Monica Garcia reacts to the gruesome report.

As the FBI agent played a video of a 16-year-old caught in a sex ring in Los Angeles, the audience of the Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline and Safety Committee yesterday remained hushed. Some wiped tears from their eyes.

LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King reviewed the list of local schools where such crimes occurred and she she was shocked to spot an elementary school among them.

For the past year, LA Unified administrators have joined the fight to stop child sex trafficking with a group of 60 Los Angeles agencies called the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) Task Force.

“This is a very difficult topic, it makes us uncomfortable, afraid, repulsed, it’s not something we connect to our students,” said committee chair Mónica García. “I’m proud that LAUSD said ‘yes’ again to getting involved in the program.” Garcia said early next year she will ask the school board to support an update to the district’s child abuse policy to include focusing on commercial sexual exploitation of children.

“I want to be that village for our young people and educate ourselves and empower ourselves to be another level of lifeline,” she said. “The community helps ourselves by knowing more and getting the facts and it’s not going away just because you don’t know.”

LAUSD intervention coordinator Holly Priebe-Diaz said district officials will soon be adding information to their annual spring child abuse training for principals. She said she will ask the principals then to share the information with teachers.

“I thought I heard everything,” Priebe-Diaz said, until she attended conferences and training about how prevalent the problem was in the United States, and especially Los Angeles.

FBI Special Agent Ronald Schloegel, who is part of the task force and the Saving Innocence Project, said, “Sexual servitude is an international problem, but this is alive and well, in the United States and LA. It is the largest growing enterprise in the world.”

He said that one-in-three youths that run away from home can get recruited by a hustler within 48 hours. And, he said the average age is 12. He said the commercial sex industry gets recruits from high schools and middle schools, where youths congregate, and over the Internet.

He cited a girl who was kidnapped outside a high school in Woodland Hills who wasn’t paying attention and had earphones on when she was abducted. “We recovered her within 48 hours, and she was otherwise unharmed,” Schloegel said.

Robin Toma, the executive director of the L.A. County Human Relations Commission, told the committee that 46 local  area law enforcement agencies in the area now treat girls found in these sex rings as victims rather than as criminals.

“The school district can address those values and what the consequences are to their behavior,” Toma said. He said both young women and young men need to recognize it and not participate in it.

King said the report was “extremely troubling” and suggested that a person in each school could be identified as a “safe person” whom students can approach to report this kind of illegal behavior. “That is something real and practical that we can do soon,” King said.

Committee member Maisie Chin, executive director of CADRE, said, “This is heart-wrenching information” and hoped the district could find some concrete things to do.

Schloegel ended his remarks with a story of a local girl, Adriana, who was found in a sex ring at 15. Now, a year later, he reported that she is looking for part-time work, is back in school and said “one day I will help girls like me.”

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“The abuse in the school system continues, and the district should do something about it,” said parent Maria Hernandez, one of the 50 or so protestors. She said she was part of the class action suit associated with the Miramonte School sex scandal. Her case was settled, but she said she is still waiting for the elected board members to respond to continuing allegations of abuse. “They have promised that there would be something more done to protect our children,” she said.

Steven A. Figueroa, a legal consultant from Riverside, said he has helped many parents work their way through the court system and find attorneys. “I hear about teachers not knowing what to do, or principals slapping kids,” he said. “LAUSD is the worst school district in the country. There is no accountability in administration.”

He offered no proof or evidence of his assertions.

This protest was sparked in part because of a case involving abuse handled by attorney Luis A. Carrillo, from South Pasadena. The school board discussed another abuse case in closed session as the protest went on.

Maria Hernandez joins protest outside LAUSD board offices.

“We want to put more heat on the board and the general counsel to handle these cases properly and make this district a safe learning environment,” said Luis’s son, Michael Carrillo, who is also a lawyer.

Some of the parents carrying signs said they had children or knew of others who were victimized at LA Unified. Some said they went through proper channels to discuss the issues but were ignored. Some said they spoke to school board members who were sympathetic.

“There needs to be due process when something like this happens,” Hernandez said, pointing to something other than the “teacher jail” system that some of the parents dismissed as inadequate.

Attorneys for LA Unified asked the judge in the civil trial against the district involving the sex abuse scandal at Miramonte Elementary School for a gag order, which would prevent anyone involved with the case from talking publicly about it, according to NBC Los Angeles.

Jury selection in the case is expected to begin later this month. The case stems from the child abuse scandal involving former Miramonte teacher Mark Berndt, who pleaded no contest last year to 23 counts of lewd conduct on a child between 2005 and 2010. The judge is expected to rule on the motion on Nov. 14.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued against the gag order in court while Sean Rossall, who is a public relations specialist hired by the law firms representing LA Unified, said in a statement the request for a gag order is to “ensure that the case is argued in court, instead of through outside press conferences,” NBC reported.

So far, the district has settled 65 claims for about $30 million over the alleged abuse. About 70 others are still waiting to go to trial. The case starting this month has three plaintiffs who are former Miramonte students.

Mark Berndt, teacher accused of abusing children

Opposition to a teacher dismissal bill that was weakened through compromises in the California legislature is gathering steam as it awaits the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown.

Today Gloria Romero, former state senator and head of California Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), is urging Brown to veto the bill. In an article published in the Orange County Register she argues that the bill, AB 375, “makes it harder for districts to protect children.” (read article here).

Last week, The California School Board Association issued an ‘action alert’ urging members to write Brown to veto the bill, saying it’s a “good bill for bad teachers”.

Meanwhile on the grassroots side, a parent activist in San Diego posted a petition asking Brown to “protect schoolchildren from predators,” joining grassroots group Edvoice which last week called the bill  “unsafe for children.”

Larry Sand, president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network, cites even more opposition to the bill in a commentary here.

*Adds reference to Larry Sand commentary.

Previous Posts: Teacher Dismissal Bill: No Added Concern for Predators, LA Unified Blames ‘Cumbersome’ Law for Dismissal Delay

LAUSD Charters Would Lose Funding Under Gov. Jerry Brown’s Budget
Wilbur Elementary got $230,000 in state grants when it converted to a charter last fall. Now, administrators at Wilbur and other affiliated charters, nearly all of them in the San Fernando Valley, are struggling with the news that they stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants if lawmakers approve Gov. Jerry Brown’s new formula for funding public education. LA Daily News

L.A. Charter School Aims to Toss Out Students With Fake Addresses
Officials at Carpenter Community Charter, a top-notch elementary, think 120 children are enrolled fraudulently. They want to make room for students who live in the neighborhood. LA Times

Try a Different tack: Hold Teachers Responsible for Education Quality
The logic of the reformers seems to be that teachers unions are so wrongheaded, and the citizenry sufficiently tired of fights about seniority and teacher evaluation, that putting forward a slate of school board candidates is the way to change the balance of power in the school district and mute the pesky union.  But the strategy hasn’t worked. EdSource Opinion

Over-Praising Preschool
Obama wants the government to fund a free year of pre-kindergarten, but studies don’t back up his claims of long-term benefits. LA Times Opinion

L.A. Schools Falling Apart, Literally
Years of budget cuts have meant many repairs simply aren’t getting done. There are at least 35,442 unresolved calls for service and repairs, with about 1,100 more coming in each day. LA Times Column by Steve Lopez

State Board to Discuss Districts’ Request for NCLB Waiver
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction and members of the State Board of Education will speak publicly this week for the first time on the effort by a consortium of California school districts to seek their own waiver from some regulations and consequences of the federal No Child Left Behind law. EdSource

Sequestration Special Education Cuts May Put Disabled Californians at Risk
The potential impact the sequester will have on the daily lives of the more than 36,000 K-12 students with disabilities in California show how the across-the-board budget cuts can have harrowing implications for millions in the U.S. HuffPo

Defining Bullying Down
The March 3 death of Bailey O’Neill, a 12-year-old boy in Upper Darby, Pa., was widely attributed to bullying, based on allegations that a classmate hit the boy in the face in January. NY Times Op-Ed (Emily Bazelon)

No Pay to Play or Learn at Public Schools
Public schools must provide the clay used in art class, but they can charge a student for taking home his or her finished sculpture. Playing sports is considered part of the educational mission, so schools have to cover all the costs – including uniforms – but attending a game is just for fun so students can pay admission. EdSource

Brown’s School Funding Formula Lauded, Then Picked Apart at Hearing
To a person, every Assemblymember at a committee hearing Tuesday and the six superintendents who testified at it praised the principles behind Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed school finance reforms: simplicity, clarity and equity ­­– more money for the state’s neediest children. EdSource

Waiting for Recovery: U.S. Public Schools Continue to Lose Jobs
Since the peak in local public school employment in July 2008, about 361,000 jobs in the sector have been eliminated, roughly half of the 725,000 government jobs lost overall in the same period, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. Reuters

L.A.’s First Hebrew-Language Charter School Raises Questions
Lashon Academy is to teach modern Hebrew, have no religious component and aim for a diverse student body. But some worry that dual-language charters blur the line between public and private schools. LA Times

Teachers Union Is Backing Garcetti With Words, but No Money
The union that represents Los Angeles Unified School District teachers has weighed in on the city’s March 5 municipal election and backed Eric Garcetti for mayor. KPCC

School Turnarounds Prompt Community Backlash
The federal government’s push for drastic reforms at chronically low achieving schools has led to takeovers by charter operators, overhauls of staff and curriculum, and even school shutdowns across the country. AP

LAUSD Looking Into How Priest Accused of Molestation Was Hired
A former priest and suspected child molester who left the Los Angeles Archdiocese for L.A. Unified schools will no longer be employed by the district, Supt. John Deasy said. LA Times
See also: AP

LAUSD League Unites Students With, Without Disabilities
The Los Angeles Unified School District/Special Olympics Unified Basketball League aims to help students of all capabilities interact with one another. LA Times

Slower Population Growth Means Teacher Shortage Likely Averted
New population estimates released last week by the governor’s Department of Finance may give relief to planners worried about a potential teacher shortage, as a modest increase in school age children by 2020 was set to collide with mass retirements of educators in the coming decade. SI&A Cabinet Report

Performing Well at This Decathlon Is the Smart Thing to Do
High school students gather at the Roybal Learning Center for the last leg of L.A. Unified’s regional Academic Decathlon. This year’s theme: Russia. LA Times

States Soon to Weigh Science-Standards Adoption
California may well be an early adopter of the standards, which promote depth over breadth in science instruction and call on students to apply their learning through scientific inquiry and the engineering-design process to deepen understanding. EdWeek

New System Allows More Students to Get College Cal Grants
For some high school seniors, applying to college is stressful enough. An added layer of having to search for their grade point average and Social Security number was enough for thousands not to bother seeking financial aid.  Now, Los Angeles Unified School District students can breathe a little easier. LA Times

L.A. Unified Students Face Off in Healthful Cooking Contest
Teams from six high schools whip up balanced meals following rules on calories, fat, sodium and simplicity. The winners advance to the national level, and their creations will join the district menu. LA Times
See also: LA Daily News

L.A. School District Sued Over Sexual Abuse of Students
The Los Angeles Unified School District was sued for failing to prevent the alleged sexual abuse of students by an elementary school teacher who was arrested last year. Bloomberg

As Other States Seek to Increase Preschool Budget, California Stays Flat
Starting at the White House and kindling in governors’ offices nationwide, there’s a move underfoot to increase access to early childhood education programs. Except in California. KPCC

Ex-LAUSD Teacher Charged With Additional Molestation Felony
A former Los Angeles Unified schoolteacher has been charged with an additional felony in connection with the alleged molestation of a child in Orange County eight years ago. LA Times
See also: KPCC

Los Angeles River School Students Map Elysian Valley
Last Friday, as part of our Youth Voices media literacy program, students from the Los Angeles River School, a member of the Sotomayor Learning Academy, embarked on a field trip to nearby Elysian Valley, a neighborhood that many of the students call home. KCET

New Name Sought for Arts High School
What’s in a name? In the case of the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts on Grand Avenue, a lot.  A group of parents and students have launched a campaign to rename the school before graduation in the spring. LA Downtown News

Poll: Counselors Are More Important for School Safety Than Police Officers
To improve school safety, Californians overwhelmingly believe that having guidance counselors in every school would be more effective than deploying armed police officers. EdSource

L.A. Schools Supt. Deasy, 4 Predecessors Named in Miramonte Lawsuit
The lawsuit alleges that the superintendents created an environment in which administrators were advised to dismiss complaints of misconduct, shielded teachers from scrutiny and kept allegations from being reported to state authorities and law enforcement. LA Times
See also: LA Daily News, AP, ABC LA

Applying for Kindergarten: What to Do If Your Child Is Too Young
It’s that time of the year when parents of four and five year old’s are busy with school tours and applications to secure a kindergarten spot. KPCC

In 2013, California Needs to Make Education a Top Priority
This year, my hope for our state is to fix our broken educational funding system. Yahoo News (editorial)

School Board Members to Arne Duncan: Back Off
After four years in office, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan still hasn’t won over local school board members. EdWeek

Teachers Get Hands-on Instructing Algebra to at Risk Middle School Students
There was a time when Mike Moser’s math classes at Park Middle School in Antioch would probably have looked a lot like every other in America. SI&A Cabinet Report

Organizing and Partnering for School Change in East Los Angeles
For more than 80 years, no new school was built in East Los Angeles. In the past several years, the efforts of a community organizing group, a dedicated group of teachers, an array of community partners, the students, and the parents converged to demand change — and to make it a reality. HuffPo Editorial

State Ordered to Pay Back Districts $1 Billion for 20-Year-Old Mandate
A state commission has ruled that the state must reimburse school districts about $1 billion in mandated special education costs dating back 20 years. EdSource

When You’re Black in America, School Choice Matters
Education reformer Howard Fuller shares why we ‘must not depend on any one strategy to achieve the goal of educating our young.’ Take Part Op-Ed

LAUSD to Compete With Charters to Run ‘Parent Trigger’ School
The parents at 24th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles Unified will have plenty of choices for an operator to take over their school under the “parent trigger” process they initiated this month. One of the contenders will be the district itself. EdSource
See also: LA Weekly, KPCC

Former State Senator Martha Escutia Calls for LAUSD Probe
In the wake of yet another sex abuse arrest in the Los Angeles Unified School District, former state Sen. Martha Escutia came to a Wilmington elementary school Monday to call for an LAUSD investigation into what she believes is a pattern of such abuse against Latino youth by teachers in low-income areas. LA Daily News
See also: LA Times

Second Parent Says Principal Ignored Concerns About Accused Teacher
Maria Zacapa, whose child is now in the eighth grade, said her son told her four years ago that Robert Pimental had touched a girl in his fourth-grade class in a way that made Zacapa’s son feel uncomfortable. LA Times

Crenshaw High Group Opposes Reform Plan and School Closings
Parents, students and teachers rallied Monday in front of Crenshaw High School to protest a plan to restructure the low-performing campus and require teachers to reapply for their jobs. LA Times

Linked Learning Comes of Age in California With New Pilot Programs
The California Department of Education has selected 63 districts and county offices of education – many of them working together in consortia – to pilot “linked learning” programs in their high schools beginning next fall. EdSource

Remembering the “One Laptop” Debacle
Need any reminders of what an edtech bubble looks like — the hype, exaggerated promises, enormous influxes of cash and media attention and wastes of time — then refresh your recollection of the 2005 One Laptop Per Child phenomenon in which Nicholas Negroponte said he was going to transform the world by giving poor kids low-income laptops. This Week in Education

Legislation Would Put Enforcement Teeth Into School Safety Plan Requirement
As a national debate continues to simmer over the best methods for protecting students from gun violence, a state senator from Southern California points out that a large number of school districts are failing to develop or update school safety plans – as required by law. SI&A Cabinet Report

Ed. Dept. Raises Evidence, Research Ante in Grant Awards
The U.S. Department of Education is taking the next formal step to make research and evidence far more important factors as it awards competitive grants. EdWeek

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

LAUSD Principal Failed to Report Alleged Molestation by Teacher
A now-retired principal twice failed to report accusations of sexual misconduct by a teacher who this week was charged with molesting 12 students at a Wilmington elementary school, officials said. LA Times
See also: Daily Beast, CS Monitor, LA Daily News, KPCC

Teachers Union Joins Suit Against Release of Ratings
The teachers union for the L.A. Unified School District was granted court permission Thursday to join a Los Angeles Times lawsuit seeking access to teacher ratings so it can argue they are based on an unreliable mathematical formula and should not be disclosed to the public. LA Times

Gov. Brown Uses State of the State Speech to Push Education Reforms
As if speaking from a pulpit, Brown warned of fire and brimstone if bureaucracy and inequity isn’t wiped clean from the state education system. KPCC

Calif. Districts Team Up to Push School Improvements
Frustrated by their own state’s pace and direction of school improvement, eight California districts have banded together to move ahead on rolling out the Common Core State Standards and designing new teacher evaluations based in part on student performance. EdWeek

South L.A. High School Gives Dropouts Another Chance
Free L.A. is a partnership between the John Muir Charter School, Youth Justice Coalition and the Work Investment Act. It was founded with the motto, “Escape the school-to-jail track.” Neon Tommy

Brown Lashes out at Regulators and Testers, Makes Case for His Reforms
With a caustic critique of excessive testing and overregulation and a fervent call for respecting the “dignity and freedom of teachers and students,” Gov. Jerry Brown laid out the case for returning primary control of education to local hands and distributing state money equitably in his State of the State address. EdSource

L.A. Mayoral Candidates’ Education Proposals Explained
While the five mayoral candidates vying for incumbent Antonia Villaraigosa’s position campaign across Los Angeles, one issue trumps most, no matter the neighborhood: education. Neon Tommy

Roosevelt’s Future Uncertain: School Scrambles to Meet LAUSD Deadline
A feeling of urgency and uncertainty is in the air at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, where teachers, parents and students are mobilizing for a possible whirlwind of change coming their way. EGP News

Plan to Supply LAUSD Students With Tablet Computers Wins Key Vote
Los Angeles Unified students may be closer to stepping into classrooms of the future where much of the world’s knowledge is right at their fingertips. LA Daily News

Listen: Is the ‘Parent Trigger’ Finally Being Given a Chance?
For the first time since the era of school reform began, the Los Angeles Unified School District has accepted a petition from angry parents demanding “immediate and significant” change in a public school. KCRW

LAUSD Board Candidate Iris Zuniga Drops out of Race for Nury Martinez Seat
Iris Zuniga, one of five candidates to succeed LAUSD board member Nury Martinez in the East San Fernando Valley, announced Wednesday she has dropped out of the Distrct 6 race. LA Daily News
See also: LA Times, LA School Report

ACLU: State, School Districts Failing English Learners
More than 20,000 students whose first language isn’t English are not getting proper instruction according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which threatened California education officials with a lawsuit Wednesday. KPCC

The Feds’ Education Power Grab
It’s time to have a conversation about the issue before we find that the executive branch, or even the entire federal government, has become our national school board. LA Times Op-Ed

State Department of Ed Names Model Schools for At-Risk Students
The model schools program is designed to identify the top quality schools and encourage teachers and administrators at other continuation high schools to contact and visit them and apply those practices on their own campuses. EdSource

LAUSD OK’s English-Hebrew Charter School
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has given a green light to a proposal for a dual-language charter elementary school to be located in Van Nuys offering classes in English and Hebrew. Jewish Journal

State’s D in Teacher Prep Nearly Average
California received an overall grade of D on the 2012 State Teacher Policy Yearbook released by the National Council on Teacher Quality.  No, that’s not great, but it may be easier to bear knowing that the national average was a whopping D+. EdSource

LA School PD Has ‘No Plans’ to Keep High-Powered Weapons on LAUSD Campuses
The Los Angeles School Police Department has no plans to keep high-powered weapons on campuses despite the Fontana Unified School District’s decision to purchase 14 AR-15 assault rifles to protect its students. CBS LA

Calif. Teachers Fund Reviewing Firearm Holdings
The nation’s largest teachers’ pension fund announced Tuesday that it was reviewing its firearms holdings after determining that its investment in a gun maker was linked to one of the weapons used in last week’s Connecticut school massacre. AP

Jury awards $6.9 million to boy molested by L.A. Unified teacher
Now 14, the boy was a fifth-grader at Queen Anne Place Elementary School when then-teacher Forrest Stobbe molested him for several months. LA Times
See also: KPCC

11,200 Child-Care Slots in Los Angeles County Lost During Recession
Los Angeles County lost thousands of licensed child-care spaces during three recession-battered years, jeopardizing the ability of low-income parents to work and give their children an academic head start through early education services, data released Wednesday showed. LA Times

LAUSD to Pay $6.9 Million in Abuse Case; Miramonte Could Be Costly
The size of verdict — among the largest ever awarded in a district molestation case – suggests L.A. Unified could end up paying a large amount of money to wrap up the close to 200 pending legal claims related to the Miramonte teacher. LA Times

LA Jury Awards $4.5 Million to Filipino Teachers
A federal jury awarded $4.5 million to Filipino teachers who paid large fees to obtain U.S. jobs through a placement agency. AP

California Wins Millions in School Innovation Grants
It was a clean sweep as all seven finalists seeking federal Investing in Innovation (i3) grants for California schools received word that they won. EdSource

New Science Standards on Final Leg Toward Adoption
The second draft of new national science curriculum standards, developed in part by a team from California, is set to be released the first week in January for statewide public review. SI&A Cabinet Report

Belmont Students Perform With 80s Iconic Band Foreigner
“It’s like a dream come true,” exuded Elizabeth, a choir member from Belmont HS, Multi-Media Music Academy, as she described singing the chorus for 80’s rock group-Foreigner. LAUSD Journal

Ex-Miramonte Teacher Mark Berndt Hires Defense Attorney
Mark Berndt, the former Miramonte Elementary School teacher accused of lewd conduct against his students, has hired as his defense attorney a former federal prosecutor who is also an ex-television news reporter. NBC LA

Tablets or Teachers? L.A. Tech Initiative Sparks Heated Board Debate
Last month, when a panel overseeing bond spending for Los Angeles schools narrowly rejected initial steps to provide all 650,000 students with tablet computers, the biggest concern for the program was whether bond funding could pay for technology. EdWeek

My View: I Would Trade Tenure for Better Teaching
Teacher Aadina Balti has tenure, but says it’s no reason for her, or any other teacher, to stop innovating. CNN Opinion

Lawsuit Filed for Teen Wounded in Gardena High Backpack Shooting
A lawsuit has been filed against Los Angeles Unified on behalf of one of two teens wounded when a then-17-year-old Gardena High School student brought a gun to campus that discharged while in his backpack. Daily Breeze

Common-Core Implementation Lags in California, Report Argues
Implementation of the Common Core State Standards in California is falling behind in contrast to other states, a new report from a California education policy group argues. EdWeek

State Board Approved Three out of Four Ed Waivers in 2011
School districts submitted nearly 900 applications for waivers from various elements of the state’s Education Code in 2011 with the California State Board of Education granting its approval 75 percent of the time. SI&A Cabinet Report

Source: LA Weekly

“On the outskirts of LAUSD’s sprawling, mazelike Educational Service Center in Reseda sit seven long, shabby, peach-colored bungalows with barred windows and rotting wood, which all but scream Southern California public education.

“In one of them is a roughly 35-square-foot room where 25 or so teachers (and a couple of teacher’s assistants) sit at cubicles.

“One sits with his feet up and his head tilted back toward the pockmarked ceiling, fast asleep, snoring loudly through a gaping mouth… Another works on her dissertation for a doctorate in education.

“They are teachers in teacher jail, known more popularly as rubber rooms, and the aim is to keep them out of classrooms while allegations against them are investigated.

Read the rest of the story at LA Weekly.

Triumph Charter High Must Recruit Students to Sun Valley Campus, or Close
Triumph Charter High may be forced to close because of low enrollment after relocating this year from Sylmar to Sun Valley, campus officials said Tuesday. Daily News

LA Students Off for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement
All traditional calendar L.A. Unified schools will close for the holiday that ends at sundown Wednesday. KPCC

Alleged Sex Abuse May Be Part of Years-Long Soccer Hazing Pattern
So far, four teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of assault for their alleged roles in the hazing. LA Times

Josephine Jimenez Dies at 100
Josephine Jimenez, a Los Angeles educator who broke through a glass ceiling to run a high school and become a leader and supervisor of principals, has died at 100. LA Times

TV ads for Prop. 38 start airing SF Chronicle: The 30-second spot hits on the themes that proponents have pushed so far and includes a barely subtle jab at Brown’s measure.

Seeking Allies, Teachers’ Unions Court G.O.P., Too NYT: While donations to Democrats still far outweigh contributions to Republicans, the proportion of union money going to Republican candidates this year, just over 8 percent, has doubled since the last election cycle, according to the National Institute on Money In State Politics.

Finding Classroom Success In Bilingual Mix Of Spanish, English Hechinger Report: In 2011, while 56 percent of elementary-age students in California were proficient or above on state tests for English language arts, two thirds of Ernest R. Geddes Elementary School in Baldwin Park, Calif students were [proficient].

Reform by the ounce, unfunded pension debt by the pound Ed Source: The pension reforms passed in June, paring back the benefits for new teachers and administrators, will knock off $189 million per year from the additional payments taxpayers must make to keep the California State Teachers’ Retirement System solvent over the next 30 years. That’s the good news.

Millikan students volunteer, raise money for cancer care Daily News: Students hope to raise $2,000 over the next month to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

La Puente High Horrors: Soccer Players Claim to Have Been Hazed, Sodomized With Poles LA Weekly: Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka announced this morning that four students, one 18 and the rest minors, have been arrested in connection to the case. In addition, one male teacher/coach has reportedly been placed on administrative leave.

LAUSD Special Education Failings Still Flying Under The Radar Neon Tommy (blog): The district recently failed for an eighth straight year to meet special education delivery targets for disabled students.

Defiance: the all-purpose word that drives kids out of school Witness LA: Initial data from an ongoing UCLA study seems to suggest that suspending problem students does little to promote a healthier educational environment in schools. By engaging troublemakers instead of ostracizing them, the performance of the entire school receives a boost.

Parking problems a hazard at new Porter Ranch Community School Daily News: The new $56 million Porter Ranch Community School is winning raves for its innovative curriculum and architecture, but it’s also raising safety concerns because of a parking crunch that’s emerged since the K-8 school opened a month ago.

Substitute Teacher from Cerritos Found Not Guilty in Student Molestation Case Patch: A 29-year-old substitute teacher from Cerritos charged earlier this year with one misdemeanor count of child molestation involving a Los Coyotes Middle School student was found not guilty by a 12-person jury last month.

Middle Schooler Booted from Class for Wearing Brown Leggings, Posing As Pantsless LAist: An 11-year-old honors student at Mount Gleason Middle School in Sunland was allegedly kicked out of class Friday for wearing brown leggings that too closely resembled her skin tone.

Duncan tight-lipped on California’s waiver Ed Source: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wouldn’t reveal even a hint regarding the status of California’s request for a waiver from the most unrealistic provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind, in an interview on Wednesday.

Teacher evaluations at center of Chicago strike Associated Press: Educators in Los Angeles just signed a new deal with the city’s school district. So, too, did teachers in Boston. Both require performance evaluations based in part on how well students succeed, a system that’s making its debut in Cleveland. So what’s the problem in Chicago, where 25,000 teachers in the nation’s third-largest district have responded to an impatient mayor’s demand that teacher evaluations be tied to student performance by walking off the job for the first time in 25 years?

Hollywood film highlights controversial parent-trigger law SI&A Cabinet Report: It’s not often that a policy issue makes for the type of titillating drama usually required for a big-screen Hollywood movie but, then again, when was the last time a couple of moms led the successful takeover of a public school?