AB 375, a new bill meant to streamline teacher dismissals, could be headed for quick passage after clearing the State Assembly’s Education Committee with a 7 – 0 vote Thursday. The bill’s chance at passing is undoubtedly aided by the announcement last week that the state’s largest teachers union, the California Teachers Association, was joining...

Parents With Power Over L.A. School Weigh Their Options About 50 parents on Thursday attended a presentation to help them decide who should run 24th Street Elementary School, a campus whose fate is in the hands of families who are trying to change the management of the school under the controversial parent trigger law. LA...

Proposal for Parent-Trigger Overhaul at L.A. School Well-Received Leaders of a parent group have endorsed a plan to improve 24th Street Elementary, which would be jointly run by L.A. Unified and Crown Prep charter school. LA Times See also: LA School Report, LA Times Now Teacher Dismissal Bill Off and Running With Committee Approval A...

Curious Grade for Teachers: Nearly All Pass Across the country, education reformers and their allies in both parties have revamped the way teachers are graded, abandoning methods under which nearly everyone was deemed satisfactory, even when students were falling behind. NY Times California’s Largest Teachers Union Now Backs Bill to Ease Firing Districts have long...

National School Board Group Seeks Curbs on U.S. Ed Secretary The National School Boards Association and its 90,000 members are sponsoring legislation aimed at curbing the authority of the U.S. Secretary of Education – an outgrowth likely stemming from the group’s chilly relationship with the Obama administration during the president’s first term. SI&A Cabinet Report...

Taking a Crack at California’s Education System Michelle Rhee came to prominence as the tough-minded chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools. Now she’s in Sacramento, taking on this state’s system — and its teachers unions. LA Times See also: L.A. Now Live Chat on Rhee and California’s Public Schools U.S. Ed Department Agrees to Review 9...

L.A. School Board Targets Garcia With Term-Limits Vote A narrow majority of Los Angeles Board of Education members voted Tuesday to set a limit of two consecutive years for the school board presidency. Unless the new rule is rescinded later, the decision would end the six-year run of current President Monica Garcia in July. LA...

Victorious LAUSD Incumbent Vows to Keep Challenging Deasy Having presented the Los Angeles School Board election races as a referendum on Superintendent John Deasy’s future, the club of six- and seven-figure donors in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Coalition for School Reform may have succeeded in making Deasy’s life more complicated. EdSource See also: LA Daily News,...

With Reform Fervor in the Air, Local School Board Elections See Record Outside Spending This year, huge amounts of money and passion are flowing down the ballot into the school board elections — part of an all-out war over public school reform. KCET See also: LA School Report Late Donations Bolster Pro-Deasy School Board Candidates...

National Attention and Cash in Los Angeles School Vote Much of the attention will also be on the three races for the school board, a battle that involves the mayor, the teachers’ union and a host of advocates from across the country — including New York City’s billionaire mayor — who have poured millions of...