LA School Report

• LAUSD, Teachers Union Spar Over Voluntary Evaluation System: A robo-call sent out to all UTLA members has their president, Warren Fletcher, urging them not to participate in a voluntary pilot program that evaluates teachers based on their students’ test scores. Deasy hit back at the union, saying, “What a shame we don’t have a partner...

Starting in 1997, Los Angeles began passing a series of bond measures to fund construction of new schools. Since then, the city borrowed a total of $19.5 billion to build 131 schools– some with large, beautifully designed (and expensive) campuses like the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools and the High School for the Visual and...

• A Shorter School Year: Students at LA Unified this year will attend classes for only 175 days, 5 days fewer than last year, and 65 fewer than students in Japan. The decision was made by the school board due to budget constraints. Other districts chose to lay off more teachers. KPCC • Miramonte Elementary Teachers Return for...

• Schools Open, New and Old – Including Miramonte: By now, that first morning bell has rung, the children of Los Angeles are sitting quietly (ahem) at their desks, and 20 brand new schools have opened their doors for the first time. Superintendent John Deasy will visit a dozen or so schools, including Miramonte Elementary, where two...

California appears to be the only state in the nation that has applied for — but not yet received — a so-called “waiver” from NCLB but doesn’t already have a one-year freeze on NCLB’s ever-escalating proficiency requirements in its back pocket.  That means California schools will be among the only ones in the nation operating under...

While the legal status of the Reed v. California settlement was thrown into limbo with Friday’s court ruling, we thought this might be a good time to look at the three recent court cases which, taken together, represent a new front in the education reform battles of California. Frustrated by the State Legislature’s inability to enact...

• Be More Like New Jersey: An LA Times editorial argues that California follow in New Jersey’s footsteps, which just reformed its teacher tenure rules, lengthening the probationary period to four years (it had been three; in California it is 18 months), and limiting the arbitration period for firing a tenured teacher to three months, at...

Late Friday, California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals voided the settlement on the Reed v. CA lawsuit, which had rewritten how teacher layoffs are conducted at 45 under-performing LAUSD schools. That settlement — result of a lawsuit brought by students in low performing schools who called the practice discriminatory– reversed the so-called ‘last in/first out’ practice, which has traditionally given...

• Deasy’s Big Speech: Lots of coverage of Superintendent John Deasy’s big speech to school administrators. LA Times, Daily News, CBS, NBC, La Opinion.  • Building a Better LAUSD: To complement Deasy’s speech, LAUSD produced a feel-good promotional video. Vimeo • Rally Calls For Fewer Police Citations Of LAUSD Students: 50 students, teachers and community activists performed street theater and installed...

In his annual address to school administrators, Superintendent John Deasy proposed giving every single educator and student a tablet computer within 15 months. As the Daily News noted over the weekend, Deasy has been lobbying tech companies to donate the tablets. Deasy’s 40-minute speech also touted some of the districts recent successes, such as cutting disciplinary suspensions...