You might be surprised to find out that “Won’t Back Down” — a screening of which I snuck into the other night — isn’t actually the fictionalized story of Desert Trails, site of the real-life still-unfolding parent trigger attempt outside of Los Angeles, or the CA parent trigger law that allows parents to vote to...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Tomorrow at the LAUSD board meeting (see agenda here), board member Steve Zimmer will make two big moves. The first is his long-awaited proposal to reject the use of Academic Growth Over Time, or AGT, as a measurement of pupil progress when evaluating teachers. AGT measures student improvement on the California Standardized Tests (CSTs), and...

Yesterday, the CTA dropped another $6.9 million into the fight against Proposition 32, which would, among other things, prohibit unions from taking money automatically deducted from their members’ paychecks and spending it on political activity. (See LA Times:  Teachers union gives another $6.9 million to Prop. 32 fight.) “This is a huge priority for us,...