Roughly 300 LAUSD employees – mostly teachers – suspected of misconduct are housed in “rubber rooms,” as you may recall from last week’s LA Weekly article documenting the process and the costs of the lengthy review and dismissal process (127 days, on average). But how many employees ever find their way back to their old jobs? As it turns out,...

While union president Warren Fletcher has claimed victory on a recent court-ordered tentative agreement on teacher evaluations, a closer look might leave rank-and-file teachers scratching their heads. UTLA has consistently opposed any use of student test scores in teacher evaluations in the past. So it was unexpected when the union leadership signed off on using...

National teachers union head Randi Weingarten heaped praise on the tentative deal that LAUSD and UTLA announced last week. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy touted it as historic (see: “This Has Never Been Done”). But elsewhere across the nation, the initial word about the deal hasn’t been so unanimously glowing. Today’s LA Times story about the deal highlights some of these concerns,...

LAUSD Wins Key Legal Battle With Charter Schools A California appellate court panel strikes down a ruling that could have opened up many classrooms for charters and created potential hardships for traditional campuses. LA Times LA Teachers Union Endorses Multiple Candidates for the Same Seats In an unusual move, the United Teachers Los Angeles on...

As the 2013 race for three LAUSD School Board seats heats up, so will the political fundraising that pays for the candidates’ campaigns. Just as they have in recent elections, independent expenditure (IE) committees are again likely to eclipse direct donations to candidates’ campaigns. At least one IE committee is ahead of the game: UTLA-PACE,...

L.A. Unified Says Deal on Evaluations Meets Court Order The Los Angeles Unified School District filed court papers Tuesday asserting that a new tentative agreement with the teachers union has satisfied judicial orders to use state standardized test scores in instructor evaluations. LA Times LAUSD Board OKs Deal With Teachers Union on Performance Evaluations The...

The 50-member UTLA Board of Directors [BOD] has recommended to the union’s House of Representatives that they endorse school board member Steve Zimmer, according to a teacher speaking to LA School Report on condition of anonymity, and it has also recommended that the House of Representatives endorse a handful of acceptable candidates in Districts 2 (Central and East Los...

Bill to Speed up Teacher Dismissals Is Revived Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) acted in the wake of a state audit concluding that current laws added excessive cost and time to the firing process. LA Times See Also: LA Daily News  Billboards Promote Law That Lets Students Leave Low Performing Schools The Open Enrollment Act became...

On Friday, LAUSD and UTLA finally came to tentative agreement on a new way to evaluate teachers, just days before the court-imposed December 4 deadline in Doe v. Deasy. The initial responses were generally positive, including from the plaintiffs. “Assuming that everyone behaves in good faith, I think we’ve achieved what we’ve set out to...

“Over the past several years, teachers who have spent 10 years or fewer in the classroom have become the dues-paying majority. These newer teachers, along with many longtime teachers, are looking for their unions to elevate the profession — not to sacrifice teaching quality for job security.” — Teachers for New Unionism head Michael Stryer...