School board member Tamar Galatzan (pictured) is quite possibly the busiest elected official in the city. One of two board members who has chosen to serve part-time (along with Nury Martinez), Galatzan also has a full-time job at the City Attorney’s office, and is the mother of two boys in elementary school. (She’s the only board...

Reviews of the new release “Won’t Back Down” vary widely and tend to conform with pre-existing views on education reform issues. Critics like The Nation’s Dana Goldstein describe it as a mean-spirited caricature of classroom teachers funded by a conservative millionaire who wants to destroy public schools — a 2012 version of  “Waiting For Superman.”...

Thanks to a kind reader for sending along this PBS NewsHour segment in which former LAUSD superintendent Roy Romer debates American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten:  It’s a couple of weeks old but still might be worth the watch, given the ongoing debate over including student achievement in teacher evaluations and whether unions can...

The recent LA Magazine profile of Superintendent John Deasy included a surprising statistic: “When Deasy arrived, about 98 percent of eligible teachers were granted tenure. Now the approval rate is less than 50 percent.” That sounded unbelievable to me– it either had to be a mistake, or the result of some little-publicized but groundbreaking policy....

Last Friday, UTLA put on an event to demonstrate support for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and held a conference call with CTU delegates who were then still on strike (see Support spreads for CTU Socialist Worker).  Excitement among union leaders and rank-and-file teachers was high.  Accountability-minded reformers were grumbling that the district had given away too...

Just about everyone who watches LAUSD is scratching their heads wondering just what board member Steve Zimmer is doing — lately more than ever. He’s introduced two incredibly polarizing motions recently– one to reject the use of Academic Growth Over Time in teacher evaluations, and one to provide greater oversight for charter schools and, more...

On Monday, representatives from LAUSD and UTLA met again to discuss teacher evaluations — the 15th session since July 11, when a judge ordered the two sides to develop a new system for evaluating teachers and principals that includes some measure of pupil progress. Superintendent John Deasy told Teresa Watanabe of the LA Times, “I...

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...

Teachers union wants a say in L.A. Unified’s classroom breakfast program LA Times: As the district begins expanding the classroom breakfast program to 279 schools this year, United Teachers Los Angeles has asked for the matter to be brought to the bargaining table. Small central coast district leads the way on teacher evaluation, mentoring SI&A Report: Two major...