President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2001.

By Chris Hofmann

President Obama last week signed the most important education legislation in over a decade, the long-awaited reauthorization of ESEA and No Child Left Behind. The provisions of the law will have a profound effect on what school is like for my class of 26 fourth graders and will reverberate throughout the everyday educational experiences of our nation’s 50 million K-12 students.

The bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), is a significant improvement over earlier versions and makes key changes to the way we hold schools accountable for what students learn. It also provides a critical opportunity for experimentation and research in what makes a great school. That said, the law is not without its challenges. Ultimately, it will only live up to ESEA’s legacy as a seminal civil rights law if educators, parents and students hold state lawmakers accountable for learning from past efforts and making changes that improve outcomes for all students.

One way that ESSA improves upon No Child Left Behind is that it recognizes that proficiency on state tests is only one dimension of a school’s quality.

When I think about my fourth graders, I realize that no single data point can truly capture who my students are or what they can do. Likewise, no single data point linked to a state test score can truly capture the educational experience of a school. ESSA recognizes this and requires states to include at least four academic indicators: proficiency on state tests, English language proficiency, high school graduation rates and a fourth state-determined factor of academic quality.

The law also requires states to incorporate at least one other measure of an entirely different sort that aims to tap into the other factors that make a school great. The states will be left to choose this measure, but it could include anything from surveys of family and student engagement to gauges of school discipline and safety.

This is great news for schools. For the last six years, I’ve worked at a 2015 National Blue Ribbon school in east Los Angeles. What makes our school great is not just our high levels of student learning; it’s the way we celebrate our students’ growth. It’s also the way we get to know our families with home visits and the way we encourage parental support with frequent communication. It’s the way we continue to think about and evaluate how we nurture our students’ confidence and character. 

All of these are critically important factors in making a school a vibrant and wonderful place for kids. And with the passage of ESSA, states now have the opportunity to craft accountability systems that account for what teachers, students and parents value.

Of course, our school’s north star is always student learning. Thankfully, ESSA strikes a balance between student learning and other factors in determining a school’s quality. In a significant improvement over earlier drafts of the bill, the final law requires states’ accountability systems to count academic indicators “much more” than the other factors. This will prevent states and schools from using other data points to mask low academic performance. 

In this way, ESSA rightly keeps the focus on a school’s central purpose, teaching knowledge and skills students need to be successful in a competitive world, while acknowledging that there is so much more to a great school.

With 50 states developing their own accountability systems, this moment provides us with a unique opportunity to research and innovate. California should experiment with creating measures that capture students’ academic growth over time. We should experiment with different ways to gather and synthesize non-academic factors of school quality and with how we would weigh all of these distinct factors to create an accountability system focused on what we value in a school.

Most importantly, on a state and federal level, we need to study closely the effects of these systems, learn from each other’s successes and failures and quickly make improvements. There will be a tremendous amount of learning to be done in the next few years and, like our students, we all need to be ready to learn and grow.

Let’s start this new chapter in American education on a high note. Let’s create accountability systems based on what we think is truly important about a school. Let’s be ready to learn from each other. And most importantly, let’s be vigilant in making sure all kids get what they need to thrive.

Chris Hofmann is a fourth grade teacher at a public charter elementary school in east Los Angeles and a Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellow.

President Barack Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). (White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)

With President Obama‘s signing the rewrite of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law yesterday, a new era of federal and state education policy has been ushered in.

While the new law, Every Child Achieves Act (ESSA), doesn’t mean much for LA Unified in an immediate sense because it had already received a waiver from many of the difficult provisions of NCLB, it could bring an abrupt end to a complex school accountability system LA Unified has been helping to develop for several years.

The reason for the possible sudden end to the new system is because the ESSA law shifts much of the power back to the states from Washington for developing accountability systems for schools.

LA Unified received a waiver from NCLB along with the five other districts known as CORE. As part of the waiver, CORE needed to develop its own accountabily system, which it is scheduled to be put into action for the first time in February. But now that NCLB is ending, it could be a hello/goodbye moment for the system by the end of this school year, or it could live on if the state chooses to give CORE a waiver from its own accountability system, according to EdSource.

Both the CORE system and the one being developed by the state do not use a single test score to rank a school as did the old API system that has been suspended. Rather, it uses a multifaceted, robust approach to ranking schools that considers graduation rates, dropout rates, attendance, school climate and English learner achievement.

Although the two systems are using similar factors to measure, they have a key difference when it comes to the final outcome. While the CORE system will provide each school with a single number on a 1-100 scale, similar to the API, numerous state officials have said the system they are developing is likely not to be summed up by a single number.

“We should be looking at a dashboard, more than a single thing. The idea that it all has to come down to a single number, that was the problem of the API,” Michael Kirst, President of the California State Board of Education, told the Los Angeles Times.

The new California accountability system is scheduled to go into action for 2017-18 school year, according to the deadlines set in the ESSA. But the signing of the new law will likely pushback the timeline of the development of the state system, which was set to be completed by August, the Los Angeles Times reported.

There is also a complex list of transition deadlines regarding when NCLB provisions end and ESSA’s begin for different grants and programs.

Click here for the Council of Chief State School Officers outline of the transition plan as it stand. And check out the video below to learn more about the CORE school accountability system.

President Barack Obama

Los Angeles Unified and five other California school districts got welcome news today as the U.S. Department of Education extended their waiver from the No Child Left Behind law, giving them continued flexibility in how they spend millions to educate low-income students.

Known collectively as the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), the districts won the unprecedented waiver by demonstrating how they would use their federal Title I money to improve student achievement at low-performing schools.

Los Angeles Unified divided its Title I schools into six categories, ranging from Reward to Priority, with specific goals and strategies for helping to improve student achievement. These include summer school, in-school tutoring and other intervention programs and additional training for teachers and school leaders.

“As a direct result of the waiver extension, we are able to continue to invest in the students, teachers, and leaders of the Los Angeles Unified School District,” Superintendent Ramon Cortines said in a statement.

The announcement was included in a letter to the CORE districts from Ann Whalen, who oversees elementary and secondary education for the federal agency.

“My decision to renew approval of the CORE districts’ request is based on my determination that the waivers have been effective in enabling each of the CORE districts to carry out reforms to improve student achievement and that this extension is in the public interest,” she wrote. “With this renewal, the CORE districts will be able to continue implementing their plans to promote innovative, locally tailored strategies to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity and improve the quality of instruction.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren

The Senate passed a rewrite of the expired No Child Left Behind law yesterday with broad, bipartisan support.

The George W. Bush-era law is controversial due to the high-stakes standardizing testing it ushered in, and the Senate’s bill would strip away much of the federal government’s test-and-punish powers.

The bipartisan support it received is in contrast to a rival House bill that passed last week without a single Democrat voting in favor of it. The two bills now set up “a showdown between the two chambers, and leaves the fate of a final measure in doubt,” the New York Times reported.

Many leading Republicans and Democrats have voiced support for the Senate’s version, although the White House had a lukewarm reaction, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a prominent national figure in the Democratic party, was one of three Democrats to vote against it.

Here is a sampling of reaction to the Senate action from political and education leaders:

• “This bill still falls short of truly giving every child a fair shot at success by failing to ensure that parents and children can count on local leaders to take action when students are struggling to learn.”— Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The Hill

• “Every student in America will be better off under this legislation than the generation of students wronged by No Child Left Untested. This bill reflects a paradigm shift away from the one-size-fits-all assessments that educators know hurt students, diminish learning, narrow the curriculum and that they fought to change.” — NEA President Lilly Eskelsen-García. NEA Today

• “I cannot in good conscience support a bill that falls short of investing in the potential and promise of all of our children, especially New Jersey’s most vulnerable students.” Senator Corey Booker, one of three Democrats to vote against the bill. Politico

• “[The rewrite] eliminates basic, fundamental safeguards to ensure that federal dollars are actually used to improve both schools and educational outcomes for those students who are often ignored.” — Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of three Democrats to vote against the bill. WBUR

• “It sends a powerful message that equity really matters and that schooling must be more about teaching and learning than testing and measuring. More must be done to address the needs of historically disadvantaged children, but this bill offers a significant piece of the puzzle.” — AFT President Randi Weingarten. Washington Times

• “If you think the federal government should make sure that we’re not letting kids fall in the cracks, if you think the federal government should make sure there is transparency, if you think that the federal funds ought to continue to flow to support low income children, then the Senate bill does all of those thing.” — Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. Mother Jones

• “The truth is that the reforms enacted under NCLB clearly helped all students improve their learning. White children improved, but disadvantaged children improved even more in significant degrees. And we saw some narrowing in the achievement gap. You’d think this would be important and that we would build on it.” — Sandy Kress, one of the architects of NCLB and a longtime advocate of the federal role in education. NPR

• “Though not perfect, this Senate bill reflects positive progress toward fixing the punitive accountability standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. It also moves our national education system toward a structure that provides more control for states and local school districts, while preserving reasonable federal accountability parameters with increased transparency.” — LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines. LA School Report

• “The reauthorization of ESEA is an opportunity to acknowledge what researchers and scientists have been stressing for some time now: education begins at birth. Better connection between early learning and K-12 education is a positive step in building a strong pipeline for our nation’s children” — First Five Years Fund Executive Director Kris Perry. ffyf.org

• “Most important to me is that this bill preserves the stream of funding that is necessary to protect the after-school programs because, to be quite honest, we have had a lot of issues with people trying to grab those funds and use them for something else. And let me tell you why we cannot do that. We now serve more than 1.6 million children of working families every year through this after-school program. That’s progress. Think about 1.6 million children. Think about all of their parents and the relief it brings to them to know they have their children in a quality after-school program.” Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), speaking on the Senate floor. YouTube. 

A group of some of the largest school districts in California is launching an online bank of student assessment tools to help teachers measure learning as the rollout of the new Common Core curriculum gains speed this year.

The 60 “performance modules,” covering multiple grades for both English language arts and math instruction, are free online. They were developed by teachers, then field-tested in a pilot program with 15,000 students last year. (Click here for an overview).

The “Big 8” districts*, which include over one million students from some of the biggest districts in the state including Los Angeles, Long Beach and Fresno Unified — made headlines last year for carving out a special waiver from the mandates of No Child Left Behind, a Bush-era federal law that has been harshly criticized for its over-reliance on testing.

Because of the waiver, the group, known as CORE (California Office of Reform Education), will have a significantly different accountability system than that of other districts in the state, including plans to use student outcomes in teacher evaluations.

Governor Jerry Brown was turned down for a waiver for the entire state a year ago, in part because he refused to use similar accountability measurements, which could result in federal penalties for not complying.

*In all, ten member districts participated in the designing the assessment tools, but two, Garden Grove Unified and Clovis Unified were not included in the waiver. A full list of the ten CORE districts is here.

“My guess is that there are probably some elements in there that we would embrace, but I think the process itself is flawed,” said CFT President Joshua Pechthalt. “Somehow, the women and men who are actually in the classrooms doing the day-to-day teaching were left out of the process of improving our schools. It’s just not going to work.”

The waiver request was put together by superintendents from eight school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, who received guidance from the U.S. Department of Education and other third parties. Elected school boards were not asked to sign off.

Pechthalt added: “It’s a top-down, one-size-fits-all reform.”

The CTA expressed similar objections to the waiver agreement, blaming Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

“By approving this waiver, Secretary Duncan once again demonstrates how his rhetoric that educators be actively involved in education change is just that – rhetoric,” CTA President Dean Vogel said in a statement. “Not one of the local teachers’ associations in the eight school districts was included in the discussion or signed the waiver application.”

UTLA President Warren Fletcher declined to comment.

Teachers unions had objected to the No Child Left Behind Law, which was signed by George W. Bush in 2001, and had supported California’s request for a waiver. After that waiver request was rejected, the eight districts went back to the Education Department with a waiver request of their own.

It became the first “No Child” waiver granted to districts, rather than a state.

The waiver includes provisions to measure student progress by a number of different metrics and to evaluate teachers based, in part, on student progress. One provision problematic for teachers: if a teacher is evaluated as “unsatisfactory” and fails to “improve substantially” after one year, that teacher may be fired.

“The craft of teaching is not something that you learn or change quickly,” said Pechthalt. “Rather than set one year as make-or-break, it seems to me that if an educator is showing commitment to improve, let’s continue to see progress rather than seeing if you’ve met a certain bar.”

Although the unions denounced the deal, they are not seeking to block or overturn it any way.

Previous posts: The ‘California 8′ Waiver: What it Means for Local Schools; No Child Left Behind Waiver for CA Districts Includes ‘Unique’ Oversight Panel;  ‘No Child’ Waiver OKd for LA Unified, 7 Other CA School Districts

The chart above, courtesy of EdSource, shows how the group of nine California school districts including LAUSD propose to create their own accountability system, based on a broader range of measures than allowed under current federal law.

“Standardized test scores, now the sole factor in current state API system, would now be one of three components,” according to EdSource writer John Fensterwald. “It would be included, along with the high school graduation rate, in the “academic domain,” making up 60 percent of the index. Social/emotional learning factors and school climate measures each would comprise 20 percent.”

The proposed new metric is in line with LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s belief that test scores should be used to evaluate schools and teachers, but should only be part of that measurement.

Previous posts: LAUSD Will Resubmit Federal Waiver Application – But Not State; Feds Want More Details from Waiver Application; Reform Group Splits over Federal Waiver for LAUSD

Duncan Says It’s Still Possible for State to Get NCLB Waiver
California remains interested in receiving a waiver from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Wednesday it remains possible for the state to get one. EdSource

L.A. Mayor’s Race: Wendy Greuel Uses Web Chat to Target Women
The chat participants, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, L.A. Unified President Monica Garcia, longtime civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) and operatives from the Feminist Majority and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project, urged Los Angeles viewers to join their canvassing efforts on Greuel’s behalf. LA Times

Poll: Should Breakfast Be Banned From the Classroom?
Should under-nourished students be allowed to eat in the classroom? The issue became a hot topic this week after Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy passed on making a decision, putting the future of a pilot breakfast program into the hands of the school board. KPCC
See also: LA School Report

California Teachers Sue Unions to Stop Dues
Ten California teachers — several of them from Orange County — are suing in federal court to stop mandatory union dues. The lawsuit seeks to expand last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision involving union activity in a California special election. KPCC
See also: HuffPo

Within Schools, Novice Teachers Paired With Struggling Students
More than a decade of research on teacher characteristics shows that, on almost every quality measure you can think of, schools with large populations of low-income, minority, and low-achieving students get shortchanged. They have fewer experienced teachers, fewer teachers teaching within their field, and teachers who show greater variations in effectiveness, including more of the worst performers. EdWeek

Duncan Admits Flaws in Current Standardized Testing
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan acknowledged serious flaws in the standardized tests that currently drive American schools, telling an audience of education researchers on Tuesday that the tests are an inadequate gauge of student and teacher performance. EdSource

StudentsFirst Under Scrutiny From the Left
Michelle Rhee frequently says her StudentsFirst lobbying group is a bipartisan organization that backs Democrats and Republicans who support her vision for education: charter schools, vouchers and performance pay for teachers. Sac Bee

Common Core Moves a Step Closer in CA, GOP Attacks Standards in Other States
Plans to commit California schools to a new student testing system aligned to the new common core curriculum standards by 2014-15 won passage Wednesday out of a key legislative committee. SI&A Cabinet Report

CA Bill Would Curtail Police Role on Public School Campuses
A bill to limit the role of campus police in disciplining students passed its first committee  hearing in Sacramento Wednesday. The bill’s L.A. sponsor aims to reduce the number of tickets that campus police issue to students. KPCC

Turning Teens Into Police Officers
Roberta Weintraub, a 77-year-old political activist and former president of the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education, has always had a soft spot for the men and women in blue. Jewish Journal LA

LAUSD Supt. John Deasy Faces Performance Evaluation by Teachers Union
Barely two weeks after delivering a stinging no-confidence vote on the leadership of Superintendent John Deasy, the teachers union announced it will do a first-ever “performance evaluation” of the Los Angeles Unified chief. Daily News
See also: LA School Report

Voters Can’t Let LAUSD Seat Be Bought: Elect Monica Ratliff
For a glimpse of what’s wrong with politics in Los Angeles, look no further than the campaign to fill an open seat in the LAUSD’s northeast San Fernando Valley district. LA Daily News Editorial

Lawsuit Targets Union Fees Collected from Nonmember Teachers
A conservative organization has joined with a group of California teachers in an effort to overturn laws that allow teacher unions to collect fees from those who don’t want to be members. Los Angeles Times
See also: Bloomberg, AP

StudentsFirst Rallies Troops for California Teacher Evaluation Bill
StudentsFirst, the Sacramento-based education advocacy group headed by school reform crusader (and wife of Sacramento major Kevin Johnson) Michelle Rhee, has launched a major blitz in advance of a hearing today on Senate Bill 441, a union-opposed teacher evaluation bill that was granted reconsideration after registering a 4-4 committee vote last week, with Democrats and Republicans on both sides. The Tribune

Bill Would Overhaul Student Testing in California
A key hearing is set today for consideration of what may prove to be landmark legislation that would replace the state’s existing statewide student performance testing program with one that is designed to be taken online and is also aligned with the new common core curriculum standards. SI&A Cabinet Report

UCLA Preschool and the California Science Center Museum Help Turn Kids Into ‘Pre-Scientists’
University Village and the other two UCLA preschools are among a few in Southern California to offer science-based learning. The vocabulary and experimentation may give kids a head start in later grades. KPCC

L.A. Ninth-Grader Whips up Winning Breakfast Recipe
Her nephew likes fruit. Her brother likes eggs. And so Guadalupe Gonzales, a ninth-grader at Panorama High School in Los Angeles, put the two ingredients together in a dish that was named the top winner Tuesday in L.A. Unified’s first annual breakfast recipe contest. LA Times

Civil Rights Groups Oppose No Child Left Behind Waiver for LAUSD
A coalition of civil rights groups is opposing efforts by Los Angeles Unified and eight other school districts to get a waiver from a federal law requiring that all students be proficient in English and math by 2014. Daily News

L.A. County Rejects School Districts’ Bid to Avoid Voting Rights Suits
Los Angeles County officials rejected a bid Tuesday from several Santa Clarita Valley school districts and a water district hoping to consolidate elections and avoid the kind of voting rights lawsuits that other local governments have been hit with. 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

U.S. Ed Department Agrees to Review 9 Districts’ Plan for NCLB Waiver
The nine California districts seeking a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Law have got their foot in the door. On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it has accepted their waiver application and will treat it as they would an application from other states, with a formal review. EdSource

Bill Clinton Picks Wendy Greuel as L.A.’s Next Mayor
When a city’s schools fail the city fails. The next generation of L.A.’s job creators will create jobs in cities other than Los Angeles. The next Mayor of Los Angeles is going to have his or her hands full. LA Daily News Column

Miramonte Plaintiffs Want 2013 Trial; LAUSD’s 2014 Trial Request Rejected
The families of students allegedly abused at Miramonte Elementary School are pressing ahead with their demand for a trial. There was a court organizing session Tuesday as they move toward a trial. ABC LA

Banned Youth Football League Brings Concerns to County Board
Parents and players from the East L.A. Bobcats, a youth football league banned from county parks after gang-affiliated adult fans got in a fight that led to a fatal stabbing, called on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to allow the children to return to Salazar Park. LA Times

Congress Tweaks State Special Education Spending Mandates
States that run afoul of federal rules for special education funding will be punished—though not forever—under a technical, but important tweak to state maintenance of effort under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. EdWeek

Why We Can’t Threaten Our Way to Better Schools
While NCLB’s punitive approach has been softened to some extent by the Obama administration, the law’s philosophy has not. Diminished funding, school closings, turnarounds, takeovers, vouchers and the privatization of schools proliferate in a contemporary wave of reforms taking urban districts by storm. Hechinger Report Opinion

California Schools Chief to Deliver Annual Address in Lawndale
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson will deliver his annual “State of the State of California Education” address Thursday at the Centinela Valley Center for the Arts auditorium in Lawndale. Daily Breeze

Most State Board members Back Districts’ NCLB Waiver
A majority of State Board of Education members expressed strong support at their meeting Thursday for a consortium of districts’ unconventional request for a waiver from constraints of the federal No Child Left Behind law. EdSource

Aspire Surrenders Benefit Charter Status Under Settlement Terms
Aspire Charter Schools will surrender its statewide benefit charter status under terms of a settlement agreement reached today between the charter operator, the state board of education and the group of education advocates that brought the lawsuit. SI&A Cabinet Report

Teacher Evaluations: We’ve Got to Come up With a Better System
Two years ago we all jumped up and down against the emergence of Academic Growth Over Time (AGT), which is a prediction of student performance on the California Standards Test (CST).  Compared to raw test scores, AGT looks pretty good. TakePart Op-Ed

L.A. Chief John Deasy: Depoliticize Education Research
John Deasy, the superintendent of Los Angeles public schools, opened the annual meeting of the Association of Education Finance and Policy here today with a call for researchers to help school and district administrators making decisions in hot political environments. EdWeek

Have Charter Schools Grown Too Fast?
After two decades of offering educational choice to families, leaders of the charter-school movement in California are touting accomplishments but also calling for higher standards in light of some underperforming and mismanaged schools. San Diego Union Tribune

Stemming the Tide of English-Learner Dropouts
English-language learners are two times more likely to drop out of school than their peers who are either native English speakers or former ELLs who have become fluent in the language—a trend that, if unabated, will have far-reaching negative consequences, says a new report. EdWeek

Thousands in Los Angeles Marathon Will Test the Luck of the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day 
Ortega has been training for six months with Students Run L.A., an organization that challenges 1,300 youth within the Los Angeles Unified School district to finish the marathon. San Bernadino Sun

In Los Angeles, Focusing on Violence Before It Occurs
In the days after the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Tony Beliz and his staff at the county’s mental health department here made a series of calls. New York Times

How Outside Spending Is Changing the Race to Represent Northeast San Fernando Valley Schools
Sanchez has been able to hire three paid staff members, had more than a dozen mailers go out on his behalf and was the subject of a commercial that aired during Lakers games. KPCC

Steve Zimmer and Kate Anderson Face off on AirTalk
Both candidates talk about where they stand on Deasy, why Zimmer does not agree with charter school expansion and Anderson is pushing for it, and if teacher evaluations can be tied to student performance.. KPCC

L.A. Unified, Other School Districts Seek New Measures of Success
Nine California school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, will apply to the U.S. Department of Education for relief from rules that, over time, have labeled most schools that receive federal funds as failing, officials announced Thursday. LA Times
See also: LA Daily News

Arne Duncan’s Education ‘Sequester’ Claims Questioned
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has long been seen as an administration asset. But this past week, he’s also been the chief spokesman for the White House claims about the potential impact of sequestration on education jobs. Now those estimates have run afoul of fact-checkers. EdWeek

California Students Leave Hundreds of Millions in Aid Untapped
Only about half of California’s high school seniors applied for federal and state financial aid last year — leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table, according to a report by Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based nonprofit advocacy group. LA Times

Los Angeles Parents Powerless as Candidates Ignore Abuse
Seven Los Angeles public school teachers and aides have been charged with molesting more than 50 children in just over a year, though you’d hardly know it from the campaigns for next week’s municipal election. Bloomberg

California Schools Earn Bronze When It Comes to Serving Healthy School Lunches
The results of the latest HealthierUS School Challenge for schools are in, and California schools didn’t do too badly. They didn’t do too well, either. KPCC

LAUSD Adding Security Aides to Boost Safety
Specially trained security aides are being added to all elementary school campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and it’s all in an effort to boost school safety. ABC LA

Student Panel Offers Expert Advice to Lawmakers on Evaluating Schools
If the state wants an accurate accounting of how its schools are performing, it should find a way to include student input in its Academic Performance Index, said those perhaps closest to the issue – the students themselves – at a state hearing Wednesday. SI&A Cabinet Report

Jazz Day at 24th Street Elementary
The Los Angeles Jazz Society is hosting concerts at three LAUSD elementary schools as part of the Black History Month celebration. These concerts are a part of a larger initiative to bring jazz programs to public schools. South LA Intersections

L.A. Votes: Greuel Fights Back 
With the clock ticking down to election day, the Los Angeles mayor’s race is getting testy. LA Times

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy Seeks No Child Left Behind Waivers
With California unable to get a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law, LAUSD and nine other districts have launched an effort to create their own data-based accountability systems — and have more freedom in how to spend tens of millions in federal dollars. LA Daily News

More Students Taking and Passing Advanced Placement Exams
More students in the Los Angeles Unified School District took and passed an Advanced Placement exam last year, reflecting a rise in success on the college-level tests in California and nationwide. LA Times
See also LADN

L.A. Unified Set for Funding Boost Under New State Formula
After five years of crippling budget cuts, the Los Angeles Unified School District would receive an estimated $820 more per student over the next two years under Gov. Jerry  Brown’s proposed new funding formula. LA Times

In California, Thousands of Teachers Missing Needed Credentials
The last time Charlie Parker took a social studies class, he was a teenager with an Afro and Jimmy Carter was president of the United States. Yet here he was, standing at the front of a classroom, trying to teach dozens of high schoolers subjects that never appealed to him when he learned them more than 30 years ago. CA Watch

State Releases District Breakdowns Under School Funding Formula
Districts and charter schools now know how they’d make out under Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed Local Control Funding Formula, his plan for sweeping school finance reform. EdSource

Thousands of Children Could Lose Head Start Services Under Sequestration
Just one week after promising to inject funds into early childhood education in his State of the Union address, President Obama is warning that the Head Start program will instead face cuts if lawmakers fail to reach a compromise over the budget. KPCC

Huge Spending Gaps Between School Districts, Report Finds
Vast inequities still exist in education funding across the nation, contributing to an academic achievement gap that separates the students at well-funded schools from those who attend campuses with fewer resources, according to a report released Tuesday. LA Times

Superintendents in D.C. to Talk District Waiver With Duncan
Superintendents representing a coalition of 10 California school districts, including LAUSD, are scheduled to meet with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan today to make a personal pitch for a district waiver from provisions of No Child Left Behind, which they plan to formally submit next week. EdSource

Schools in Crisis, Reforms Not Working, U.S. Federal Panel Declares
A federal commission on Tuesday said the U.S. education system had “thoroughly stacked the odds” against impoverished students and warned that an aggressive reform agenda embraced by both Democrats and Republicans had not done enough to improve public schools. Reuters

Charter Schools’ Discipline Policies Face Scrutiny
As the number of charter schools continues to grow, one facet of their autonomy—the ability to set and enforce independent disciplinary standards—has raised difficult questions about whether those schools are pushing out students who pose behavior or academic challenges and how their policies affect regular public schools. EdWeek

Calpers Will Sell Its Investments in Gun Makers
The investment committee of Calpers, the biggest American pension fund, voted Tuesday to divest itself of its holdings in two manufacturers of guns and high-capacity ammunition clips banned in California. NY Times

St. Genevieve High Honors Former President Jimmy Carter
A statesman, author and diplomat, Jimmy Carter hasn’t often found himself at a loss for words.  But on Tuesday, facing a wall covered with photos and mementos of his friendship with the community at St. Genevieve High School, the nation’s 39th president found it difficult to express himself. LA Daily News

Abuse of School Meals Funds Target of Cannella Bill
Acting on the financial abuses by school districts that “literally take food from the mouths of children,” a state legislator has introduced the School Lunch Protection Act. The Californian

Federal Grant Prospect Reignites Kindergarten-Assessment Debate
A federal grant program in the works to help states jump-start kindergarten-entry assessments is renewing debate among early-childhood educators about the benefits and pitfalls of evaluating young children. EdWeek

Congressional Panel Calls for Larger Federal Role in Directing Schools
A white paper released Tuesday on improving educational competitiveness and closing the achievement gap called for a significantly larger federal role in the management of the nation’s public school system. SI&A Cabinet Report

Teachers’ Ratings Still High Despite New Measures
High teacher rating results, among the first trickling out from states’ newly revamped yardsticks, paint a picture of a K-12 system that remains hesitant to differentiate between the best and the weakest performers—as well as among all those in the middle doing a solid job who still have room to improve. EdWeek

School Principals Who Fail to Report Abuse Are Rarely Prosecuted
Principal Irene Hinojosa and teacher Robert Pimentel worked together for years, and she thought highly of Pimentel as a teacher. So when parents complained that he’d been touching girls, district officials said she disregarded the complaints. KPCC

L.A. City Workers’ Union Doesn’t Endorse Garcetti or Greuel
Members of six locals of the Service Employees International Union questioned City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Councilman Eric Garcetti, two top contenders in the race, for at least half an hour. Neither was recommended for an endorsement. LA Times

Seriously, a Bar Exam for Teachers? This Is Not the Answer
Pearl Arredondo, the founder of a pilot middle school in Los Angeles, feels more student teaching is the best way to prepare new teachers. Take Part Op-Ed

East L.A. Murals Come to Life in School Plays
Students at Monterey Continuation High School write and perform one-act skits about the wall art in their neighborhood. LA Times

Green Dot Continues to Make Improvements at Locke High School
Moving proactively to address the growing needs of its students, Green Dot Public Schools today announced the next step in the evolution of the management structure at Locke High School. LA Sentinel

Educators Celebrate First Six Months of Transitional Kindergarten
Transitional kindergarten, the new grade level for children whose fifth birthdays fall early in the school year, is 6 months old in February. EdSource

The Obama No Child Waiver Gambit: It’s Time for It to End
A few things are clear after today’s Senate Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee hearing on the Obama administration’s move to eviscerate the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. And, for the most part, it didn’t reflect well on the gambit. Dropout Nation Opinion

Another Trophy in the Case for Long Beach Unified
The state’s third-largest school district was named Thursday one of the five top school districts in the world by Battelle for Kids, a Columbus, Ohio-based nonprofit organization that counsels school districts on school improvement and innovation. EdSource

LAUSD Sues Insurance Companies for Garfield Repairs
Los Angeles Unified has sued its property insurers for at least $13 million for allegedly balking at paying to reconstruct the James A. Garfield High School auditorium ravaged in a fire almost six years ago. City News Service

Charter School Petition Goes Before LAUSD
The effort to bring a new elementary school to Downtown could take a big step forward next week. LA Downtown News

NCLB Freeze Gun

California appears to be the only state in the nation that has applied for — but not yet received — a so-called “waiver” from NCLB but doesn’t already have a one-year freeze on NCLB’s ever-escalating proficiency requirements in its back pocket.  That means California schools will be among the only ones in the nation operating under the full force of the original NCLB rating system during 2012-2013.  

WAIVERS:  States that receive waivers are free to vary from NCLB’s annual school rating system, called AYP (annual yearly progress), in exchange for committing to a series of additional reforms.   Nevada is the most recent state to receive waiver approval from Washington, bringing the total number of states with approved waivers up to 33 plus DC. There are a baker’s dozen of states that haven’t applied for a waiver at all. See EdWeek’s Politics K-12 for more details.

FREEZES:  States that receive a one-year freeze are still governed by NCLB but are not required to ratchet up the minimum proficiency scores required for next year, called AMO (annual measurable objectives). Seven of the states that have applied for a waiver already had a one-year freeze on that requirement, according to the US Department of Education: Alabama,  Alaska, Maine, West Virginia,  Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas.  (South Dakota requested a freeze but then got a waiver.  Wyoming’s freeze request is still pending.) I got this information from the USDE but there doesn’t seem to be a link listing states.

There leaves just four states — Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, and California — with waiver applications that have not yet been approved.  But three out of the four have freezes. The one that doesn’t?  The Golden State.  I’m told by the CDE that there’s no application for an AMO freeze in the works.