To my great surprise, LAUSD has pushed back on a judge’s ruling that the district give facilities to charter schools seeking more space in existing public schools. Of the judge’s order, which would affect up to 45 charter schools, Superintendent of Los Angeles public schools John Deasy and the LAUSD school board say … that [...]
Joseph K. is a 24-year veteran of LAUSD, a former mentor teacher twice named a Johns Hopkins University Teaching Fellow, who now teaches poor, inner-city children who wake up every morning in their gang-ridden, drug-infested neighborhoods at five a.m. to catch the bus by six. He teaches the old-fashioned way – by ignoring standardized test [...]
Joseph K. relates how an assessment of his teaching through a quick 3-minute observation can lead to snap judgments, many of them superficial and wrong, about his overall effectiveness as a teacher and the entirety of his lesson plan.
On the UTLA Tentative Agreement: “UTLA has provided teachers with virtually no information regarding the matter (other than how wonderful it is), given them no time think about the issues (let alone discuss them), and are asking teachers to vote for the agreement starting, well, they already started. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I have not read the fine print. But that is only because the large print is so despicable.”
The LA Times and LAUSD are focused on “value-added” measurements of teacher performance based on student standardized tests, despite flaws in methodology and data. Why is this foundation-driven effort–outside of any democratic process or accountability to the public–shaping the debate?
Great series regarding school building safety and retrofitting inspections in Los Angeles (earthquake country). Can we trust the inspection process?
The construction of a new K-8 school in a diverse corner of Los Angeles, part of LAUSD, sparks passionate disagreement and discussion about who should run the school: a charter management organization, or LAUSD in partnership with the community?
The CA State Board of Education asks the Attorney General to investigate the petition-signing process that’s part of the “parent trigger” to improve schools.
The California State Board of Education has asked the State Attorney General to see if Parent Revolution petition signature gatherers misrepresented the goal to parents–to replace the low-performing school’s teachers and administration with staff from Celerity Charter Schools.