The tests, called Smarter Balanced Assessments, were given to 3.2 million students in grades 3 to 8 and 11.

The new tests will be used as part of a new statewide accountability system still in the works. However, the full results, which can be broken down by state, district and school, will be released online, and parents and guardians of students will be able to see their child’s individual scores.

LA Unified officials have already seen the results for the district and have  begun preparing parents and the public for some low proficiency results. Education officials across the state have repeatedly stressed that lower scores were expected the first time around, because they were conducted online and based on the new Common Core curriculum.

The Department of Education’s website has prepared guidelines for parents on how to read and understand their child’s scores.

Cynthia Lim, Executive Director of the Office of Data and Accountabilty for LA Unified, sent a letter to the school board and Superintendent Ramon Cortines last week, warning that the “percentage of students who will have ‘met or exceeded standards’ on the new tests will be lower than the proficiency rates we have seen with the old California Standards Tests.”

Cynthia Lim, executive director of the district’s Office of Data and Accountability, said she knows parents will make comparisons between the previous California Standards Tests and the new tests. That would be unfair, she said, describing it as worse than an apples-and-oranges comparison.

“Students are being measured in different ways than in the past tests, and there were five different performance bands; now there are four,” Lim told the LA School Report. The five “Far Below Basic,” “Below Basic,” “Basic,” “Proficient” and “Advanced” — are now “Has Not Met the Standard,” “Nearly Met the Standard,” “Met the Standard” and “Exceeded the Standard.”

Lim said she has seen preliminary scores for LAUSD — about 96 percent of the scores in grades 3 through 8 and 84 percent of the test scores in 11th grade — and they are not great. She declined to provide details but admitted that the scores would be “lower than what we’ve seen in the past in terms of what we would say is proficiency.”

The way the students are taking the tests could hurt the initial scores, too. All the tests are conducted on tablets, with no paper and pencil, no bubbles to fill in, no multiple guess. And, no student gets the same questions.

“In the past, every student had the same set of questions in a one-answer format,” Lim said. “So you got a question and possible range of answers and the student had to eliminate answers. On this new assessment, there are graphics, and the types of answers aren’t given to the students; they have to take it a step beyond, and show how they came up with the computation.”

The skills include writing on the tablet, typing in answers and sometimes listening on headphones before answering questions.

It’s also the first time the district tried a “computer adaptative” test. If the student gets questions correct, the questions get tougher. If they miss them, the questions get easier. “The questions are tailored to your ability, and we get more precise information about achievements and what the students need to work on,” Lim said.

The overall impact of the new metrics, Lim said, makes it less likely that instructors will teach-to-the-test — a common complaint of teachers — because of how the questions are asked, forcing students to concentrate on demonstrating a better understanding of what they are learning rather than rote recitation. That’s the essential change ushered in by the use of the Common Core State Standards as an instruction guideline.

The new tests not only help lower-performing students but help better identify highly-gifted students, as well. If more than two-thirds of the questions are answered correctly, the questions automatically go into a higher grade level. “That will give a better idea of the potential of the student, and the teacher can adjust accordingly,” Lim said.

Another reason the scores can’t be compared with the past regimen is because all students 2 through 11th grades were tested, while now only children in grades 3 through 8 and 11th graders are tested.

Schools went through a test-run two years ago and resolved problems with tablets not working properly. But all schools took the test in the last 12 weeks of this past school year, and those testing scores will now provide a baseline for the future.

The reports of the test scores sent to parents will have detailed explanations of where a child needs improvement, with more specifics than ever provided in the past. The inter-office memo showed examples, with a fictional student, Emily, as Below Standard for “Demonstrating ability to support mathematical conclusions” and At-or-Near Standard for “Demonstrating understanding of literary and non-fiction texts.”

“Teachers can use this information to adjust their teaching because the scores are broken into these sub-categories,” Lim said.

Teachers and principals can also ask students to take interim tests.

Meanwhile, the sample letters urge parents not to compare these test scores to past ones. An example reads: “These results are one measure of Emily’s academic performance and provide limited information. Like any important measure of your child’s performance, they should be viewed with other available information—such as classroom tests, assignments, and grades—and they may be used to help guide a conversation with Emily’s teacher.”

That the test will be a disaster.

Here’s the thing: I haven’t talked to anybody—anybody!—who objects to the actual Common Cores Standards. The Standards are incredibly vague; basically, they value the processes of analytical reasoning, reading, writing, speaking and listening. In other words, the Standards are like the education version of Peace, Love and Understanding. Who could possibly object?

The problem is that we are about to test the standards—and people do not like the tests. The teachers on the East Coast who are protesting, the children fleeing classrooms in tears, the parents forming an “Opt Out” movement are not a bunch of ideological clowns. They are angry because this new Common Core test, which has been implemented sight unseen by almost any teacher or principal, may have enormous power over their future without any serious public discussion. What are these tests, exactly? Do they even measure the standards?

Here in California, where the launch has been much slower, teachers across Los Angeles are administering a field test version of the Common Core test this month. There are two versions being rolled out nationally — here, it’s the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test.

This morning, I took the online practice test for 11th grade English. Here’s a breakdown of what it is, what it isn’t and whether it measures the standards:

First, it’s not only multiple choice but it does have some multiple-choice elements. As on the California State Tests or the Verbal SAT, students are required to read short passages and answer multiple-choice comprehension questions. The content tends to be grounded in practical real-world concerns: whether a city should fund public art, whether teenagers should have a curfew, whether water should be fluoridated.

Sometimes students can pick more than one correct answer. The emphasis is on identifying the author’s main argument and analyzing the text for evidence supporting the argument, picking out sentences that support the main thesis and eliminating those that are irrelevant. Will this help our students read more deeply? Maybe—as long as it doesn’t become a mechanical search for related elements, without the deep intuitive thinking that makes ideas coherent.

Second, the test has some short answers and some longer written responses. In some places students have to construct short answers, which they type into boxes. In other sections, they have to write a persuasive letter or a short opinion piece based on an analysis of one or two texts. Though this option would seem to be much better than multiple choice questions, the effect may be similar depending on how these answers, letters and essays are graded.

Are students being graded on grammar? Spelling? Complexity of sentence construction? Correctness of the response? Are these responses being graded by a computer or a human being? If they’re being graded by a computer, what kind of sentences is the computer programmed to find acceptable? I’ve read that computer-graded essays (yes, in some places essays are being graded by computer) give higher scores for longer words regardless of context. Will teachers be pressured to coach their students to fill their essays with preposterous words?

Most likely, the essays will be graded by moonlighting teachers using a rubric, or chart, of the desired qualities. Is this a good thing? I don’t know—how good is the teacher? And how is this test actually any better than the SAT writing test that was just thrown out because, according to the College Board, it was “not predictive” of student success? How is it better than the California State Exit Exam writing test taken by all students for graduation? Or the EAP writing test they all take for college placement? Our students already take writing tests up the wazoo. Nobody seems to think it has helped them write, and a lot of teachers (including me) think it has made their writing worse.

The problem with standardized tests is just that– they’re standardized. In other words, preparing for them tends to produce formulaic writing, reading and thinking, the very writing, reading and thinking that caused us to despair that our students couldn’t write or think, and made us adopt the Common Core in the first place. These new tests definitely rely more on the seeking of evidence and the analysis of arguments. Studying for them will, at the lowest level, probably inculcate the mechanical production of those skills, which is better than not having them at all.

So if I say I’m underwhelmed, I hope I’m not being a clown. Yes, the practice test embodies some aspects of a reductive form of analytic thinking, in that Flatland two-dimensional sense that seems to dominate so much of educational thinking these days. But does it really measure what we want our students to learn? Take the online practice test yourself. What do you think?

Maybe the best test of Common Core skills will be our ability to have a civilized public discussion of how they measure up to our ideals of what an education should be.

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

As part of the field test, the state will be examining technological capacity and the quality of test questions, while helping students and teachers prepare for next year’s first operational test, said Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction in a press release.

“Over the next three months, students, teachers, and administrators will gain valuable hands-on experience in a new era of student assessments,” he said. “With more than 3 million students participating, this is the largest field test of its kind in the nation. It is a challenging transformation, but our schools are rising to that challenge with a great sense of excitement and determination.”

The “test of the test,” which runs through June 6, will serve multiple purposes—but mainly to gauge the accuracy and fairness of the test questions ahead of the new assessments that will become operational next year.

Across the nation, more than 20,000 assessment questions and performance tasks will be evaluated to determine which work well and which need to be improved. Test questions are aligned with the Common Core State Standards, adopted by California in 2010, to encourage critical thinking, complex problem solving, and deeper knowledge of subjects.

“I am particularly interested in hearing teachers’ views on the questions and their appropriateness for the students they work with every day,” Torlakson said.

The field test will also take into account computer availability and server capacity while at the same time, allowing teachers to observe their students’ computer skills.

“This field test gives us the opportunity to prepare our students for success,” he added. “The STAR program served us well for years, but the world has changed, and our schools also have to change the way they teach and test their students.”

The field test will cover English-language arts and mathematics for students in grades three through eight and a sampling of students in grades nine and 10.

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.

Photo: SF Examiner
State Superintendent of Public Education Tom Torlakson

Under pressure from the federal government, California is expanding a field test of computer-based assessments to test students in both math and English language arts, rather than just one subject area. A law recently signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, AB 484, (see story here) requires testing in only one subject.

The change, announced yesterday by State Education chief Tom Torlakson, came in response to concerns that the US Department of Education would withhold as much as $45 million dollars in funding, as well as additional Title I funds if the state did not comply with long standing federal rules that students in grades three and eleven be tested annually in both subjects.

The news was welcomed by LA Unified, which had planned to test in both subject areas anyway, at a cost of $2 million.  In applauding the decision, Superintendent John Deasy said in a statement it “brings more equity to the assessment transition process” as the state shifts to the Common Core State Standards curriculum. The cost of administering the added test will be paid for by the state.

“We are glad that this decision will relieve us of the obligation to pay for the second test, saving us vital funds,” Deasy said. “We continue to prepare for the transition to Common Core State Standards in instruction and testing, which is why we are working to ensure there are adequate computers or tablets on every campus so students can access the computer adaptive Smarter Balanced assessments.”

Torlakson also said California is applying for a “double testing” waiver from the federal government, which would allow students to avoid taking both the field test and a separate end-of-year state test.

AB 484 ended most of the assessments that had comprised the state’s Standardized Testing and Reporting program for the past 15 years. It required students to be tested in one subject area but did not preclude the state from requiring tests in both.

“This move to up-to-date new assessments marks a major step forward in California’s work to ensure that every student graduates equipped to succeed in college and careers,” Torlakson said in a press release. “These field tests simply make good sense, and expanding them to include both subjects for most students makes even better sense—in contrast to ‘double testing’ students, which makes little sense at all.”

Field tests serve as “tests of the tests,” allowing experts to gauge the accuracy and reliability of individual test items before finalizing the assessments for full-scale use. As such, no field test scores will be produced or reported. The vast majority of students will be tested in both subjects this spring.

All students in grade three through eight and grade 11, as well as a small sample from grades nine and 10, will participate in the Smarter Balanced field test.

“Expanding the field test for hundreds of thousands of students to take both sets of assessments will mean more hands-on experience for them and their teachers, as well as more opportunity to identify any technological needs,” said Mike Kirst, president of the State Board of Education. “All of that means that California will be starting from a solidly built foundation when these assessments become operational next school year—and that’s good for our students, our schools, and our state.”

Ninety-five percent of the students will take a sampling of test items for both content areas, plus one performance task from one content area. The remaining five percent of students will focus on one subject or the other. The field test will take place between March 18 and June 6, 2014. The new assessment system goes operational in the 2014-15 school year.

The new assessments will be computer-based, allowing for a much broader range of test questions than the multiple-choice exams given under the previous statewide tests. They will emphasize critical thinking, reasoning and problem-solving, modeling the kind of teaching and learning needed to prepare all students for the demands of college and the workplace.

In LA Unified, students will take the tests either on iPads or school-based computers.

Previous Posts: Brown Signs AB 484, Ending Old Standardized Tests in California; Coalition Calls on Gov. Brown to Veto Testing Bill, AB 484; Torlakson Rebuts Duncan, Defends State Testing Bill

Districts received the first half of the funds in September and the second half—about $622 million—today. LA Unified is receiving $54.25 million, a bit more than the first installment of $53.73 million.

Districts can decide for themselves how to use the funds — to train teachers, buy new materials, or purchase technology, all with the purpose of implementing the Common Core State Standards. The total amounts to some $200 per student, the state said.

These state-developed standards, which California and 45 other states have voluntarily adopted over the past few years, are designed to provide all students with the deeper learning, critical thinking and other skills needed for college and a career.

“California took a major step toward college and career readiness for all our students when we adopted the Common Core back in 2010,” said Torlakson, who urged the inclusion of Common Core funding in this year’s state budget. “The state made a significant down payment on that commitment with this first block grant—but we must do more.”

A district-by-district list of funding is available here.

Previous Posts: 10 Reasons the Largest Teachers Union Likes Common Core; From Hechinger, a Wide-Ranging View of Common Core; LA Unified Board Finally Gives Deasy His Common Core Budget

Jaime Aquino

Jaime Aquino, LA Unified’s Superintendent of Instruction has resigned, according to Superintendent John Deasy and School Board President Richard Vladovic.

“Dr. Aquino served the students of LAUSD admirably for the past few years, Vladovic said today in an email. “He made a decision to leave the District and pursue other endeavors. I wholeheartedly thank him for his service to our students and District.”

As one of Deasy’s top advisors, Aquino led the efforts to change the district’s instructional protocols to the Common Core State Standards, including the district’s plan to purchase iPads for every student and teacher.

“I’m personally very sad to lose such a gifted and talented employee,” Deasy said. “It’s a real loss, and we’ll look forward to a very thoughtful transition.”

Deasy told the LA Daily News today that other members of his leadership team have grown disheartened by what the story called “the perceived loss of school board support for their reform agenda, which has led to increases in student test scores and graduation rates.”

“There are others on my team who are in a similar position (as Aquino), and I am trying to work through that,” Deasy was quoted as saying.

Aquino has not responded to several calls from LA School Report seeking comment.

There had been rumors of tension between Aquino and Vladovic. In a July 6 Los Angeles Times story, Vladovic acknowledged that he shouted at Aquino, but added that he thinks “very highly” of him. Aquino had declined to comment on the incident.

The Times story went on to say that the “incident and others became part of an ongoing internal investigation into whether Vladovic crossed legal or ethical lines with alleged verbal abuse.”

Tamar Galatzan, a board member representing communities in the Valley, said in an email statement: “Jaime Aquino has been an amazing and dedicated advocate for our children, our teachers and our schools. I am very sorry to see him go.”

Board member Monica Garcia also praised Aquino, citing in particular his development of the English Language Learner Master Plan. She credits the plan for helping to raise English Language Learner test scores by 28 points this year.

“I’m very saddened that he is moving on, and I’m hopeful that he will reconsider,” she said.

It’s unclear just why Aquino has resigned. Many behind the scenes are speculating that Aquino along with other district officials have been disheartened by the recent shift in the school board under Vladovic’s leadership – both in policy and in style — citing as the latest example, the slow pace of debate over funding of the Common Core curriculum, which was delayed again at the board meeting earlier this week.

Aquino has been pressing for approval so the district can make faster headway in the transition.

“Jaime’s the first to go,” said one insider, “But I think you’re going to see an exodus.”

Asked by the Daily News if he intended to leave, Deasy declined to comment.

Asked for her opinion on Aquino, Garcia replied: “I think he has incredible talent and feels like he needs to move. It is the job of the board, though, to be a place where people want to work, to be a place that recognizes talent. And we have a hole.”

Aquino, a native of the Dominican Republic, began his professional as a bilingual teacher in New York, winning acclimation as New York State Bilingual Teacher of the Year in 1990.

In New York City, Dr. Aquino also taught math and served as a science staff developer, a mathematics coordinator, a director of bilingual education programs, a delegate for the American Federation of Teachers, a curriculum writer, Deputy Executive Director for the Division of Instructional Support for the New York City Department of Education and Local Instructional Superintendent.

After several years as Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction for the Hartford Public Schools, he became Chief Academic Officer for the Denver Public Schools, where he was responsible for implementing a reform agenda that led to record gains in student achievement.

In July 2011, Aquino joined Deasy’s team as the Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, a role in which he oversaw the local district superintendents, curriculum and instruction, special education, adult education, mental health and social services and parent and community engagement.

Aquino has a Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum and Teaching with a specialty in Language, Learning and Literacy from Fordham University; a Master of Science in Bilingual Education, also from Fordham; and a B.S. in Psychology from the Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo.

This post has been updated throughout the day.

Previous posts: CA Getting ‘Smarter’ with New Tests to Probe Critical Thinking; Aquino Sees Deeper Thinking but Falling Scores with Common Core; Senior District Employee Gives to Garcia

Gov. Jerry Brown

While a bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature would end statewide testing for a year – he’s expected to sign it – state officials plan to use older test results to assure that California receives its annual Title I allocations.

To comply with federal regulations that states must provide annual test results to qualify for the money, the California Department of Education has decided to use the higher of two scores — a school’s 2012-13 API results, which were issued last month, or a three year average of the most recent APIs.

“We knew that we needed something in the law that said what are we going to do, given the fact that we won’t have English language arts and math scores for one year,” Keric Ashley, Director of Analysis, Measurement, and Accountability Reporting Division for the department of education told LA School Report.

The bill would give California school districts time to acclimate to the new Common Core State Standards curriculum and the computer-based Smarter Balanced assessments that will be used in 2015.

There is one caveat.

The State Superintendent may decide to calculate new scores for high schools since the high school API is partially based on the California High School Exit Exam. And the CAHSEE is not impacted by AB 484, the law awaiting Brown’s approval.

“So we could still do a new calculated API for high schools, but that would be State Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s decision to do that,” Ashely said.

The options in place not only safeguard millions of federal dollars that annually flow to districts, it could eliminate any legal confusion that has arisen within LA Unified and other state school districts regarding the use of California’s parent trigger law, which allows parents to make changes in their children’s schools by securing signatures of a majority of parents. It has been used several times on LA Unified schools.

At the district’s board meeting on Tuesday, district officials expressed apprehension over “the unknowns” in the absence of new school performance data. One senior district official speculated it would be possible to put a moratorium on all parent trigger applications.

But Ashley said, “I don’t know on what basis they would say a moratorium because there will be an API connected to the school.”

LA Unified’s Chief of Intensive Support and Instruction, Donna Muncey, worried that re-using a school’s current API score would give Parent Trigger advocates “a window that’s twice as long” to take over a school.

Schools only become eligible for a “parent trigger” action after they are identified by the state as failing, based on Academic Performance Index and Adequate Yearly Progress scores, which are usually released in late August or early September.

“That’s what sets the petition gathering [for a parent trigger] in motion,” Muncey said. “So usually, organizers collect signatures from the time those scores come out through May at the latest.”

Under the state’s new plan, the data used to determine which schools would be eligible is already available, giving parent trigger advocates a head start on their organizing efforts. That could lead to a significant increase in the number of parent trigger applications submitted over the next two years.

Ashley said the state would “probably release the new scores much earlier because we wouldn’t have to calculate anything new here. We could do that now.”

Communications Director Derrick Everett of Parent Revolution, the non-profit that has led the organizing efforts on all signature gathering campaigns in LA Unified and the nation’s first successful campaign in the Mojave Desert, said the new assessment formula does present them an advantage.

“It’s too early to tell whether this will move the calculus of parents, in terms of moving their time tables up or not, he said, adding: “The school’s that are failing this year have been failing for several years so they’re already on parents’ radar and thus they’re already on our radar.”

Previous Posts: No Statewide Testing Could Delay Parent Trigger Drives; State Senate Approves Eliminating Testing for 2012-13; API Tests for LA Unified Improve Slightly, State Scores Fall

“Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years,” William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of the PDK/Gallup poll, said in a press release announcing the poll results. “The 2013 poll shows deep confusion around the nation’s most significant education policies and poses serious communication challenges for education leaders.”

The poll is based on a national survey of 1,001 Americans 18 years and older, according to PDK International/Gallup.

The Common Core standards are a state-led effort to establish learning standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and math. They were designed to prepare more students for college and careers. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, they are being phased in through instruction on iPads and Common Core-specific content loaded onto them.

Despite the widespread adoption of new standards, nearly two-thirds of poll respondents, or 62 percent, said they had never heard of them. Of the 38 percent who said they had, many thought – incorrectly – that the federal government was forcing states to adopt them, the pollsters said.

Only 41 percent of those surveyed said they thought Common Core would make American schools more competitive globally – a key goal of the initiative. Yet nearly all respondents, 95 percent, said they want schools to teach critical thinking skills, another Common Core goal.

While the new standards will be accompanied by new student assessments, the public now says that increased testing is hurting American education more than helping. Only 22 percent of those polled said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools, compared with 28 percent in 2007. This year, 36 percent of those questioned said the testing was hurting school performance; 41 percent said it had made no difference.

“Americans support certain key ideals or goals, but don’t understand the programs or initiatives being pursued to improve student achievement,” Bushaw said in the release. “Our local and national leaders must do a better job of explaining what they’re doing and why.”

In a finding sure to bolster positions of teacher unions, the poll found increasing public concern about using standardized testing for teacher evaluation. This year, 58 percent of the respondents said they oppose using standardized test results for teacher evaluations, compared with 47 percent last year.

More than half of respondents, 52 percent, said teachers should have the right to strike, up from 40 percent in 1980.

Respondents expressed greater interest in seeing performance reviews released publicly for doctors (76 percent) and police officers (70 percent) than they did for teachers (60 percent). More than six in 10 respondents, 63 percent, also opposed the idea of releasing information to the media on how the students of individual teachers perform on standardized tests.

The poll posed several questions on school security and even in the aftermath of recent school shootings, it found that 88 percent of parents feel their child is safe in school – the highest percentage ever on the PDK/Gallup poll.

In contrast, 66 percent say they feel their child is safe playing outside in their neighborhood. When asked to choose between more security guards or more mental health services to promote school safety, 59 percent of respondents said they prefer expanding mental health services while only 33 percent would opt for hiring more security guards.

The public also prefers using screening procedures in schools over armed guards. At the elementary school level, the poll found, 57 percent said they agreed or strongly agreed that screening procedures similar to those used in government buildings should be implemented. The figure was 62 percent for middle and high schools.

The pollsters said some of the highest “strongly disagree” percentages of the survey came in response to questions about arming teachers and administrators. Nearly half, 47 percent, strongly opposed to arming elementary teachers and administrators and 43 percent opposed to arming middle and high school teachers and administrators. In both instances, adding in those who merely “disagree” created clear majorities in opposition.

Predictably, respondents broke along political lines when asked about free education for children of people who entered the country illegally. Of those identifying themselves as Democrats, 66 percent were in favor compared with 19 percent among self-identified Republicans.

Click here to see the entire poll.

Previous Posts: Union Survey Finds Teachers Unprepared for Common Core, LA Unified Survey Finds Teacher Satisfaction with iPad Training, Curious About the New Common Core Test? Practice Here

School Board Members LaMotte, Garcia and Galatzan all showed up in green

What began as a breezy LA Unified School Board meeting on Tuesday turned, not surprisingly, into a long, tedious, sometimes rancorous session, with a host of issues discussed but rarely resolved. A number of key votes were postponed, and Superintendent John Deasy’s highly anticipated budget presentation was postponed until the Sept. 10 board meeting so it could be considered in the broader context of the 2013-14 budget.

Here are some of the highlights:

• One new feature of Richard Vladovic‘s newly begun presidency (aside from creating a number of new committees) was to order senior staff, including instructional superintendents, to attend board meetings. In many cases, when public commenters brought issues to the school board, Vladovic urged the visitors to meet, on the spot, with the district staffers.

• The Board debated the $113 million budget for implementing the new Common Core State Standards — although voting on the budget was postponed until next month. LAUSD Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino pointed out that roughly 75 percent of the budget is set to go toward helping teachers.

Teachers union President Warren Fletcher was none too pleased.

“Having looked at the budget,” he said, “I am sadly taken aback by how thin it is. I don’t think it was well thought through. We will not make progress if dollars are used to build an out-of-classroom bureaucracy.”

A recent online survey by teachers union members showed that teachers feel unprepared for the Common Core transition.

UTLA Vice President Gregg Solkovits struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he was speaking on behalf of “classroom teachers who are not afraid to embrace the Common Core standards.” He urged the board not to rush its implementation. Deasy said that there was “real wisdom” in that comment and pointed out that the district’s plan is to take four years to transition to the new curriculum.

• The deal to hire Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana and loan her to Mayor Eric Garcetti‘s office and be reimbursed by the city was approved unanimously without discussion.

• Another charter co-location dispute arose, this one between Lorena Street Elementary and Extera, a charter operator. Proposition 39 requires LAUSD to share public school facilities equitably with charter schools, leading to sometimes testy co-locations, where district schools and charters share campuses. Just how much space is up for grabs is the subject of an ongoing court battle – in fact, chief counsel Dave Holmquist said the district is filing a brief with the Supreme Court of California on Wednesday.

The dispute spurred board member Steve Zimmer to ask that the board direct the superintendent’s staff to lobby the state to suspend Prop 39. That motion will be voted on next month.

• Member Bennett Kayser‘s motion to convene public input meetings and establish budget priorities passed 5-1, with Tamar Galatzan voting no and Monica Garcia absent.

*Correction: An earlier version incorrectly described the way a charter school shares facility space with a public school.

Previous posts: Vladovic Adds Committees, Doles Out Assignments; Now: Live Tweet LAUSD School Board Meeting; Melendez to Be Hired Under Unusual Salary Arrangement; Deasy to Board: Your Wish List Could Cost $1.4 Billion; Board Preview: Deasy Will Present Hiring Options and Their Cost