Several LA-area education journalists and academics presented and moderated at the 2013 Education Writers Association national conference held last week at Stanford University, where hot topics included early childhood, teacher evaluation, and school turnarounds. The journalists in attendance included the LA Times‘ education editor, Beth Shuster, and its editorial page writer, Karin Klein, and  Larry...

The LA Times editorial page has established its independence on education issues several times in recent months — through its candidate endorsements and its views on charter school accountability, teacher evaluations, the parent trigger, and teacher dismissal proposals (among several examples). So it’s all the more striking that editorial page writer Karin Klein took to the newspaper’s pages yesterday to denounce the...

Thursday’s LA Times editorial about the use of student achievement data in teacher evaluations around the country (Bill Gates’ warning on test scores) makes some valuable points about the dangers of rushed, half-baked teacher evaluation schemes that count test scores as more than half of a teacher’s evaluation (as is being done in some states and districts)....

District 6 School Board candidate Antonio Sanchez got nearly 44% of the vote in the March Primary — just 6 points shy of the 50 percent that would have given him an outright victory. So don’t expect any big changes in his May 21 runoff election with teacher Monica Ratliff. “We only need to capture...

Expressing concern about increasing divisiveness between LAUSD and the teachers union, the LA Times editorial page calls for a more thoughtful, balanced approach to making much-needed improvements, including a proposal for LAUSD to make student achievement less than 30 percent of teacher evaluations: “We don’t know what heft test scores should have in performance reviews —...

Here’s what the LA Daily News has to say in its new LAUSD School Board endorsements —  the same three candidates who were endorsed earlier this month by the LA Times editorial page, albeit not entirely for the same reasons: District 2: Monica Garcia: “She has been a consistent, if sometimes lukewarm, supporter of reform.” District 4:...

Some have said that the LA Times education coverage is overly teacher- and union-friendly. Indeed,  today’s news roundup alone contains a news story about the rollout of the new teacher observation system and another about the challenges of co-locating charter and district schools on the same campus. But a comparison of the images accompanying the latest editorial on Board member...

Not many people would recognize David Holmquist, general counsel for the LA Unified School District (pictured below). But Holmquist serves as an important role, overseeing all labor negotiations, and representing the district in over 1,000 lawsuits  – including attempts by LAUSD to recover overpayment from 600 employees and dismiss more than 120 teachers. We spoke last...

Times Sues LAUSD for Info on Teachers The Los Angeles Times claims Los Angeles Unified School District is violating public records law by refusing to release records tying teachers, by name, to the expected and actual test scores of their students. Courthouse News Service LA Schools to ‘Shake It Up’ With the Rest of California As...

• A tale of two headlines: Results of the California High School Exit Exam were released yesterday, and for LAUSD there’s good news and bad news, reflected in two headlines: The LA Times has it like this: “Two-thirds of sophomores pass exit exam, a record high for LAUSD”. Wonderful news! But the Daily News says: “LAUSD trails...