-
Deasy, Board Plunging Back into Turbulent Budget Waters
Meeting tomorrow for the second time in the new school year, the LA Unified school board will plunge back into a thorny debate over how to spend millions of new dollars flowing into the district from the state. It might not be pretty. Superintendent John Deasy is expected to respond to the board’s June directive to...
By Hillel Aron | September 9, 2013
-
Rhee and Friends Urge Union Teachers to Get Active on Reform
Michelle Rhee, the former Chancellor of Washington, D.C. public schools and a lightning rod for education reform, played to her audience of LA area teachers during a panel discussion last night at the Los Angeles Central Library, telling them that teachers need to be part of any debate about reform. “I definitely think that teachers...
By Vanessa Romo | September 6, 2013
-
Board Members Seeking to Ease Requirements for Volunteers
Three LA Unified board members are directing Superintendent John Deasy to develop a plan that makes it easier and less expensive for volunteers to work in district schools. In a resolution on the board’s agenda for its meeting Tuesday, the members – Tamar Galatzan, Steve Zimmer and Monica Garcia – expressed concern that recent budget...
By Chase Niesner | September 6, 2013
-
Teachers Union Files Two More Unfair Labor Practice Charges*
The teachers union has filed two unfair labor practice charges with the Public Employment Relations Board (or PERB) against the Los Angeles Unified School District over 12 teachers who have been removed from two different schools – one at City of Angels and 11 at Crenshaw High. UTLA president Warren Fletcher said at a...
By Hillel Aron | September 5, 2013
-
Superintendent Deasy Not Happy With Latest Testing Bill
LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy said today that he is uncomfortable with inconsistencies in the current version of Assembly Bill 484, which effectively kills the the state standardized tests, the so-called CSTs, and ushers in the new era of Common Core tests, to be taken on computers. “We had a unique opportunity in front of us...
By Hillel Aron | September 5, 2013
-
Online Voting a Step Closer for UTLA Membership
An initiative that would move voting by the LA teachers union from paper ballots to online has gathered enough signatures to put the change to a full membership vote, according to the architects of the proposal, Marisa Crabtree and Megan Markevich, both teachers and Teach Plus fellows. “Our goal is to make sure that our union is...
By Hillel Aron | September 5, 2013
-
California Adopts New ‘Next Gen’ Science Standards
The State Board of Education yesterday approved a new set of science standards, dubbed the Next Generation Science Standards, which emphasize “a deeper focus on understanding the cross-cutting concepts” of scientific disciplines, according to a press release by the California Department of education. The standards were developed in a collaboration with a number of states over the last 18...
By Hillel Aron | September 5, 2013
-
Rhee Joining Town Hall Meeting with Teachers in LA
A panel of education reformers, including StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee, is holding a town hall meeting later today in Los Angeles, where they will take questions from an audience of area educators. As the first of three such events around the country this month, the session is billed as a chance to set aside polarizing...
By Chase Niesner | September 5, 2013
-
Testing Bill Taking Shape, Would Suspend API For Two Years
A bill moving through the California State Assembly would suspend nearly all of the old standardized tests to free up money and student energy to “field test” the new computer-based Common Core assessments. But testing data from those field tests won’t be used for accountability purposes – they’ll simply be used as practice for students...
By Hillel Aron | September 4, 2013
-
Only Bad People Send Their Kids to a Private School
Writing in Slate, Allison Benedikt pens a “manifesto” for improving public schools: Call it the “all-in” approach. She uses a little “liberal guilt” to make her points. “It seems to me,” she says, “that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It...
By LA School Report | September 4, 2013