L.A. Unified Fight Focuses on Breakfast Program
Los Angeles Unified will eliminate a classroom breakfast program serving nearly 200,000 children, reject more school police, cut administrators and scale back new construction projects unless the school board votes to approve them, according to Supt. John Deasy. LA Times
See also: LA School Report, Sac Bee, LA Daily News, KPCC

‘Super PACs’ Negate Spending Limits in L.A. Mayor’s Race
As groups raising funds for Greuel and Garcetti pour money into the race — a record $6.1 million so far — voter-approved contribution restrictions become meaningless. LA Times

Eric Garcetti for Mayor
Perhaps most important, Garcetti has demonstrated the capacity to grow, learn and improve his performance. He admits mistakes, such as his vote in favor of a settlement allowing, for a time, virtually unregulated digital billboards. LAT (editorial page)

L.A. Schools Finish One-Two in National Academic Decathlon
After months of preparation, Granada Hills Charter High wins the title for the third straight year. Finishing second was El Camino Real Charter High, a six-time national champion. LA Times
See also: Sac Bee

iPads in School: a Toy or a Tool?
Whether equipping all students with iPads is a gimmick or a great idea, one San Fernando Valley school that’s using them is sold. LA Times Column (Steve Lopez)

Gov. Brown As Robin Hood
His plan to shift money from suburban to urban districts might help disadvantaged students but it could hurt other kids. LA Times Opinion

Want to Build a Better Teacher Evaluation? Ask a Teacher
To generate more effective teaching through evaluations, teachers, principals, and school system leaders need to embrace a culture of ongoing two-way feedback and a commitment to continuous improvement. EdWeek Commentary

School Health Centers Are Not Just for Students
Lack of access to health care is a national problem, but it’s a particular problem in poor neighborhoods like South Los Angeles. California Report

California Legislature Ignoring Teacher Pension Gap
Those who occupy the Capitol have an infinite ability to evade reality, even something as seemingly stark as a huge deficit in the teacher pension system that’s growing, by its own numbers, by $17 million each day.  Sac Bee Opinion

Downey Teacher, Arrested for Allegedly Molesting 3 Girls, Out on Bail
A 55-year-old teacher at a charter school in unincorporated Willowbrook was out on bail Monday after his arrest for allegedly molesting three girls at the school between October 2012 and last March, authorities said. Daily Breeze

California Gets Mediocre Grade for Preschool Access and Quality
California got a mediocre grade in both access to preschool and the quality of the programs in a new study released today by the National Institute for Early Education Research. The state meets only four of the group’s ten benchmarks for quality preschool. KPCC

“Do you support current LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy?”

But at last week’s District 6 candidate forum for the Los Angeles School Board race in the San Fernando Valley, this question made for some interesting theater:

Antonio Sanchez, an organizer and former staffer for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa confirmed straight away with a “yes.”

Monica Ratliff, a lawyer and elementary teacher, demurred, saying she is “hesitant to evaluate someone’s job performance based on articles I’ve read,” and would “need to know more” before evaluating him.

Maria Cano, a former LAUSD organizer, said, “I would think twice about evaluating him as a successful employee.”

All three of these candidates have been endorsed by the teachers union, which has been deeply critical of Deasy.  But some candidates are having a hard time giving “The Supe” a clear thumbs up or down. Why?

John Deasy was hired by the current School Board almost two years ago as a passionate but practical reformer who vowed to transform the troubled district by raising achievement, focusing on results, and putting students’ needs first.

True to his word, he has pushed hard. He designed a groundbreaking performance measurement that relies on an array of measures — not just test scores — called Academic Growth Over Time, only to have it rejected by the teachers union as a measure of teacher performance.

He took heat for acting swiftly after the Miramonte teacher abuse scandal and for requiring administrators to sift through every allegation.

He tried to get consensus on applying for a $40 million federal grant (the teachers union wouldn’t sign on).

But most importantly, he is focused on kids — and he’s getting results in the classroom. Under his guidance, more students are learning and they’re learning more: even during the worst school budget crisis its history, the district has made substantial improvements in student achievement and seen a sharp decrease of suspensions.

So even though the teachers union may be itching to get rid of him, the candidates who are union-backed may want to be, well — more discreet, for fear of alienating parents and voters who might support him.

Don’t buy it. The most important job of a School Board member in Los Angeles is to hire, supervise and work with a Superintendent — and perhaps in some cases — to fire him. It’s a job that manages a budget of $6.5 billion dollars a year, and is responsible for more than 650,000 students.

Each and every one of the School Board candidates should be prepared to tell the public exactly where they stand on Superintendent John Deasy, and why.

The test that’s got Seattle teachers so fired up is a computer-based standardized test called Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP. The teachers are boycotting the exam because they feel its measurements of student improvement are disconnected from state standards and classroom lessons, and that the test they consider unreliable is unfairly used to evaluate their job performances. They say they’re not opposed to other standardized tests — only this one.

The teachers’ fight against MAP echoes, at least in some ways, UTLA’s opposition to Academic Growth Over Time (AGT) student assessment program. Though Superintendent John Deasy lead the development of AGT with a plan to create a more comprehensive measure of student progress than a one-dimensional standardized test, the teachers union fought hard –and won– its battle to keep AGT scores out of individual teacher evaluations. Read more about the MAP testing boycott here.

UTLA President Warren Fletcher

While union president Warren Fletcher has claimed victory on a recent court-ordered tentative agreement on teacher evaluations, a closer look might leave rank-and-file teachers scratching their heads.

UTLA has consistently opposed any use of student test scores in teacher evaluations in the past. So it was unexpected when the union leadership signed off on using raw standardized test scores such as the California Standards Tests (CST) — a single test measure that UTLA has denounced for years.

Scott Witlin, an attorney who represented parents in the Doe v. Deasy lawsuit that compelled the district and union to reach the agreement, called UTLA’s acceptance of CST scores “ironic.”

“For years, the teachers union complained that individual test scores were insufficient because they didn’t account for other factors,” Witlin said.

The union’s decision to back an agreement using the CST over a more comprehensive student performance measurement that considers a host of socio-economic factors, called Academic Growth Over Time (AGT), has perplexed some UTLA-watchers.

Some LAUSD teachers have already taken issue with UTLA’s flip-flop on test scores.  Using CST scores “would distort or falsely attribute student performance to teachers,” David Cohen wrote on the Accomplished California Teachers blog

Academic Growth Over Time (AGT), a metric launched last year by LAUSD, takes into account numerous factors when measuring progress, including English language acquisition, single-parent households, and ethnicity, and is generally thought to be a more balanced tool to measure progress.

Larry Sand at Union Watch speculates that without AGT there is little accountability and, “way too much wiggle room.” (read it here).

Measuring the Worth of a Teacher?
L.A. Unified School District’s Academic Growth Over Time measurement system, based on students’ progress on standardized tests, spurs debate over fairness, accuracy. LA Times

State Strips 23 Schools of API Rankings for Cheating
Teachers helped students correct mistakes on standardized tests, prepared them with actual test questions or left instructional posters displayed in the classroom during testing, according to school district reports. LA Times

Proposition 30 Analysis: Does California Need More Tax Money?
Even if the measure fails, funding for schools is expected to increase 21 percent from 2012 to 2015 because of economic growth. The $6 billion trigger-cut figure stems from the fact that he and the Legislature started the budget year by assuming that Proposition 30 would pass. Daily News

Brown Brings Prop. 30 Campaign to L.A.’s Grand Central Market
Fighting for support for his tax-hike initiative to help fund education, Gov. Jerry Brown aims his message at Latinos. LA Times

Scare Tactics — and Scary Protests Over Prop. 30 — and Some School-Based Advocacy May Be Illegal
With less than two weeks before the Nov. 6 elections, officials have been stressing the potentially devastating impacts on public education if the measure fails. But some critics call these methods scare tactics and in at least one case say the educators’ efforts violated election laws. Daily News

State Auditor Takes a Closer Look at LAUSD Misconduct Cases, Practices
State auditors are expected to finish in the coming weeks a formal review of how Los Angeles Unified handled claims of misconduct lodged against teachers and other employees, including whether district officials followed all applicable laws. SI&A Cabinet Report

LAUSD Board Member Steve Zimmer Honored as Elected Official of the Year
Los Angeles Board of Education Member Steve Zimmer is being honored Saturday as the 2012-13 Elected Official of the Year by the California Association of School Counselors. Patch / Press Release

A Lot is New Under the Hood in High School Auto Shop Classes
Auto shop’s long skid in the face of budget cuts and a shift toward college-prep classes may be reversing. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the San Diego Unified School District. LA Times

In addition, Board member Bennett Kayser will introduce a motion that deals with space “over-allocated” to charter schools via Proposition 39 (I’ve written about how charters get space via Prop 39 here). The proposal would have the district “collect reimbursement amounts owed by each charter school that is over-allocated space during part or all of any school year.”

Kayser will also announce a resolution called “Buy and Use LAUSD First,” which would set up “an online directory of services and products available within the Los Angeles Unified School District, make their use and purchase easily obtainable, and strongly encourage every school and office to use and/or buy District products and services whenever possible.”

You can see the full agenda for the Tuesday meeting here.