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)....

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...

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...

New accountability demands coming for charters – startups and renewals SI&A Cabinet Report: SB 1290 by Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, would require that charter authorizers must consider pupil academic achievement for all subgroups as measured by the API “as the most important factor” for renewal and revocation. Push for a Downtown Charter School Includes Big Fundraiser...

Ditching private schools LA Times (editorial): Private school students are choosing to move to charters in unexpected numbers. That’s a good thing for the education system. LAUSD must pay $2.4 million to football player who broke neck LA Times: A 19-year-old North Hollywood High School student who broke his neck during a football tryout practice has won a...

Still no word if and when a trigger petition gets filed in LAUSD, but in the meantime a screening of trigger movie “Won’t Back Down” was approved by the Democratic National Committee for a preconference event in Charlotte earlier this week, and took place complete with an appearance from Mayor Villaraigosa. Whatever Los Angelenos think of...

The first thing I notice when stepping into the office of Steve Zimmer, the 42 year-old LAUSD school board member, is the Cesar Chavez poster on the wall — a copy of which Deasy has, too. The second thing is the expansive view from the 24th floor of LAUSD’s massive hilltop headquarters looking out over...

Gloria Romero to Antonio Villaraigosa: We’re not removing you from Prop 32 ad SFGate: LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was ticked that the pro-Prop 32 folks were using his name and comments “out of context” in an ad. He asked them to remove his name/comments from the ad promoting the measure on the November ballot that would ban...

As we mentioned earlier, the Adelanto school board voted, on friday night, to set up a “community advisory board” to reform the parent-trigger targeted Desert Trails Elementary, but to reject the petition for a charter. “They decided they could thumb their nose at the court decision,” Parent Revolution spokesman David Phelps told me today. Phelps...