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Mayor Garcetti backs John Deasy, seeks to end feud between LAUSD leaders
Amid mounting tension between Los Angeles Unified’s top administrators and the school board, Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed support Monday for Superintendent John Deasy and said he plans to meet with both sides in order to ensure the district’s academic progress doesn’t falter. Garcetti was responding to questions about the future of the district, and its leaders, following the resignation Friday of Deputy Superintendent Jaime Aquino. Daily News

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Chaos, dysfunction and the L.A. Unified school board
Editorial: During a special meeting Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified school board will try to figure out how the district should spend more than $113 million in one-time funding to get teachers and students ready for the Common Core curriculum, the new standards in English and math that are to go into effect next year and that emphasize critical thinking over rote memorization. Great idea. LA Times

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Brown not backing away from decision to suspend state standardized tests
In remarks Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown defended the state’s decision to suspend state standardized tests this year and instead offer students a practice test in the Common Core standards that’s now being developed. And he gave no sign of steering away from a collision with the federal government over this issue. “I feel that a test based on a different curriculum does not make a lot of sense,” he said. “We are investing $1 billion to adopt Common Core.” EdSource

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School finance reform prompts dispute over counting low-income students
Never has school lunch meant so much for California education. Delivering significantly more money to schools based on the number of low-income children they serve is at the heart of the sweeping new K-12 finance system approved by the state Legislature in June. The new system defines “low income” as those students eligible for the school’s free and reduced-price meals program. EdSource

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School taxes concentrated in wealthier areas
Lowering the vote threshold for California school parcel taxes likely would allow more of them to pass but probably would not have a significant effect on school funding statewide, according to a report released Monday from the Public Policy Institute of California. Parcel taxes are typically flat fees assessed on property to help raise additional money for school district operations and raise an average of $584 a year per pupil. A two-thirds vote is required to approve them, but some Democrats in the state Legislature want to lower that threshold to 55 percent. Sacramento Bee

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Duncan to biz leaders: step up
Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to appeal both to altruism and to naked self-interest when he argues that CEOs at today’s Business Roundtable meeting should step up and promote the Obama administration’s education agenda. Duncan wants more chief executives to throw themselves into advocating for more preschool funding, more STEM programs and, of course, the Common Core academic standards. Politico

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There Joel Klein goes again…
A story in the latest edition of the New York Times Magazine titled “No Child Left Untableted,” by Carlo Rotella, is getting a lot of attention in part because of statements made in it by former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, who now runs Amplify, the education division of Rupert Murdoch’s  News Corp. Washington Post