LA School Report

Days after LA teachers handed John Deasy a symbolic vote of no confidence, mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel reaffirmed her support for the divisive Superintendent. “In the last two years since John Deasy took over the school district, we have seen test scores skyrocket, graduation rates grow and drop out rates shrink,” Greuel said in an emailed...

L.A. School Board to Consider Faster Investigation of Teachers Sexual misconduct allegations at Miramonte Elementary School sparked a surge of investigations of Los Angeles teachers, pushing the ranks of those in “teacher jail” to more than 300 — and prompting officials this week to consider the rights of accused employees. LA Times See also: AP,...

Voters head to the polls in less than six weeks to decide the East San Fernando Valley District 6 School Board runoff between Antonio Sanchez and Monica Ratliff, but things are off to a pretty slow start when it comes to fundraising and spending. In terms of direct campaign fundraising, Ratliff hasn’t raised any money at all...

Over the weekend, the California Democratic Convention declined to provide exhibition space to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst or her husband’s Stand Up nonprofit (citing space constraints), gave CTA president Dean Vogel time to deliver this fiery anti-reform speech, and passed this anti-reform resolution. Via LA Times and CTA blog.

The Sacramento-based school advocacy group StudentsFirst recently hired Fabian Nunez in an effort to beef up its advocacy efforts in California. In a telephone interview last week, Nunez gave LA School Report his take on education politics in Sacramento, recent shifts in union priorities after last year’s controversial debate over teacher dismissals, and his vision for higher-performing...

After the symbolic “no confidence” vote by the Los Angeles teachers union last week, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy gave the LA Daily News his thoughts and described his plans to bring “youth rights” to all students in LA schools: Watch and read the full Deasy interview at LA Daily News; read LA School Report’s coverage of UTLA’s vote here.

California Democrats Blast Efforts to Overhaul Schools California Democrats on Sunday condemned efforts led by members of their own party to overhaul the nation’s schools, arguing that groups such as StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. LA Times L.A. School Reform Effort Draws Diverse Group of Wealthy Donors...

Thursday’s LA Times editorial about the use of student achievement data in teacher evaluations around the country (Bill Gates’ warning on test scores) makes some valuable points about the dangers of rushed, half-baked teacher evaluation schemes that count test scores as more than half of a teacher’s evaluation (as is being done in some states and districts)....

District 6 School Board candidate Antonio Sanchez got nearly 44% of the vote in the March Primary — just 6 points shy of the 50 percent that would have given him an outright victory. So don’t expect any big changes in his May 21 runoff election with teacher Monica Ratliff. “We only need to capture...

Here are some extra charts to illustrate yesterday’s LA Weekly story about LAUSD’s strong emphasis on teacher accountability over the past couple of years. They show a rise in teacher dismissals and “unsatisfactory” ratings — even as the number of teachers in LAUSD has decreased by thousands. Click below for the charts.