the effort to shake up American education, has wrestled with unions in Chicago, taken on hurricane-ravaged schools in New Orleans and confronted a crumbling educational system in Haiti. Now he faces what may be his most vexing challenge yet: Fending off a small but spirited crowd of advocates working to unseat him as superintendent of one of Connecticut’s lowest-performing and highest-poverty school districts. NY Times
It Starts with Hiring
Blog: Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the nation’s second largest public school district, still operates under a contractual system of “forced placement” where principals must make hiring decisions based solely on a candidate’s seniority and, if applicable, license area. Characteristics such as performance or mission, vision and culture fit hold no weight. Eduwonk
Poll: Parents Don’t Support Many Education Policy Changes
Most parents with children in public schools do not support recent changes in education policy, from closing low-performing schools to shifting public dollars to charter schools to private school vouchers, according to a new poll to be released Monday by the American Federation of Teachers. Washington Post