Morning Read: Target Practice is New Lesson for Teachers
LA School Report | August 12, 2013
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LAUSD Giving Principals, Teachers ‘Live Shooter’ Training
Prompted by last year’s massacre in Newtown, Conn., Los Angeles Unified is instructing administrators and faculty in how to keep students safe if there’s a gunman on campus. Steve Zipperman, a retired LAPD captain who is now chief of the district’s police force, said principals participated this summer “live-shooter training” that will be shared with teachers in the new school year. Daily News
Back to School Means Big Changes, Challenges at LAUSD
The start of classes Tuesday will launch a watershed year for Los Angeles Unified as it rolls out a new curriculum, toughens its graduation requirements and launches an innovative system for dealing with disruptive students. Daily News
Common Core Poses Challenge For Students, Opportunity For Teachers
With an emphasis on developing verbal and analytical skills, the new Common Core standards will pose a big step up for most students. For English learners, who comprise a quarter of California’s children, it’ll seem more like a pole vault. Ed Source
Downtown’s Got a New $54 Million Elementary School
The new campus was paid for with funds from Proposition Q, a bond measure passed by voters in 2008, and about $12 million from Para Los Niños, which obtained money through grants and other sources. LA Downtown News
‘Parent Trigger’ Tribulations – and Triumphs
Commentary: It took three years, hundreds of signatures, several trips to court and thousands of hours of hard work, but California’s Parent Empowerment Act – also known as the “parent trigger” – is showing some tangible effects. It’s not a moment too soon for the families who availed themselves of the law but also an indication of just how far reform needs to go. Sacramento Bee
Achievement Gap Widens For Students After City’s New Standardized Tests
Nearly two-thirds of city students failed the higher-standards math and reading tests, but districts with large percentages of high-needs students did especially poor, according to a report from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. New York Daily News
Editorial: Why Tests Matter for Students
Fewer tests? OK. Just make sure they’re honest. Too many tests? Fine, some of them are going away. But it is far more critical to assure that we know how students and teachers are doing — and that tests give honest results. Los Angeles Times