LA School Report

Want to know who’s filed to run for LAUSD board member next year, and how much cash they’ve gathered for their campaigns?  Click over to the LA City Ethics Commission’s website: 2013 Municipal and LAUSD Election. Below is a snapshot from yesterday evening showing the three LAUSD races for 2013 (towards the bottom). District 2 is the...

When the California standardized test scores were released last week, the Daily News lauded LAUSD for “its best showing ever.” Superintendent John Deasy gave the district (and himself) a pat on the back, saying, “We’ve put a great deal of emphasis in this district on English-language arts, we’ve put a great deal of emphasis on...

LAUSD board member Zimmer to revise charter schools proposal after protests Daily Breeze:  Los Angeles Unified board member Steve Zimmer vowed Tuesday to revise his controversial charter schools resolution after nearly a dozen speakers and an overflow crowd voiced strident opposition to his plan to study tougher oversight. Defiance: the all-purpose word that drives kids out of...

The latest news is that Brian Johnson, the former Teach For America (TFA) Los Angeles executive director who ran for and lost a close race for state assembly (right), isn’t going to run for the LAUSD school board. This spring there are three spots coming open on the board — including another TFA alumnus, Steve Zimmer. The...

L.A. Unified, union OK system of evaluating principals LA Times: Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy announced the one-year agreement with the administrators’ union Tuesday, calling it a “remarkable breakthrough.” The one-year time period will give both sides time to work out details of the system, according to AALA President Judith Perez. Other coverage of the agreement is...

A number of parents and teachers showed up to today’s jam-packed school board meeting to denounce board member Steve Zimmer’s proposal to reject Academic Growth Over Time (or AGT) as a measurement of pupil progress in teacher evaluations. About six or seven of them wore t-shirts reading, “SHAME ON YOU ZIMMER.” They never got their chance...

There’s a teachers’ strike in Chicago, in case you hadn’t heard. And, not surprisingly, lots of media and campaign folks are trying to make national and political connections — linking the Chicago strike to last year’s showdown in Wisconsin, or the so-called “war on teachers” being conducted by so-called “school reformers,” or the November elections)....

As we previewed yesterday (Big Moves From Zimmer), today’s likely big board meeting items relate to Steve Zimmer proposals to change the way schools’ academic growth are measured and to implement a moratorium on charters until better oversight is in place. KPCC has a story this morning about the charter school proposal: Does the quality of charter...

State education report calls for sweeping reforms in teacher evaluation Daily News: The California Department of Education on Monday released a comprehensive new report calling for sweeping reforms in the way teachers are recruited, trained, mentored and evaluated. Far-reaching plan to strengthen teaching in California EdSource: Some of the ideas are bold and will be controversial…Others will sound...

We’re waiting for the district and teachers union to come up with some sort of deal to comply with the Stull Act’s requirement that teacher evaluations include some measure of pupil progress (see our most recent update here). In the meantime, you might want to know that 21 states — not including California — have...