Educators 4 Excellence, an organization that advocates for teachers to take a more active role in shaping education policies, plans to host a podcast interview with District 6 (East San Fernando Valley) runoff candidates Monica Ratliff and Antonio Sanchez.

E4E will interview Sanchez and Ratliff, who have both agreed to participate, on May 8. The podcast will available on E4E’s website to stream or download on May 13.

Previous posts: School Board Candidate Praises Deasy’s Efforts to Limit Tenure;  Sanchez Unavailable for Candidate Forum; Daily News Addresses Ratliff Union Role.

Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel

Mayoral candidates Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel will meet with parents on Monday, May 6 at 24th Street Elementary, the first school in LAUSD to be taken over by parents using the parent trigger law.

Parent Revolution, an education advocacy group that has led the parent trigger effort in California, will host the meet and greet. Garcetti and Greuel will visit the school at separate times to hear from parents about their successful school overhaul and to have a Q&A session on the future of education in Los Angeles.

The candidates’ positions on education policies and the parent trigger law have evolved over the course of their campaigns. Garcetti, who is endorsed by the teachers union in LA, initially seemed to oppose the parent trigger movement (read about it here), but he eventually expressed unequivocal support for the option (read the story here). Greuel aligned herself with education reformers earlier in the campaign process and has consistently said she support the trigger option as a way to fix failing schools (read about it here.)

Previous posts: One Mayoral Candidate Opposes Parent Trigger – Sort Of; Garcetti Praises Reform Strategies; Mayoral Candidate Greuel Supports Garcia, Parent Trigger

Monday, May 6 is the last day you can register to vote for the May 21 runoff. If you still haven’t registered, go here to register to vote online.

Click below for other deadlines for applying to vote by mail and to drop off a vote by mail application.

May 14, 2013 (Tuesday): The last day to apply by mail for a vote-by-mail ballot in the May runoff election.

May 20, 2013 (Monday): The last day to drop off a vote-by-mail ballot at the Los Angeles City Clerk’s election division office. (You can also fill out and mail in the vote-by-mail ballot application on the back of an official sample ballot.)

May 21, 2013 (Tuesday): Runoff election day. It’s also the last day to drop off a vote-by-mail ballot at any polling place by closing time at 8:00 p.m.

What was particularly notable about the bill’s failure was the absence of the majority of the Committee’s members during the hearing and the vote.

Last week, the members had deadlocked 4-4 on the legislation, dubbed SB 441, with one abstention. This week, only three out of nine senators — Senators Mark Wyland (R-Carlsbad), Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), and Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) — voted “yes.”

The other six members of the Committee sat silently when their names were called. (Watch video of the roll call here, around the 2:59 time mark.)

The bill’s defeat comes as disappointing news to the bill’s supporters, which included education reform group StudentsFirst and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who has been pushing to improve the teacher evaluation system in LAUSD.

Deasy had sent a letter to SB 441’s sponsor, Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), expressing his support for the bill on April 17: “This bill will allow us to continue making refinements on the work we have been engaged in over the last four years and build upon the successes we have experienced,” Deasy wrote. (Read the full letter here.)

The empty seats at the Senate Education Committee’s May 1 hearing on SB 441. via Twitter

A bill known as SB 441 that proposes changes to California’s rules on teacher evaluations is being considered a second time today by the Senate Committee on Education today — but eight out of nine of the Committee’s members have been absent from the meeting.

Scheduling might explain at least in part of the reason why only Senator Carol Liu is present at the hearing. This is a particularly busy day in Sacramento, as the deadline for the policy committees to report fiscal bills to the Fiscal Committee is Friday, May 3.

But another possible explanation might be the controversy surrounding the proposal, which pits the state teachers unions, who oppose the proposal, against reform advocacy groups like StudentsFirst, who support it.

A week ago, the Education Committee deadlocked on the evaluation bill, which is sponsored by Senator Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), after a contentious hearing. But it decided to schedule the bill for a second hearing on Wednesday, May 1.

StudentsFirst has ratcheted up its support for SB 441 in the days leading up to the second hearing, taking out a full-page ad in the Sacramento Bee and playing radio ads on a local Sacramento station to urge approval of the measure. The group also rallied its followers with mass emails, asking them to show up at the SB 441 hearing, or to call their senators and implore them to support improving teacher evaluation measures.

The California Teachers Association has hardened its stance against the bill since last week, writing in a post on its website that SB 441 “would do nothing to provide [teachers] with the useful and effective feedback that would help them become even better teachers.”

The CTA also said the bill would “limit evaluations to four measurements,” but it did not mention that current law only offer two grades to teachers: satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

Although eight of the Education Committee’s senators are absent from the hearing, the roll call for the meeting is being held off, so they should have until the end of the day today to cast their votes on the evaluation bill, if they decide to do so.

If not enough Senators are present, or if the vote is a tie between those for and against, the bill will be effectively killed.  We’ll let you know as soon as any votes or decisions are made.

Previous posts: Committee Deadlocks on Teacher Evaluation Bill; Union Re-Launches Deasy Evaluation Effort; Union Tells Teachers How to Protest Evaluations

The union’s announcement followed a Monday night LA Times story that said a majority of School Board members planned to vote at the May Board meeting to continue funding the program next year, and preceded a Tuesday afternoon parent protest in support of the classroom breakfast program. (See: Parents Rally to Save Classroom Breakfasts.)

The “breakfast program is flawed — but fixable,” the union wrote in the press release, urging the district to work together with UTLA to resolve some of the issues it has with BIC. (See UTLA statement here.)

Only a few weeks ago, the union seemed to condemn the program when it announced that “Breakfast in the Classroom gets failing grade from teachers,” based on a survey of just 729 teachers, half of whom complained that BIC cut into their instructional time and left messes behind.

The UTLA press release arrived on the heels of a statement in support of Breakfast in the Classroom that LAUSD Board Member Bennett Kayser sent to the press Monday evening. (See release here.)

Kayser, who received significant UTLA funding during his 2011 campaign and often aligns himself with teachers union, may have startled some when he threw his lot behind BIC, writing, “Our Breakfast in the Classroom program not only furthers the President’s effort to feed hungry children but brings much needed revenue for the instructional program to the District as well.”

Then again, Kayser also seized the opportunity to criticize LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy for “inexplicably” pulling BIC from next year’s budget and leaving it up to the School Board to vote on whether or not to fund the breakfast program.

Both Kayser and UTLA emphasized that the breakfast program needs improvements, however. Their key concerns are how feed students breakfast without interrupting learning time in class, and how to resolve sanitation issues.

That the program needs work is something most stakeholders agree on — even Cortni Pugh, the head of the SEIU Local 99, which is a big supporter of BIC, told LA School Report last week that it is a new program and needs time to be fully implemented. Now that Deasy has forced a School Board vote, the teachers union seems more ready to negotiate the details of the program rather than failing it outright.

Previous posts: Deasy’s School Breakfast Gambit Confuses Supporters; Classroom Breakfast Expanding Despite Some Complaints

Read the full LA School Report story here.

Brown’s plan to give struggling school districts like LAUSD, which have higher numbers of low-income and English language learner students, higher funding than more successful districts, has divided Democrats in the California legislature. Listen here:

The possible elimination of a program Southern California Public Radio described as “a political hot potato” presumably pleased the teachers union, which has long called for its end.

But Deasy’s plan to remove the program from his budget and force Board members to vote to restore it confused and displeased some BIC supporters.

“It’s not my favorite strategy,” School Board President Monica Garcia told the LA Times. “But I understand choices have to be made.”.

“I get what he wants to do,” Courtni Pugh, head of the 45,000-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, told LA School Report. “He keeps saying he wants to save the program, so we have the same goal. But I would have gone about it differently.”

Word about the Deasy gambit started trickling out on Thursday, and then in an interview published Friday morning in the LA Times, Deasy said he wanted BIC reinstated, but only if the Board takes “maximum responsibility.”

“The program is going to have to be cut unless the Board votes to keep it,” Deasy told the paper. “UTLA made it very clear about how this program is a big problem.”

As LA School Report described last week, UTLA has offered a teacher survey as evidence to bolster its argument that serving low-income students breakfast in the classroom is a disruptive and messy process that teachers opposed.

However, the sample of teachers who responded to the UTLA was small — only 729 compared to 10,000 classrooms participating in the program — and of those teachers who responded only a little over 400 said they had complaints with the program.

Deasy’s maneuver took many education stakeholders off guard, as Deasy has championed the implementation of the program since it was first tried out two years ago.

“I don’t think that Superintendent Deasy wants to eliminate the program,” explained School Board president Monica Garcia in a LA Daily News story. “I think he’s asking the Board to affirm whether a program that has more kids eating breakfast and getting to school on time and putting more people to work – should we continue this.”

Others weren’t so circumspect about the decision or the process of unveiling it.

“We heard through a memo,” SEIU’s Pugh told LA School Report.

“We are disheartened that Superintendent John Deasy would consider ending a program that is successfully tackling the difficult issues of hunger and poverty in our schools,” said Pugh in a written statement. (Read it here.)  “In these difficult economic times, the program has already saved thousands of cafeteria jobs. And as the program continues to be implemented, more jobs will be saved.”

Pugh admitted that BIC is not perfect because it’s just started and is a large operation to implement. “But I wholeheartedly believe the pros outweigh the cons,” said Pugh. “You don’t throw away a program when 77 percent of the kids in LAUSD qualify for reduced price lunch, and 91 percent of kids of color do.”

Putting the decision in the hands of the School Board is an interesting political move on Deasy’s part. Board members, many of whom have received financial backing from SEIU, UTLA (or both) will likely feel pressure from each union as they weigh whether to ax a program that feeds hungry students breakfast.

When asked if she knows where Board members stand on BIC, Pugh wasn’t willing to talk about individuals, but she did say, “Not the entire School Board will be supporting BIC… But we’re in a situation that we’re in now, and we’re not going to back down from a fight.”

SEIU Local 99 plans to mobilize its members; it’s already scheduled an April 30 rally to support BIC. (See event details here.)

Board members will have to decide to reinstate the program or let it expire at the May 14 Board meeting.

In a press release sent out Friday afternoon, Deasy sounded assured that his plan will work out for the program, writing, “I’m confident that at its May 14 meeting, the Board of Education will enthusiastically and unanimously vote to continue funding Breakfast in the Classroom.”

UTLA Vice-President Juan Ramirez told the LA Times Friday that the union won’t support BIC unless some of its demands, including moving breakfast out of the classroom, are met.

Previous posts: Classroom Breakfast Expanding Despite Some Complaints; Teachers Vote Against Deasy, For More Teachers; April Vote Will Highlight Union Factions

Senator Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) sponsored the teacher evaluation bill.

A proposed bill known as SB 441 that would tighten teacher evaluation rules statewide narrowly failed to pass the Senate Education Committee Wednesday — but it’s not completely dead yet.

After hearing impassioned testimony from parents, teachers, and union representatives, the Committee deadlocked 4-4 over approval of the legislation.

But the Committee also voted to reconsider the bill later in an amended form, leaving the door open for a return to the issue.

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Ron Calderon (D- Montebello), described the measure as “modest” in its scope.

Just before the hearing, his Chief of Staff, Rocky Rushing, told LA School Report that the evaluation bill is Calderon’s “attempt to modify the evaluation process and to provide better feedback for teachers to allow them to become better educators.”

The main change the bill would make is to update current evaluation law, which grades teachers on two grade levels, satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Calderon’s bill would create four grade levels, to be decided by school districts.

The bill would also require teachers who have taught more than 10 years to be evaluated at least once every three years. Current law only requires veteran teacher reviews every five years. (Read the bill’s text here.)

During the hearing, a stream of supporters — many of them teachers and parents from the Los Angeles area — spoke before the Committee on Wednesday, urging its members to pass the evaluation bill.

One LA-area teacher told the Committee he supported the bill because he had a more “comprehensive evaluation working at Blockbuster than I do as a public school teacher in California.”

Amy Baker, a LAUSD parent, criticized the state for making “no effort to improve our broken teacher evaluation system” and asked the committee to pass the bill because it was “a modest step in the right direction.”

CTA representative Patricia Rucker admitted that her union is unsatisfied with the current teacher evaluation system, but she insisted that Calderon’s bill “does not fix it.”

Lynne Faulks, representing the CFT and UTLA, said her unions oppose the proposal because it “fails to address central issues, such as developing teacher effectiveness and ensuring measurements are effective and fair.”

Calderon defended his intentions, saying, “Nowhere do I say, in this bill or in my remarks, that I’m putting targets on teachers’ backs… We want to give teachers a tool to deal with changes and become successful.”

The debate continued with both sides arguing their technical points, and committee members seemed torn between both sides.

Eventually they voted the bill down, 4-4, with an agreement to hear the bill later, after it’s amended.

Senators Bob Huff, Mark Wyland, Ben Hueso and Lou Correa voted in support; Bill Monning, Hannah-Beth Jackson, Carol Liu, and Loni Hancock voted against the bill; and Marty Block abstained.

Previous posts: Union Tells Teachers How to Protest Evaluations; Deasy Requests Changes to Teacher Dismissal Bill; Union & District Clarify Positions on Teacher Evaluation

Monica Ratliff. Via LA Times

Concerned that District 6 (East Valley) School Board candidate Monica Ratliff might oppose the leadership of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, the LA Times editorial page secured a commitment from Ratliff to keep Deasy at the helm of the district as part of re-iterating its endorsement:

“Ratliff, who was a public interest lawyer before she became a teacher, advocates smart solutions to vexing issues — such as improving instruction by giving weak teachers time to sit in on the classes of highly effective ones. She is neither a gung-ho member of the school reform movement nor a backer of the union’s anti-reform rhetoric…. [And] if she were in a position to decide on Deasy’s contract today, she would vote to renew it.” [emphasis added]

Previous posts: Board Candidate Changes Position on Deasy (Again);  District 6 Candidate Hardens Position on Deasy; Union Endorsements Unchanged for District 6

District 6 Candidates Monica Ratliff and Antonio Sanchez

The May 21 LAUSD Board runoff for District 6 is less than a month away, and Teach Plus, an urban education advocacy group, is hosting a candidate forum on Thursday, May 2.

Both candidates Monica Ratliff and Antonio Sanchez have been invited, but only Ratliff has confirmed her participation so far. The event is interactive, and audience members will have opportunities to ask the candidates questions and offer input on education issues in LAUSD.

The forum is aimed at LA-area teachers, but Teach Plus said other members of the community won’t be turned away at the door if they show up. See full event details here.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has added his voice to a group of education leaders who are reluctant to support the current union-supported teacher dismissal bill being considered in Sacramento unless it’s amended to address key issues.

In an April 19 letter sent to the bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), Villaraigosa praises Buchanan for her “willingness to tackle this difficult and sensitive issue.” But he says he’s withholding support for the bill, known as AB 375, unless she addresses “areas of concern” he has — many of which echo those that have been expressed by LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, education advocacy group EdVoice, and former State Senator Gloria Romero.

Both the Mayor and LAUSD want Buchanan to amend the rules to make it easier to find teachers to serve on the three-person Commission on Professional Competence that has the final say on whether teachers are fired. (Read about LAUSD’s position on the teacher dismissal bill here.)

Villaraigosa also agrees with EdVoice CEO Bill Lucia on the bill’s revised timelines; current law requires dismissal hearings to begin within 60 days, but AB 375 would actually extend that time to six months. They both think the longer timeline delays the process unnecessarily.

Last but not least, the Mayor takes issue with the bill’s rules on pretrial evidence, writing, “the process for allowing the use of relevant information must be less onerous.” Education advocate Gloria Romero, who is head of California Democrats for Education Reform, also warned that the bill could “severely limit pretrial evidence discovery.”

Read the full Villaraigosa letter here.

What remains unknown is how Buchanan and the bill’s current supporters, including the California Teachers Association, will respond to these concerns.

Previous posts: Deasy Requests Changes to Teacher Dismissal Bill; Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill; Assemblymember Bloom Opposes Teacher Dismissal Bill

“That’s how CTA infamously killed a [2012] law to fire sex-pervert teachers, SB 1530,” LA Weekly writer Matthew Mullins wrote. “A badly watered-down version, AB 375, is alive — because CTA backs it,”

What the LA Weekly didn’t note was that the “badly watered-down” bill moving through the state legislature was amended last week or that LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has proposed several further changes to make sure that districts have a stronger role in the dismissal process and that teachers who review dismissal cases can be removed if necessary.

In an April 19 letter sent to the bill’s sponsor, Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), Deasy takes note of the School Board’s recent vote in support of her bill’s intent — and then suggests seveal amendments to strengthen it.

Deasy’s key suggestions include giving districts more discretion on dismissing teachers and loosening eligibility requirements for the people who review dismissal cases on the Commission on Professional Competence. (Read the full letter here.)

In particular, LAUSD wants a bigger role for school districts who employ teachers accused of sexual misconduct. A previous teacher dismissal bill, SB 10, would have given school boards the final decision on dismissals.

In particular, Zazueta says Deasy wants to be sure the teacher dismissal legislation make it easier to find the teachers who serve on the professional competence review panel.

Current law (and the new bill) have limited, very specific requirements about what kind of teachers can review misconduct cases. “Time and time again the biggest hurdle and delay is finding these people. We feel they could improve that and make it easier,” Zazueta said.

LAUSD isn’t the only one looking to modify the Buchanan proposal.  Other education advocates remain skeptical of the bill even if they still haven’t concluded whether they support it or not — in part because it’s already being amended in Sacramento.

“At face value, some amendments to the bill seem like they’re working on our concerns,” EdVoice CEO Bill Lucia told LA School Report, referring to a series of amendments that were adopted last week.  “But we still have concerns, so I can’t say at all whether we’re leaning toward support.”

Previous posts: Assemblymember Bloom Opposes Teacher Dismissal Bill; Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill; Teacher Misconduct Proposal Wins Unexpected Support

A Student With Promise, a Teacher Who Had to Help
Brought to the U.S. as a baby, Itzel Ortega had no way to get financial aid to become an architect. Then a former teacher, recalling her own story, stepped in. LA Times

L.A. Unified Teacher Arrested for Alleged Child Porn Possession
Douglas Randolph Collins, 46, of Valencia, was taken into custody at the Van Nuys Education Center, where he had been sent after being removed from the classroom after authorities began investigating child porn allegations in October. LA Times
See also: LA Daily News, HuffPo

LA Mayor’s Race: How the Candidates Stand on Your Issues
Even though the mayor doesn’t have any direct authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District, many voters said they want the next major to play a role in education. Neither Greuel nor Garcetti has indicated they would follow Antonio Villaraigosa’s lead. KPCC

Five Gates Millennium Scholars Selected From Paramount High School
Five Paramount High School students have been selected as Gates Millennium Scholars — a rare achievement among high schools. Funded in 1999, the minority scholarships pay for up to 10 years of study, room and board. KPCC

Pasadena Unified Plans to Slash 48 Additional Jobs Across District
Pasadena school board members voted Tuesday to slash 48 jobs — this on top of 94 teacher, librarian and counselor pink slips in March — in their ongoing struggle to close a projected $8.8-million budget gap. Pasadena Sun

Thousands of Los Angeles County Fifth-Graders Enjoy a Day at Music Center
More than 18,000 fifth grade students from schools throughout Los Angeles County experienced the power of live performing arts beginning Tuesday and going on though Thursday at The Music Center. Pasadena Star News

Panel Moves to Include Grad Rates As Part of the API
A state advisory panel got its first look Tuesday at a new formula that will integrate graduation rates into the state’s school accountability system but asked staff to circulate the proposal among stakeholders and bring it back before they will contemplate a final recommendation to the Legislature. SI&A Cabinet Report

Democratic Senators Offer Alternative to Brown’s Funding Formula
Democratic leaders of the state Senate want to delay Gov. Brown’s sweeping plan for changing how schools are funded by a year and will recommend significant changes to it in a bill that they will reveal on Thursday. EdSource

Los Angeles Local News, Weather, and Traffic

Saving the California Dream: ‘Parent Trigger’ Profiles
Parents at Weigand Elementary School in Watts are the most the recent group to organize and deliver a petition, and they say it’s been a tough fight so far. “The courage it takes to sign a petition when you know there’s going to be a battle is tremendous,” says Alfonso Flores, a former LAUSD “Teacher of the Year.” Fox LA

Attack Shows Education  Reform Gaining Ground
The passage by delegates at this month’s California Democratic Convention of a resolution condemning Democrats, including me, who support education reform illustrates an ongoing battle among Democrats across the nation. O.C. Register Opinion (Gloria Romero)

Burbank Teacher Suspended After Breaking State Standardized Testing Rules
At least one elementary school class has had their test scores invalidated, and the district’s ranking could be in jeopardy. NBC LA
See also: KPCC

Shepard Fairey Asks Students for Inspiration for Arts Education Campaign
Street artist Shepard Fairey, made famous by his “Hope” poster for President Barack Obama, is tapping LA students for inspiration. HuffPo

Charter School Teachers Join the Union
Teachers at Ivy Academia in Los Angeles are the latest to join a wave of union organizing victories at charter schools. Labor Notes Opinion

San Fernando Valley Rivals Face Off for U.S. Academic Decathlon Title
When Granada Hills Charter High defends its national Academic Decathlon title this week, its toughest competition won’t be from its traditional rivals in Texas and Arizona, but from a school just 14 miles away. LA Daily News

Ed. Companies Exert Public-Policy Influence
Some education observers are alarmed at what they see as increasingly aggressive moves by companies to make money from the K-12 system; others say the expanding role of for-profit ventures is just a natural evolution of the interplay between the private and public sectors in efforts to improve schools. EdWeek

Sal Khan: The Man Who Tutored His Cousin – and Started a Revolution
Sal Khan has a simple mission: a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Naturally, people think he’s crazy. Guardian

But Nicola Edwards, who works for California Food Policy Advocates, told LA School Report that a recent union survey doesn’t really reflect how most LAUSD teachers feel about the program.

“If you look at the survey and number of teachers who didn’t like the program, it’s a very small number [around 400 teachers] compared to the 10,000 classrooms it’s served in. When you look at the statistical significance of this, it’s very small.”

And the district actually plans to increase the number of schools offering the anti-hunger program that serves low-income LAUSD students breakfast at the start of every school day this year, going from 280 to more than 600 schools.

Breakfast in the Classroom was launched in 2011 at almost 300 LAUSD schools with the leadership of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy and a partnership between the district, the LA Fund (whose members include LA School Report publisher Jamie Lynton) and other advocacy groups.

According to a UTLA press release, when the union recently gave its teachers a survey on Breakfast in the Classroom, half of the 729 teachers who responded said it creates sanitation issues in their classrooms and cuts into instructional time. Some of the teachers also complained that the food served is “not nutritious” or even “spoiled.” (Read the press release here.)

The survey did not address whether the breakfasts were alleviating student hunger, or whether serving breakfast in the classroom was having a negative impact on student learning.

In a LA Times article about the program’s controversy, LAUSD’s food services director, David Binkle differed directly with UTLA’s view. Breakfast in the Classroom, Binkle said, is a “smashing success.” He said the district plans to more than double the number of schools in the program this year.

Previous posts: Teachers Vote Against Deasy, For More Teachers; April Vote Will Highlight Union Factions

The election will pick between Monica Ratliff and Antonio Sanchez for the LAUSD Board’s District 6 seat representing the East San Fernando Valley. Voters will also elect LA’s next mayor and a number of other city offices.

Early voting might seem like a sleepy issue, but it plays a big role in election outcomes. In the LA Daily News, Rick Orlov wrote about its “increasingly important role in all elections,” making up 46 percent of the total vote in the primary election. We saw  proof of the impact of vote-by-mail ballots in the March primary, when District 4 (Hollywood/Westside) LA School Board incumbent Steve Zimmer beat his challenger Kate Anderson thanks to a significant early voting advantage. (Read the story here.)

Previous posts: Calendar: Registration & Vote By Mail Schedule; How Steve Zimmer *Really* Won