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...

Sometime in hour five of yesterday’s marathon LA Unified school board meeting, the board approved a new set of guidelines to help principals, teachers and parents navigate the complex Parent Trigger process. That’s the state law allowing parents to take over a failing school and force a complete overhaul, so long as a majority of...

In California public education, you sometimes don’t have to pull the trigger. Parents of students at Haddon Avenue Elementary in Pacoima have ended their ‘parent trigger’ campaign to take over their school because they got what they wanted without it. “I’m very happy that this resulted in some changes at the school,” Martha Martinez, the...

A couple of odds things happened towards the end of the School Board’s late-night meeting on Tuesday: Around 8:00 pm, as seven weary Board members were debating a proposal put forth by Board member Steve Zimmer calling on the district and state to bring greater transparency to the parent trigger signature-gathering process, Superintendent John Deasy...

As anyone following us on Twitter knows all too well, Tuesday’s School Board meeting was a marathon session that lasted well into the night — much of it accompanied by the sound of protesters drumming on the street outside. Among several key decisions the Board arrived at during the lengthy session were votes to award a...

This is a guest commentary written by LAUSD math teacher (and Hope Change Choices blog host) Rustum Jacob about some teachers’ decision to transfer out of Weigand Avenue Elementary School: As a teacher , if I’d been in the same shoes as the Weigand teachers, I would have left because of loyalty and respect for...

Over the recent Memorial Day weekend, NYU education historian Diane Ravitch penned a pair of angry blog posts about the parent trigger and Parent Revolution’s Ben Austin. Among other things, Ravitch wrote that “There is a special place in Hell reserved for everyone who administers and funds this revolting organization that destroys schools and fine...