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Nury Martinez Wins L.A. City Council Race
Former Los Angeles school board member Nury Martinez pulled off a come-from-behind victory Tuesday in her race against rival Cindy Montañez for an open City Council seat in the east San Fernando Valley to become City Hall’s only elected female officeholder. LA Times
Pressure on Deasy Must Not be a Distraction
Editorial: Los Angeles Unified School District insiders and observers don’t seem to know what to think about a board member’s demand that Superintendent John Deasy detail a succession plan for himself and his staff. Here’s a suggestion: Think of it as a baffling waste of time, and hope it’s not a sign of how business will be conducted by the L.A. school board under its new balance of power. LA Daily News
Cal State Sets Salaries of 6 Campus Presidents Without Raises
The salaries start at $270,000, but the Cal State Board of Trustees emphasized that none of the presidents will receive more than their predecessors did. LA Times
Irritation or Two Aside, Charter Leaders Pleased with New Funding System
California Charter Schools Association chief executive Jed Wallace turned rhapsodic in a message last month to charter school operators summarizing the impact of the new school funding system on their campuses. The Local Control Funding Formula represents a landmark victory, he said, a sort of Brown v. Board of Education moment for the charter school movement. EdSource
California Moving Away from Washington’s Corporate Education Reform
Commentary: California’s shift to a new weighted student funding model represents just the most recent example of how Democratic state policymakers here are charting a different course in education policy than the Obama Administration and Congress. EdSource
Education Overhaul Faces a Test of Partisanship
The House of Representatives last week passed a bill aimed at greatly narrowing the federal role in public education that was expanded under No Child Left Behind. No Democrat voted for the bill, called the Student Success Act, and the Obama administration has threatened to veto it. During the floor debate last week in the House, Representative George Miller of California, the main Democratic supporter of the Bush-era law, labeled the bill the “Letting Students Down Act.” NY Times
Survey Finds State Officials Confident in Common Core
A new survey of high-ranking state education officials finds that most see little chance the Common Core State Standards will be “reversed, limited or changed in some way” in their states during the 2013-14 school year, and downplays the threat posed by state-level opposition to the common standards. EdWeek
States Ponder Costs of Common Tests
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers released pricing yesterday that’s just under the $29.95 median spending for summative math and English/language arts tests in its 19 member states. That means that nearly half of PARCC states face paying more for the tests they use for federal accountability. Edweek
After 70 Years as a Nonprofit, GED Test Switching to For-Profit Venture
In January, the General Educational Development test is going for-profit, part of a trend of privatization in education. The group has partnered with Pearson — considered the largest for-profit education business in the world — to form the new GED Testing Service, a for-profit company to run the test. KPCC