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Board, not Schools, Gets Final Say on Spending New CA Money*
Ending a debate that was just getting underway within LA Unified, an official from the California School Boards Association said today school boards make all decisions on how Local Control Funding Formula money is spent, not individual schools. Appearing before the LA Unified Board’s Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee, Teri Burns, the association’s senior director...
By LA School Report | October 22, 2013
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Career-Based HS Program Getting $7.8 million to Expand

Nearly $8 million in new public and private revenue is enabling The California Center for College and Career to expand a program that links career and technical education with college preparedness. The Linked Learning District Initiative is currently providing technical assistance and coaching to high schools in LA Unified and eight other districts offering career-based learning and workplace...
By Chase Niesner | October 22, 2013
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LA Unified Set for a Busy Afternoon of Committee Meetings

It’s a big meeting day at LA Unified’s downtown headquarters, with three committees convening one after another starting this afternoon. At 1 o’clock, it’s the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, chaired by Marguerite LaMotte; followed at 3 p.m. by the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, led by Bennett Kayser; and at 5:30 by the Common Core...
By LA School Report | October 22, 2013
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LA Unified iPads Could Cost Another $100 Each

Via The Los Angeles Times | By Howard Blume Providing Apple iPads to Los Angeles students will cost nearly $100 more apiece — or $770 per tablet, a new school district budget shows. This potential sticker shock can be avoided, but only after the L.A. Unified School District has spent at least $400 million for...
By LA School Report | October 22, 2013
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LA Unified Has Slight Rise in SAT Takers, Average Scores

The number of LA Unified 12th-graders taking the SAT test rose last year, along with the District’s average test scores on critical reading, mathematics, and writing portions of the exam, according to new data from the College Board, which develops the test. Nearly half of the most recent graduating class took the SAT, 22,106 seniors for...
By Chase Niesner | October 21, 2013
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Crenshaw Digital Team Brings its ‘Game’ to the White House
While the higher-ups in LA Unified debate budgets and iPads, students from the Crenshaw Digital Media and Gaming Team visited the White House last month to brief President Obama’s top technology officials on their work designing socially- conscious computer games. The team, which is sponsored by the grassroots education nonprofit Mother of Many, raised nearly...
By Chase Niesner | October 21, 2013
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Vladovic Censure Would be ‘Extremely Divisive Episode’*

An expert in school board governance says that a censure vote is rare and has the potential to fracture a board even beyond its existing rifts. Christopher Maricle, a policy program officer and governance consultant for the California School Board Association, says the effort to publicly condemn a school district president could be an extremely divisive...
By Vanessa Romo | October 21, 2013
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For iPad Rollout, Better to be Careful than Quick

Via the Los Angeles Times | Editorial John Deasy, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, can be impatient and stubborn, qualities we often admire in him. It takes a sense of urgency to get things moving in L.A.’s schools, as well as a willingness to stand against the forces that resist change....
By LA School Report | October 21, 2013
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CLASS Calls Meeting with Vladovic ‘Productive’

A coalition of community groups known by the acronym, CLASS, finally had a meeting today with LA Unified Board President Richard Vladovic. The groups’ mission was to press the case for individual schools, rather than district administrators, deciding how to spend money coming into LA Unified from Gov. Jerry Brown‘s new Local Control Funding Formula,...
By LA School Report | October 18, 2013
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Olson Previews Arguments in Vergara ‘Bad Teacher’ Lawsuit

Theodore B. Olson, the former U.S. Solicitor General, previewed arguments yesterday in Vergara v. California, a lawsuit that strives to protect equal educational opportunity in California by ensuring that all students have access to effective teaching. Speaking at the National Summit on Education Reform in Boston, Olson appeared with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and...
By LA School Report | October 18, 2013