Fight for the Soul of the Cities is protesting the federal government’s 1033 Program, which outfitted school police with machine guns and other weapons. The local civil rights group is asking that the school district account for all weapons the school police have on campuses as well as those from the federal program that remain, which they want destroyed.

The LA school police — the largest school police force in the nation and fifth-largest police force in California — possessed three grenade launchers, a mine-resistant vehicle and dozens of M-16s. In response to criticism, LA Unified got rid of the grenade launchers and vehicle it had obtained through the program but kept the assault rifles. The federal government also severely restricted the program.

The group disrupted the full school board meeting for about 20 minutes in July, and board members went to talk to the activists afterward.

The protest is planned for 4:30 p.m. at the school board headquarters. The group will also present to the Committee of the Whole, which usually has all the school board members in attendance. The meeting, at the district headquarters, starts at 2 p.m.

*Note: This article has been updated with a revised time for Tuesday’s protest.

Villaraigosa Criticizes Mayoral Candidates Over Education Goals
In the last major speech of his mayoral career, Antonio Villaraigosa chastised the two politicians seeking to replace him for not laying out visionary education goals, urging the candidates to look to other big cities for inspiration. LA Daily News
See also: Associated Press, LA School Report

The Greuel-Garcetti Conundrum
Here’s why two San Fernando Valley voters have switched allegiances, and why a third is still pondering. LA Times Column (Steve Lopez)

Los Angeles Unified School District Hires Security Aides to Watch for Threats
Tenth Street Elementary is in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles, a few blocks west of the Staples Center and downtown skyscrapers. It’s a tough neighborhood; school security is always an issue. KPCC

Apples to Apples Comparison of Brown’s Funding Formula
Twenty-two of the 50 largest districts in the state would receive more money under Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed K-12 funding formula when it’s fully funded, potentially in seven years, while 28 districts would do better if additional money were simply divvied up under the current system, with no reforms, according to data provided this week by the state Department of Finance. EdSource
See also: SI&A Cabinet Report

New Teaching Standards Delve More Deeply Into Climate Change
The politically touchy topic of climate change will be taught more deeply to students under proposed new national science standards released Tuesday. LA Times
See also: KPCC

Home Economics: Then and Now in Los Angeles
Thirty years ago, when I was attending junior high school at Gaspar de Portola magnet in the West San Fernando Valley, home economics was still a class designed to teach girls how to be good housewives. LA Weekly

Bigger Math Gains Seen In Middle School TFA Teachers’ Pupils
Middle school Teach For America teachers in Texas seem to be holding their own in the classroom, outperforming other novice teachers in math, according to a recently released study from the San Antonio, Texas-based Edvance, an independent evaluation firm. EdWeek

University Conference Hopes to Rally Southland Education Reformers
A TEDx conference at Loyola Marymount University on Saturday seeks to turn the traditional education conference on its head. Organizers believe that competing ideologies, little cooperation, and “finger-pointing” are keeping public schools in Los Angeles from improving. KPCC

U.S. Dept. of Ed. Protesters Turn Fierce Rhetoric on ‘Corporate’ Reform
As they kicked off four days of protests at the U.S. Department of Education, organizers of Occupy DOE 2.0 today used inflammatory—and, in one case, racially insulting—rhetoric to rally opposition against high-stakes testing, “corporate” education reform, and the “dismantling of public education.” EdWeek

Brown’s Funding Plan Faces Vigorous Review – and Speed Bump
The chair of the Assembly Education Committee turned Gov. Jerry Brown’s comprehensive plan for education finance reform into bill form Thursday, ensuring that all aspects will get an extensive review, while raising the possibility that the plan may not pass in time to take effect July 1, as the governor wants. EdSource

LA County Preschool Teachers Honored at Event
Los Angeles Universal Preschool presented its Teacher of the Year Awards to six early childhood educators. ABC LA

Civil Rights, School Groups Rally to Protect Spanish-Language Testing
A critical portion of California’s 1.4 million English learners face academic setback under a plan to suspend most of the state’s student assessments next year, civil rights activists and school advocacy groups say. SI&A Cabinet Report

LA for Youth Holds Concert at City Hall
On April Fool’s Day, the L.A. for Youth campaign gathered for a concert outside of City Hall to make a statement about what they call “foolish” safety policies in schools in Los Angeles. USC Intersections South LA

Bill Would Protect Adult Ed, Career Tech While Extending Local Control
School districts would keep discretion to spend billions of dollars of “categorical” funding  however they want for five more years under a Senate bill that passed its first hurdle in the Legislature on Wednesday. EdSource

Apps and Little Kids: Should We Worry?
Maybe it’s the appeal of swiping or the challenge of Angry Birds, but any parent with a smartphone or tablet can attest to this: the devices are irresistible to children. KPCC

Encino Crespi Leader a ‘Non-Jock’ Who Knows the Score on Sports
Father Tom Batsis admits to not having a sports background. But understanding the role of athletics at Crespi is perhaps why he quickly decided an alum should run the football program. LA Times

Teacher Dismissal Bill Off and Running With Committee Approval
A bill intended to make it quicker and less costly to dismiss teachers received a 7-0 approval from the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday, and its author – the chair of the committee, Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo – received much praise from her colleagues for taking on a contentious issue. EdSource
See also: Sac Bee

Calif. Districts’ Waiver Bid Now in Review Phase
The U.S. Department of Education and a band of outside peer reviewers are now weighing the details of a precedent-setting waiver application from nine districts in California that want flexibility under the No Child Left Behind Act even though their state’s bid for a waiver was unsuccessful. EdWeek

L.A. Unified Filling Security Jobs Created After Newtown Shooting
Los Angeles Unified has hired more than 750 security aides in response to the 26 deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. About 250 openings remain. LA Times

California’s Prop 30 Gains Could Be Eaten Up by Crisis in Teacher Pension System
A recent report from the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found a $70 billion shortfall in state teachers’ retirement plans — and that deficit has the potential to suck up a significant amount of Prop 30 revenue. HuffPo

Atlanta Cheating Scandal Reverberates
The criminal indictments last week of retired Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly L. Hall and 34 other educators for their alleged roles in a far-reaching cheating scandal could have widespread fallout and potentially undermine efforts in other school districts to improve the academic achievement of poor and minority students, according to education leaders. EdWeek

Winners of Head Start Grant Re-Competition Announced
Every one of the four California Head Start operators required to compete for their federal grant in a new process aimed at improving program quality was told Tuesday that their grant had been renewed. But some of those grants will be smaller next year, as the money will now be divided between additional grantees. EdSource

Educators and Safety Experts Reject NRA-Funded Plan
Leading educational and school safety groups rejected key recommendations of a National Rifle Association-funded school safety report released Tuesday. MSNBC

5 Disruptive Education Trends That Address American Inequality
Fixing how we teach our children is of paramount importance. What if the solution also started to fix America’s broader socioeconomic problems? New ways of thinking about edtech just might start that process. Co.Exist

Calif. Bill Would Require Panic Alarms in Schools
Lawmakers gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a bill that would require panic alarms to be installed throughout school campuses in California, but only if the federal government pays for it. AP

School-to-Prison Pipeline Presents Growing Concern for Administrators
Federal mediators and public school administrators in Meridian, Miss., have reached a landmark agreement to launch a rewards-based disciplinary plan, aimed at keeping in the classroom more black students who routinely received harsher disciplinary action when accused of relatively minor infractions. LA Daily News

An Urban School District That Works — Without Miracles or Teach For America
Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. A quarter are thought to be undocumented, living in fear of deportation. WaPo Opinion

Wendy Greuel Re-Starts Campaign With Aggressive Tone
On schools, Greuel said: “I will aggressively and creatively fight to ensure that every dollar is spent in the classroom. I will make sure that our neighborhood teachers, parents and principals are in charge – not downtown bureaucrats.” KPCC (See also LADN)

LAUSD Adds 400 Security Aides at Elementary Schools
Los Angeles Unified has hired more than 440 safety aides to provide security at local elementary schools, part of its plan to bolster campus safety in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, officials said Tuesday. LA Daily News
See also: CBS LA

NRA Report Sees Guns as Path to Safety in Schools
A National Rifle Association task force released a 225-page report on Tuesday that called for armed police officers, security guards or staff members in every American school, and urged states to loosen gun restrictions to allow trained teachers and administrators to carry weapons. NY Times
See also: LA Times, KPCC

Southland School District Latest to Buy iPads for Every Student
Coachella Valley Unified got the green light Tuesday from the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to spend bond money to put an iPad in every student’s hand and a Macbook in every teacher’s lap. KPCC

Aspire and State Board Give Up Fight Over Controversial Charters
After a six-year legal battle, Aspire Public Schools and the State Board of Education have agreed to give up the permit that enabled Aspire to open a half-dozen charter schools without local district approval. EdSource

Let’s Stop Cheating Our Kids With High-Stakes Testing
The institutionalized cheating and corruption that led to indictments last week of a former Atlanta superintendent and 34 others are stunning, but no aberration. It’s more like the tip of an iceberg, with chilling implications for our children, their teachers, and our public schools. Take Part Op-Ed

Wrestling Down Stereotypes
The wrestlers on the Panorama High girls’ team have broken into a male-dominated sport that doesn’t fully welcome them. They’re breaking up old notions of femininity — in their school, and in their families. LA Times

Do Charter Schools Serve Special-Needs Students?
Policymakers rightly want to know whether charter schools serve their fair share of students with disabilities. The fairest answer may surprise some people, however. In some cases, charter schools serve the same number of special-needs students as their regular public school peers; in others, as many have charged, charters serve fewer of these students. EdWeek Commentary

Listen: Ability Grouping and Tracking Make a Return to U.S. Schools
What are the benefits of ability grouping and tracking? What are the potential drawbacks? How do programs that rely on ability grouping work in LAUSD? KPCC

Workshop to Help Undocumented Students Stay in U.S. to Be Held at Cleveland High
A free workshop will be held Thursday for undocumented students interested in applying for deferred action so they can remain legally in the United States. LA Daily News

Advocates Launch State Push for Obama’s Early Education Plan
A campaign to support President Barack Obama’s universal preschool initiative was launched in Sacramento on Tuesday by early childhood education advocates, a coalition of superintendents from around the state and Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, D-Concord. EdSource

The National Rifle Association and some San Diego officials have touted the preventative benefits of guns in schools in recent weeks.

But in a Daily Beast article published today, former LAUSD students go on the record to express their disapproval of placing armed guards in schools.  And, according to an article published in Mother Jones yesterday, data show that armed teachers or security guards don’t actually deter mass shooters.

GOP Legislators Propose California School Districts Arm Teachers
Democratic legislators say bill that would allow districts to spend education funds to train teachers, administrators and janitors in gun use doesn’t have a chance. LA Times

Charter School Growth Fund Paying Off, Study Says
For the past seven years, an organization called the Charter School Growth Fund has been providing those schools with millions of dollars in grants and low-interest loans, after putting them through a screening process to try to gauge whether their promise is worth the investment. EdWeek

Principal at Center of LAUSD’s Latest Sex Abuse Scandal May Lose Credential
The Commission on Teacher Credentialing will decide today whether to suspend a principal for allegedly failing to report abuse by one of her teachers. KPCC

Support Builds for Tougher School Safety Plan Requirements
Bipartisan support appears to have coalesced behind a proposal to better enforce a state requirement that all schools have updated safety plans. SI&A Cabinet Report

6 LAUSD High Schools to Compete for Participation in National Cooking Contest
LAUSD high school students will go head-to-head in a cooking contest Thursday for a chance to participate in a national cooking competition. CBS LA

School Boards and Parents Should Consider the Rising Pay of District Chiefs
Californians should be equally upset to learn about the bigger paychecks going to superintendents of many of the state’s struggling school districts. LA Daily News Editorial

Californians Upbeat on Ed Budget, Poll Finds
Californians are expressing a long-lost sentiment: optimism. A new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found growing support for Gov. Brown, for his education finance proposal and for making it easier for local communities to pass parcel taxes to help fund their schools. EdSource

Banning High in Wilmington to Host Meeting on Plans to Split School
The public is invited to a meeting Thursday night at Banning High School in Wilmington to discuss a plan by the Los Angeles Unified School District to split the school into two separate schools with two principals come next fall. Daily Breeze

International Space Station Patch Designed by Astronomy Buffs at Granada Hills’ Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences
Narek Baghosian and Florian Storz, members of the Astronomy Club at Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills, have designed a patch that will be carried on a privately funded flight to the International Space Station. LA Daily News

L.A. Unified’s College-Prep Push Is Based on False Data
San Jose’s school district, which requires all students to pass the classes necessary to apply to California universities, initially reported strong results. But its success was overstated. Those results should raise warning flags for other school systems, including Los Angeles Unified, that based key policy decisions on San Jose’s misreported data. LA Times

LAUSD Plans to Add 1,000 New Campus Aides for Security at Elementary Schools
The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to make more than 1,000 new hires to bolster security at hundreds of campuses in a move some critics have called “security on the cheap.” LA Daily News
See also: KPCC, LA Times

State Legislators Seek Crackdown on Expensive Form of School Finance
Two state lawmakers moved on Friday to crack down on a costly method of finance that hundreds of school districts have been relying on to pay for new construction. LA Times

Teachers Flip for ‘Flipped Learning’ Class Model
When Timmy Nguyen comes to his pre-calculus class, he’s already learned the day’s lesson – he watched it on a short online video prepared by his teacher for homework. AP

Days of Small K-3 Classes Look Done for in California
California embarked on an ambitious experiment in 1996 to improve its public schools by putting its youngest students in smaller classes. Nearly 17 years later, the goal of maintaining classrooms of no more than 20 pupils in the earliest grades has been all but discarded. KPCC

Students Struggling With English Not Getting Help
More than 20,000 California students struggling with English are not receiving legally required services to help them, setting them up for academic failure, says a report by two civil rights groups. LA Times

Arrest of LAUSD Teacher May Bolster Lawmaker’s Case to Speed up Dismissals
In California, school districts can remove a teacher accused of serious misconduct from the classroom, but must put them on paid leave through the dismissal process — and during appeals — if the employee contests the action. KPCC

Attorney: Alleged LAUSD Abusers Mostly at Low-Income Schools
Attorney Martha Escutia said in a statement that the public deserves to “know why LAUSD is unable to protect children and why a majority of alleged sex abusers appear to end up teaching at economically disadvantaged schools.” CBS LA

Calif. Agency Takes Months to Review Misconduct
Months after the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing was notified of a Los Angeles Unified elementary school teacher suspected of molesting at least a dozen students and a principal who failed to report him to authorities, the agency has not taken action on the cases. AP

North Hollywood High’s Cyber Patriot Team Heads to National Finals
North Hollywood High School is one of three Los Angeles Unified campuses that will send teams to the National High School Cyber Defense Competition in Washington, D.C. in March. LA Daily News

Russia Is Topic as LAUSD Academic Decathlon Begins
The topic is Russia for the more than 500 students from 58 high schools gathered at Roybal Learning Center in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday for the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon. LA Times

To Lock Classroom Doors or Not?
After the Newtown and Taft shootings, educators in L.A. debate whether teacher transparency or school security is paramount. LA Times

With Facilities All Over Los Angeles County, School Districts Protest Stormwater Parcel Tax
Los Angeles County officials want to cut pollutants by capturing runoff close to where it falls. They’d pay for it with a property tax. Schools are big time property owners in every neighborhood – and they have protested the proposal. KPCC

Parents Protest Pending Closure of La Mirada School
A group of parents and employees took to the streets Friday night to protest the proposed closure of Dulles Elementary School. Long Beach Press-Telegram

Feedback: Here’s What You Think About the State’s Changes to Standardized Tests
Many of you said students are not receiving a balanced education because teachers devote too much time classroom time teaching to the test. KPCC

Longer School Year: Will It Help or Hurt U.S. Students?
Did your kids moan that winter break was way too short as you got them ready for the first day back in school? They might get their wish of more holiday time off under proposals catching on around the country to lengthen the school year. Huff Po

California Drops to 49th in School Spending in Annual Ed Week Report
California tumbled two more spots, to 49th in the nation in per-pupil spending, in Education Week’s latest annual Quality Counts report, released last week. EdSource

Plan Ordered to Save Mechanics School at Van Nuys Airport
The Los Angeles City Council on Friday ordered local officials to develop a detailed plan to save a popular aircraft mechanics school at Van Nuys Airport. LA Times

School Shooting Victim Expected to Recover
Officials try to determine a motive, with the Kern County sheriff saying the assailant believed that the two students he targeted had bullied him. LA Times

Student Test Scores Can Identify Effective Teachers, Study Finds
Student standardized test scores can accurately identify effective teachers, especially when combined with classroom observations and pupil surveys, according to a major national study released Tuesday. LA Times
See also: Ed Week, WSJ, Washington Post 

Democrats Refuse to Endorse a Candidate in Los Angeles Mayor’s Race
Democrats also refused to endorse Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Monica Garcia as she defends her seat against five challengers. KPCC

Parent Demand Leads Mojave Desert Elementary to Convert to Charter School
A Mojave Desert school district has unanimously approved the new operator of the nation’s first school to be converted to a charter by parent demand. KPCC

Activists Want Guidelines for L.A. School Police
Call for “parameters” as city police, post-Newtown, sent to check in on Los Angeles grammar schools. Center for Public Integrity

Second Phase of L.A. Arts Fundraising Plan Begins
‘Art Matters’ campaign has brought in more than $750,000 in the last three months for arts in the public schools. LA Times

Cassandra McGrath’s Stories to Make You Cry
There’s no silver linings playbook when more than half of your students transfer, drop out, join gangs or get pregnant before their 16th birthdays. The LAUSD system is not a Michelle Pfeiffer movie with a Coolio soundtrack. LA Weekly

Politics Doesn’t Make for Great Public Safety Policy
After a long winter’s break, students arriving to schools across Los Angeles this morning were greeted by police officers – a feel-good change in the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. LA Daily News Editorial

Contested UTLA Panel Elections Signal Internal Fissures
Some union members fear outside groups that encouraged teachers to run for UTLA’s House of Representatives, its official decision-making body, will try to influence policy. LA Times

Police Visiting LAUSD Schools in Wake of Connecticut Shooting
The Los Angeles Police Department, as well as the L.A. County Sheriff’s department and other law enforcement agencies planned to have officers visit the Los Angeles Unified School District’s more than 500 public elementary and middle schools on a daily basis. LA Times
See also: LA Daily News, KPCC

LAUSD School Tickets Still High Despite Reforms
Last spring, L.A. Unified released arrest and citations numbers for the first time. What they revealed was alarming. Kids had been issued more than 10,000 citations in a year, more than any other district in the country. KPCC

Watch: John Deasy Talks LAUSD Budget
LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy addresses how the passage of Prop. 30 impacts the district budget. ABC LA

Federal Officials Reject California’s No Child Left Behind Waiver Request
The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter on Friday to the president of California’s Board of Education denying the state’s request to be exempted from the most onerous requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. KPCC

11 States Get Failing Grades on Public School Policies From Advocacy Group
StudentsFirst gave California the low rating despite the fact that it has a so-called parent trigger law that the advocacy group favors. Such laws allow parents at underperforming schools to vote to change the leadership or faculty. NY Times

Why California Must Lead the Way in Closing Underperforming Charter Schools
Many of California’s charter schools are among the best public schools in the state, if not the nation, but some are also among the worst. EdSource Commentary

Teachers Irate as Bloomberg Likens Union to the N.R.A.
Of all the polarizing things Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said and done over the years, from banning large sugary drinks to supporting congestion pricing, few have generated the sort of viral backlash that has unexpectedly mounted after his weekly radio show on Friday. NY Times

LAUSD Culinary Teams Vie to See Their Dishes Served in Cafeterias
Six small teams of chefs from the culinary-arts programs of as many schools are cooking up original entrees in a contest this month whose winners will see their signature dish added to next year’s LAUSD menu rotation. Daily Breeze

Los Angeles Wants to “Reconstitute” Pioneering High School Despite Major Gains
In a letter to faculty, Superintendent John Deasy blamed four years of “less than adequate progress in the achievement of Crenshaw’s students.” Labor Notes

Do Armed Guards Really Make Schools Safer?
Additionally, many large school districts operate their own police departments, with the Los Angeles Unified School District having the largest such force in the nation with more than 350 officers. Capitol Weekly

LAPD to Beef up Security at K-8 Schools
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announces a plan to have officers patrol kindergarten through 8th grade schools in LA. NBC LA
See also: LA Times, KCET

Your Vote, L.A.’s Future
The city is about to undergo a sweeping turnover in municipal government, electing a new mayor, deciding whether to keep or replace the current city attorney, choosing a new controller and electing more than half — the controlling majority — of the City Council and LAUSD Board. LA Times Editorial

LAUSD Board Seeks Control Over Grant Applications
In a move that could stem the flow of tens of millions of dollars to cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified, the school board has empowered itself to endorse — or veto — applications for grants topping $1 million. LA Daily News

Expanding Young Students’ Role in Nutrition
L.A. Unified seeks to add nutrition education to the curriculum, give students more of a voice in what’s served and more time to eat. LA Times

$252,000 Goes to LAUSD to Promote Good Eating, Exercise
The Los Angeles Unified School District was awarded $252,000 today for promoting nutrition and physical activity. LA Daily News

Our View: Getting Abusers out of the Classroom
A key reform for the new Legislature is protecting school children from predatory teachers. In the past year, several scandals brought forth the need for reform. Appeal-Democrat Editorial

At Aldama Elementary School, Parents Struggle to Break the News
For local parents, news of the Connecticut school shootings Friday was difficult to hear. And even harder to explain to their kids. KPCC