So far only one ed-related measure has been cleared for voting, but there are several others in the works, each with a potential to affect the future of LA Unified and school districts across the state.

Already eligible for the ballot is the “Kindergarten Through Community College Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2016,” which would authorize $9 billion in general obligation bonds, including $3 billion for new construction and $3 billion for modernization of K-12 public school facilities, $1 billion for charter schools and vocational education facilities and $2 billion for California Community Colleges facilities.

As the largest district in the state, LA Unified would receive a significant portion of the bond funds and would have little trouble figuring out what to do with them, as it needs roughly $40 billion to fix and modernize its existing facilities with only $7.8 billion currently available in construction bond authority.

The measure received support today in a statement from the California Chamber of Commerce, which said, “The strength of our economy relies on the strength of our workforce. Strategic, accountable investment from the state, local districts, and the business community is required so that new schools are built to accommodate growth and aging facilities are revitalized to support a 21st Century education.”

Also of importance to LA Unified is a proposition that would make tax increases from Proposition 30 permanent. Prop 30 was a 2012 ballot initiative that raised income taxes on wealthy individuals for seven years and increased state sales taxes for four years. Much of the money has been going to support public education and it is largely responsible for the flush budgets of the last few years that have provided billions in extra dollars for education.

LA Unified is facing huge budget deficits in coming years, according to projections made by Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly and an outside financial review panel. The extension of Prop 30, known as “The Invest in California’s Children Act,” would not save the district from its financial troubles, according to the panel’s report, but “will only help keep a bad situation from becoming a catastrophe in three-to-five years.”

The measure is still in the signature-gathering stage but faces an uphill battle if it makes the ballot, as a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that only 37 percent of voters view extending Prop 30 as “very important.”

More bond money and more budget money are issues unlikely to cause many arguments among state education leaders, but there are other measures in the works that are likely to prove more controversial. One such measure still in the signature-gathering stage is the “Local Control and Accountability in Education Act,” which would increase the length of service required before a teacher may become a permanent employee to five consecutive school years from two.

The measure would also remove state authority over teacher employment laws and give the authority to local school boards, which would be empowered to make decisions over teacher transfers, reassignments, layoffs and re-employment. It would also ban the use of seniority in such decisions. A similar measure that only covers the extension of teacher tenure is also in the signature-gathering stage.

The measure echoes many of the controversial and polarizing issues that are part of the Vergara v. California court ruling of 2014, when a state superior court judge throw out California’s teacher employment laws, ruling them unconstitutional in helping keep subpar teachers working in poor schools. The decision is currently under appeal and if upheld would require the legislature to write new laws. The measure appears to be an effort to get ahead of the appellate court’s ruling.

Another measure also sure to cause controversy is the “The Public Education Restoration Act of 2016,” which would repeal the Charter Schools Act of 1992. With LA Unified having more charter schools than any district in the nation, the measure has enormous implications but faces an uphill battle as statewide polling has shown consistent support among voters for charter schools. The measure is currently under review by state officials.

Yet another controversial measure is referred to by backers as the “Voter Empowerment Act.” Orange County Register staff columnist Teri Sforza has this to say about it: “What it would actually do is a matter of blistering and contradictory rhetoric, which will grow more bombastic as the November 2016 election approaches. Backers say it would require voters to approve guaranteed pension benefits for new workers, as well as benefit increases for current ones. Opponents say it would eviscerate collective bargaining, gut public pensions and obliterate guaranteed retirements across the board.”

The measure is still in the signature-gathering stage.

Without the cost of living adjustment, California ranked 29th in spending, at $10,139 per K-12 student, $1,900 less than the $12,040 national average.

The report found little for the state to celebrate, with California ranked:

It’s called “Principal for a Day.” I know, back when you were five, it used to sound so fun to follow the principal around, issuing commands—Extra recess for everyone! Free donuts in the cafeteria!—but thanks to years of budget cuts, the game is no longer any fun, unless you really love crying over a pile of spreadsheets.

After the passage of Prop 30, though, some people are saying the game might regain its original luster. With the Local Control Funding Formula channeling fresh funds into the district budget, maybe we won’t have to stock up on Kleenex as we plan how to keep our doors open next year.

So let’s pretend we’re the principal of All-American High, an imaginary but typical school of about 550 students—a “small learning community” formed by dividing up a large public high school in south Los Angeles. Let’s say 95 percent of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch, 65 percent are English Language Learners, 15 percent are in Special Ed and 10 percent are in foster care. The school is in a high-crime area with significant gang activity. Many of our families are seeing food stamps cut this year, which means kids sometimes come to school hungry.

Whew! It’s exhausting being a principal. But now comes the fun part.

We’re going to get a significant influx of money for 2014-15—we hear a different report every week, ranging from about $500 more per student to about $1,500. Under LCFF, we’ll be getting additional funds because we’re a high-poverty community. What this means in terms of actual money we can use is still unclear, a moving target nobody seems to fully understand.

What it sounds like is that we may be able to hire three to five people to replace some of the staff we laid off over the last few years. Here are the layoffs we’ll be trying to replace: one of our Assistant Principals, one of our two counselors, all but one of our security guards, our nurse and our librarian. We’ve also had to lay off a large number of our newer teachers, leaving the remaining teachers with enormous classes.

So whom do we bring back? I’m going to say—with pain, because it hurts to make impossible choices—that the first thing I’d fund is teachers.

First, I want to give our teachers a raise. We’ll never bring talented people into the profession if we don’t pay a decent wage. I know teachers who have two children and live in one-bedroom apartments in high-crime neighborhoods. That’s not a lifestyle that will attract anyone into the job. Last year a third of our teachers quit. Four of them did so in the middle of the school year, leaving their classes covered by a rotating fleet of substitutes. Our remaining teachers have not had a raise in five years. Our first priority needs to be attracting and retaining excellent teachers, the core of our school.

Second of all, I’m going to lower class size as much as possible. With students coming in far below grade level, teachers need time for individual attention, especially now with Common Core as we try to teach abstract analytical thinking, which will require the close reading of our students’ work. I’d add a teacher in every core subject.

That’s four; we’re almost out of money already. Now is when things get ugly.

Since we cut our second Assistant Principal, we have no school-wide discipline plan. We’ve also been hemorrhaging students ever since we cut summer school, which left students unable to take a class over if they flunked. I’d love a parent coordinator from the community to reach out to families. But if we can only fund one more person, I’d hire a second counselor. Many of our students are growing up in chaotic situations that leave them in an emotional state close to PTSD. Others have no idea what classes they need to take in order to graduate. More than anything, our kids need someone to talk to.

And then I’m out of money.

As a former drama teacher, it kills me to say that we can’t afford to add an arts class. I desperately want to send our teachers for training in the new Common Core standards. I’d love to have after-school intervention classes for the 30 percent of our students who are still far below grade level. I’d love to train our staff in the promising new Restorative Justice circle method of group talk therapy with students who have behavior issues. We also need an industrial-strength photocopier, healthy food in the cafeteria and school-wide wifi access.

But all of that will have to wait.

It’s better than last year, but we’re still not even back to 2008 levels of funding. Prop 30 saved us from a total meltdown, and it’s definitely a step in the right direction to give high-poverty communities additional funding. But let’s be honest: it’s still a baby step. Now that we’ve opened the door, now that we’ve admitted that we need to fund schools adequately, let’s look at what it will really take to make our schools great, instead of getting them to survive. Let’s talk honestly about what our students really need, then find funding to meet those needs.

Then, and only then, the game of education will be fair for everyone.

Ellie Herman is a guest commentator. Read more of her thoughts at Gatsby in LA.

UTLA is planning a rally outside LA Unified headquarters at 4 p.m. tomorrow to demand pay raises. The protest comes on the one-year anniversary of Prop 30, a measure that raised state taxes to avert nearly $6 billion in cuts to public education.

“We cannot allow the Superintendent to squander Prop 30 funds on pet projects, while we continue to suffer,” UTLA told its members on the union website. “We have earned a pay raise and the money is there.”

From the looks of the slide show above, the union is not entirely happy with LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy‘s position on the matter.

Board President Vladovic

Today is expected be another long day for LA Unified School Board members.

Last week’s eight-hour session — only the second board meeting of the school year –was not long enough to hash out the details of the district’s Common Core implementation plan, so they’ve sandwiched in a Special Board Meeting between two others that were already on the calendar.

The first meeting, starting at 10 a.m., will have a short window for public comment but, will then become, for the most part, a closed session for the board, legal counsel and labor contract negotiators. This is also when the board will take up personnel issues, a discussion which will now include the unexpected resignation on Friday of Jaime Aquino, Deputy Superintendent of Instruction and Superintendent John Deasy’s right-hand man. A routine evaluation of the superintendent’s performance is also on the closed-door agenda.

Board members, who said they were “shocked” and “surprised” by Aquino’s sudden decision to leave the $250,000 a year post effective Dec. 31, will address the impending vacancy. However, it’s unclear if the board will have input in choosing a successor for Aquino or if Deasy will single-handedly oversee the search.

Aquino blamed the school board for creating a contentious climate and intentionally blocking his efforts to push forward Deasy’s aggressive reform agenda. Aquino told the LA Daily News the tipping point for him was when the board failed to pass the Common Core budget last week, pushing it off until today.

That indecision is what led to today’s noon Special Board Meeting. It is the third time the board will try to reach a consensus on how to spend $113 million to implement the new English and math curriculum. Board members have not agreed on the best plan for training teachers on the Common Core.

The final session of the day, on the schedule for 2 p.m., is a meeting for the Committee of the Whole, chaired by Steve Zimmer. The committee will tackle the Local Control Funding Formula, the plan that funnels Prop. 30 revenue directly to school districts.

Board president Richard Vladovic, Zimmer and Bennett Kayser want class size returned to pre-recession levels while Deasy, favors restoring summer school, after-school programs and advanced academic classes, in addition to paying down the structural deficit and giving raises to all district employees.

Previous Posts: Deasy Deputy Jaime Aquino Resigns (Updated); Vladovic Leadership Style Suggests Slower Pace is Best; Common Core Budget Approval Put Off for Another Week

A Huffington Post article on Wednesday pointed to a recent report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, which warned that the teachers pension fund is $73 billion and counting in debt, and if nothing is done to intervene, the fund will disappear completely in 30 years.  A recent Bloomberg op-ed speculated that some of Prop 30’s $6.8 billion annual funds could be funneled away from schools and used to repair the teachers pension system.

Previous posts:  Deasy & Zimmer Praise Prop. 30 Passage; UTLA, LAUSD Prep for Prop. 30 Budget Battle

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

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

As a recent UTLA newletter reveals, concerns about how the money will be spent are one of the reasons that the union is so focused on the outcome of the March 5 election. In the newsletter, UTLA President Warren Fletcher notes that the union’s ability to achieve its budget goals “will be immeasurably helped or hindered depending on the outcome of the March 5 School Board election.”

When it passed in November, Prop. 30 was lauded by just about everyone as a victory for education. For the first time in years, Prop. 30 offered financial relief for LAUSD’s cash-strapped schools, which have weathered a budget crisis, teacher layoffs, and dismally low per-pupil funding. In 2012, LAUSD’s per-pupil funding was $5,221, and California’s per-pupil spending ranked 47th out of 50 states.

And, at least initially, UTLA and the Board were in agreement. Once Prop. 30 passed, the Board immediately moved to restore the full, 180-day academic year and rescinded past teacher furloughs.

But the promise of this much-needed money now has LAUSD and UTLA preparing for a battle over how it will be spent, a process that begins now and happens for real next year.

The teachers union has proclaimed three main spending priorities for Prop. 30 revenue: It wants to protect and restore teacher jobs, to lower class sizes (which will also protect teacher jobs threatened by declining student enrollment in district schools), and to implement pay raises.

In the newsletter, Fletcher highlights the differences between what the union wants and what the district prioritizes. “[In the past,] Board members could always claim that budgetary necessity was driving their decisions,” writes Fletcher. “Now that Prop. 30 is the law, they no longer have that excuse.”

LAUSD teachers have experienced four years of furloughs, and there has been a six-year freeze on pay raises in the district.

However, the district, along with at least a part of the Board, is looking to spend Prop. 30 funds more directly on students, including by bringing more technology into classrooms.

The rift between UTLA and LAUSD on technology is nothing new (see: Union Head Opposes Tablet Initiative), and there have already been tense debates among Board members over Deasy’s push to give each LAUSD student a tablet computer (see: Technology or Salaries?). In a January interview with CBS LA, Deasy said preventing teacher layoffs was a possibility next year, but far from a certainty.

However, few of these decisions will be made before the Board election on March 5th. It will be a new Board — possibly with new members — that sifts through the different claims and priorities and determines how Prop. 30 funds are used.

LAUSD Board OKs Deal With Teachers Union on Performance Evaluations
The LAUSD school board signed off Tuesday on a deal with the teachers union to implement a new system that will incorporate student test data in performance evaluations. LA Daily News

A New Way to Rate L.A. Unified’s Teachers
What kind of process for evaluating teachers can possibly be devised by a determinedly reform-minded administration, a stubborn union and plaintiffs in a hostile lawsuit? As it turns out, a better kind than they’ve had up to now. LA Times Editorial

4 More Miramonte School Students File Lawsuits in Child Abuse Case
The list of plaintiffs in the case over alleged child abuse by teachers at Miramonte Elementary School is getting a little longer. KPCC
See also: LA Times, CBS 

School Names Can Be Lessons in Recognition
Celebrities? Historical figures? Neighborhoods? As L.A. Unified replaces temporary generic campus names with permanent monikers, the process has become political, controversial or just plain wacky. LA Times

Democrats Propose Using Proposition 39 for Schools
Democratic lawmakers are proposing to spend about $500 million a year in newly approved tax revenue on energy efficiency projects at schools in California’s poorest communities. AP

First Sign of Better Times for Schools Under Prop 30
Deferred payments to California schools and community colleges will fall to their lowest level in five years this academic year, and repayments for previous deferrals is starting sooner than expected. EdSource

California School Districts Face Huge Debt on Risky Bonds
Two hundred school districts across California have borrowed billions of dollars using a costly and risky form of financing that has saddled them with staggering debt, according to a Times analysis. LA Times

Uptick in Charter Renewal Denials as National Group Calls for More
The number of charter schools denied renewal nationwide more than doubled in 2011 to 12 – a jump attributed to closer scrutiny of academic standards. SI&A Cabinet Report

One in Five Charter Schools Is Bad Enough to Close Down
The Chicago-based group’s members — such as the Los Angeles Unified School District and the State University of New York — oversee more than half of the nation’s 5,600 charter schools. SF Chronicle

The “Wimpy” Underside of State Education Funding
Once considered to be one of the nation’s best public school systems, by some accounts, today California ranks 48th in the country—with about $2,500 less per student than the national average. Los Feliz Ledger

Test Results Show Majority of California Students Lack Fitness
Only about one-third of California students are considered physically fit, according to annual test results released by the department of education earlier this month. SI&A Cabinet Report

California Finds Economic Gloom Starting to Lift
After nearly five years of brutal economic decline, government retrenchment and a widespread loss of confidence in its future, California is showing the first signs of a rebound. NYT

LAUSD putting on talent show to showcase employee-entertainers, raise money for after-school programs
Sure, America and even Britain have talent. Turns out, Los Angeles Unified does, too. LA Daily News