Bill Restricting ‘Willful Defiance’ for Suspending Students Moves Ahead With new data showing that more than half of all suspensions and a quarter of expulsions in California schools are for “willful defiance” of school authorities, the Assembly Education Committee voted 6-0 on Wednesday to move forward a bill that would restrict the use of the...

LAUSD Board Debates Raising Salaries or Buying Students Tablet Computers With the groundwork laid for a new digital-learning plan, a request for a strategy to buy computer tablets for all students erupted Tuesday into a shouting match between two Los Angeles Unified board members over setting budget priorities for the district. LA Daily News See...

LAUSD Not a Race to the Top 2012 Finalist Finalists for the White House’s 2012 Race to the Top grant competition were released Monday. To no one’s surprise, the Los Angeles Unified School District is not a contender. Huff Po Four CA Districts Make Race to the Top Finals Out of 17 districts that applied...

Remember a few weeks ago when UTLA refused to sign onto LAUSD’s Race to the Top application, and Superintendent John Deasy sent it in anyway (along with a press release)? Well it took the US Department of Education about five minutes to reject LAUSD’s application, and — thanks to 300 peer reviewers — it took...

Lots of school districts besides LAUSD failed to come to agreement with teachers unions about applying for the district version of Race to the Top funding from Washington. However, thanks to an all-out effort and a fair bit of compromise, Fresno was able to win an agreement with its local union, as were Denver, Las Vegas, and even...

Support for Brown’s Tax Measure Holding its Own Likely to be in the Prop. 30 camp’s favor is a massive increase in the number of newly-registered voters, said to be mostly young Democrats. Since the state launched an online registration program in September, nearly an additional one million residents have signed up to vote. SI&A...

Superintendent John Deasy submitted the district’s Race to the Top application to Washington yesterday without the support of UTLA — and without any real chance of wining approval — largely to score political points against the teachers union, according to Board-watchers. “I think both sides are ready to fight each other full steam on Tuesday [after the...

Big Districts Divided Over Cutting School Year if Prop. 30 Fails Slightly more than a third report that they do not plan any more furlough days, and the rest say that a shorter school year remains an option that they plan to raise with their unions. Ed Source L.A. Unified Competes For U.S. Funds Without Key...