LAUSD Museum opens doors to commemorate first arts festival

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The LAUSD’s Art and Artifact museum will open to the public for the first time at 1 p.m. tomorrow. The museum is making its debut in honor of the LAUSD Arts Fest, which ends Sat., March 15 with a day-long celebration of student excellence at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.

Vintage artifacts, such as old typewriters, inkwells, desks, rare Roman coins, old textbooks, impressionist paintings and many other curios will on display, providing a peek into the lives of Angelenos then and now. The entire collection consists of 30,000 visual resources and historical artifacts that reflect how relations evolved among the school district, students and community.

Museum visitors can take a self-guided tour at the exhibit location at 333 S. Beaudry Ave.

Morning Read: LAUSD iPads content still unavailable

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LAUSD iPads: Officials chose incomplete software over competitors
When the Los Angeles Unified School District set out last year to buy tablets for every teacher and student, officials drew up a scoring system to rate 19 hardware and software options. The scores meant a lot: the contract will ultimately be worth about $500 million and marks the largest school technology expansion in the country. KPCC

Candidates vying to lead UTLA reflect recent teacher woes
One candidate to head the Los Angeles teachers union was laid off. Another was removed from the classroom for alleged misconduct. A third lost his position when his school was restructured with new staff because of low test scores. A fourth is an elementary school counselor who must shuttle between two campuses. LA Times

California gets waiver for Common Core field tests without penalties
California will not face penalties or multimillion-dollar fines from the federal government for giving all students a preliminary test on the new Common Core standards, instead of on the old state standards that California has abandoned. EdSource 

Testing waiver clears path for accountability update
In what is likely to be an historic step in transforming how California schools are graded for student success, the board of education this week is expected to officially suspend for two years the state’s school-performance measurement tool known as the API. SI&A Cabinet Report

Districts, partnerships signal interest in ‘career pathways’ grant program
Competition is shaping up to be fierce for a new state grant program supporting programs that link academics with real-world career opportunities. The California Department of Education has received some 275 letters from parties interested in seeking a piece of the California Career Pathways Trust. EdSource 

Dumbing down the SAT won’t prepare students for college
Commentary: When the going gets tough, well, why not just make the going easier? This seems to be the conclusion of the College Board, which administers the dreaded SAT college entrance exam. Recently announced “improvements” to the test are designed, say board officials, to better gauge what students actually study and learn in high school. Shouldn’t take too long. Sacramento Bee

LA Unified District 1 special election narrows to 9 candidates

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imgresThe original field of 13 candidates vying for the vacant LA Unified school board seat just got smaller.

Thirteen had expressed interest in the South LA District 1 race, but by the 5 p.m. deadline today, only nine filed the required petitions to stay in the race.

The June 3 special election was called after longtime school board member, Marguarite LaMotte died in office.

Six of the nine have qualified to appear on the ballot: Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Alex Johnson, Sherlett Hendy Newbill, George McKenna, Hattie McFrazier, and Omarosa Manigault. Three others who submitted their petitions today, David Moch, Rachel Johnson and Alison Noel have not yet been qualified by the City Clerk’s Office, which has ten days to verify the signatures.

The four who filed to run but did not submit petitions were Marilyn Veincentotzs, Marco Mendoza, Priscilla Reed and Lady Cage-Barile.

School board race gets ugly with accusations of resume padding*

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hudleyhayes

Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Candidate for School Board

The race for LA Unified’s open board seat took a dramatic turn today as Alex Johnson’s campaign accused a rival, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, of “deliberately falsifying” her academic credentials.

Roy Behr, Johnson’s political consultant, said research into her background found discrepancies in her resume and, in a meeting yesterday with his counterpart in the Hudley-Hayes campaign, Parke Skelton, Behr said he told Skelton, “we have this information, and in the course of a campaign, people would find out about it.”

Skelton said in a separate interview today he interpreted Behr’s remarks as a threat and insisted that Hudley-Hayes would stay in the race. Hudley-Hayes, an LA-area public servant for decades, is a former president of the LA Unified School Board and president of the LA Board of Fire Commissioners, appointed by former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

In a press release today that first brought attention to the controversy, Skelton said Behr told him in their meeting, “there was still time for Mrs. Hudley-Hayes to withdraw from the race” but if she chose not to, the Johnson campaign “would be forced to ‘use’ the material they had uncovered.”

Skelton also used the news release to refute the specific issues that Behr cited in their meeting, saying Behr misinterpreted the facts and in one case, the discrepancy was “a typo.”

Hudley-Hayes and Johnson are regarded among the front-runners in the June 3 special election to to fill the board seat left vacant by the death of Marguerite LaMotte in December. As many as 9 people are vying for the seat.

The race has taken on an unusually high profile, given that national figures as U.S. Representative Karen Bass and former Los Angeles mayors Richard Riordan and Villaraigosa have endorsed Hudley-Hayes. Johnson works for LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas as an aide on education although Ridley-Thomas has not endorsed anyone in the race.

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Teacher in Vergara trial blames student for performing poorly

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Vickie Decker

Vickie Decker

For the second time this week, the defense in Vergara vs. California today turned to a teacher characterized as “ineffective” by a plaintiff in the case to show a starkly different picture.

Vickie Decker, a middle school math teacher, refuted assertions by Jose Macias, the father of student plaintiff, Julia Macias, who had claimed in earlier testimony that Decker was harmful to his daughter’s education.

Decker, who has spent nearly 20 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District, challenged those accusations, saying Julia had performed poorly in her class and did not accept her offers to help her with the work.

“In her first semester she did fairly well,” Decker said of Julia, then adding her tests and quiz results in the second semester “were very poor.”

Jose Macias had testified that Decker “demoralized” and “intimidated” his daughter, making her “afraid to ask questions,” prompting her to seek moving to a different class.

Decker’s testimony is important to the defense — the state, the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) — in trying to show that students in the case had not suffered with ineffective teachers, and certainly not to the extent that five state laws governing teachers should be struck down.

Beatriz Vergara, Julia Macias and seven other student-plaintiffs are trying to show that their own experiences are evidence of why laws on seniority, dismissals and tenure should be changed to help guarantee access to quality public education for all California students.

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As deadline nears, 6 of 13 have qualified for District 1 race*

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imgresWith the 5 pm deadline just hours away, six of the 13 candidates who expressed an interest in running for the vacant District 1 LA Unified board seat have qualified for the ballot.

By noon today, according to the city clerk’s office, George McKenna, Sherlett Newbill, Alex Johnson, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Hattie McFrazier and Omarosa Manigault have submitted the required signature petitions and qualified for the June 3 special election. Alison Noel has filed her petitions but hasn’t yet been qualified.

The six other candidates, have until the end of the day today to submit their petitions.

They are David Moch, Rachel Johnson, Marco Mendoza, Marilyn Veincentotzs, Priscilla Reed and Lady Cage-Barile.

The City Clerk’s Office has 10 days to verify signatures. Read rules here. Marguerite LaMotte, who died in December, had held the District 1 seat since 2003.

LA School Report will update further changes after the deadline.

*Updates filings at noon.

Morning Read: Budget cuts push young teachers out

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New teachers scarce after state funding cuts
Young teachers have become far more scarce in California classrooms after school districts slashed their budgets to survive the recession. From 2008 to 2013, California saw a 40 percent drop in teachers with less than six years’ experience, according to a Sacramento Bee review of state data. Sacramento Bee 

California school spending goal would cost $36 billion more
Representatives of the Education Coalition told a state Senate budget subcommittee Thursday that despite increases in school spending in the current state budget and promises of more in the next one, California still needs to spend much more money on education. Modesto Bee

Special education needs a ‘do-over,’ state panel told
Eight minutes into a public meeting on how to reform the state’s vast special education system, the woman who ran special education in California for nine years came up to the microphone. Alice Parker was blunt. “I wish I could have a ‘do-over’ for the 45 years I worked in special education,” Parker told representatives of a new Statewide Special Education Task Force at a public forum Monday. EdSource 

California releases child abuse identification and reporting guidelines

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson on Wednesday issued new guidelines to help parents and guardians report suspected child abuse at schools. In a letter to school officials, Torlakson explained that California’s Education Code requires the state Department of Education to adopt guidelines for parents and guardians to follow if they want to file complaints against those suspected of abusing their child at school. San Jose Mercury News

Homeless LAUSD girls get prom dresses, makeovers for big night
Getting all dolled up was “very foreign” for Sun Valley High School senior Cheri Hodge. But that’s exactly what she did Thursday during the Operation School Bell Prom Day at the Assistance League of Southern California in Hollywood. LA Daily News

SAT redo is (A) Good; (B) Bad; (C) Overdue; (D) None of the above
Commentary: Less than a decade after it started requiring students to write an essay as part of the SAT, the College Board announced Wednesday that it is eliminating that portion of the test. At the same time, it will do away with certain obscure vocabulary words and the penalty for inaccurate guesses. LA Times

Vergara witness says state laws governing teachers work

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Cal-Berkeley professor Jesse Rothstein

Cal-Berkeley professor Jesse Rothstein

The battle of the experts continued today in Vergara vs. California as an expert in labor economics and public policy called by the defense provided rationales for keeping in place the state laws governing teachers that are under challenge in the case.

Jesse Rothstein, a professor at Cal-Berkeley and a former senior economist on the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors, testified that the two-year tenure statute was adequate to identify ineffective teachers and still help school districts attract new employees.

He also said a “last-in, first-out” process that favors seniority in times of staff reduction is more fair and objective than so-called “value-added” models that take into account student performance to measure teacher effectiveness.

And he said the dismissal statutes protect teachers against “arbitrary and capricious decisions of employers” who might want to get rid of certain teachers.

These three issues — tenure, dismissal and seniority — are central to the case, which began more than a month ago. The nine student-plaintiffs are trying to show that California’s laws governing the issues combine to deny public education students access to a quality education.

The state and its two big teachers unions — the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers — are trying to convince the court that the laws are fine as they are, posing none of the pernicious effects the plaintiffs claim.

Rothstein’s testimony, under direct questioning by Jim Finberg, representing the unions, was largely focused on opinions derived from his own studies and those of others that took general views on the subjects at issue in the case. Rothstein left the strong impression that he believed the laws, as they are, do not impede academic performance because of ineffective teachers.

But later, under cross examination by Marcellus McRae, the plaintiffs lead lawyer, he admitted that he knew little about how the laws play out in California and that none of his own work specifically reflected public education policies in the state.

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Quietly, LA Unified gets a voice in place for District 1

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Sylvia Rousseau

Sylvia Rousseau

After school board member Marguerite LaMotte died, her district — which stretches from Palms to Central Los Angeles — went without a voice for 89 days. That ended Tuesday, when the Los Angeles Unified School Board hired Sylvia Rousseau as a temporary “liaison” for the community.

The appointment approved by unanimous consent after little fanfare and no public debate.

Rousseau, who will continue teaching full time at the USC Rossier School of Education, will serve until a permanent replacement has been elected later this year. The district has agreed to pay her $49.90 per hour.”

Today, her second day on the job, Rousseau told LA School Report, “I’m really trying to get a profile on what District 1 is like.”

“I want to learn from the community, parents, and principals so that the board has a more clear idea of what its needs are as they deliberate on major decisions that affect District 1” she said.

Rousseau said she will report her findings to the board at each monthly meeting.

Information will also be going in the other direction. Working with local superintendents and school principals, Rousseau is responsible for keeping District 1 parents informed about long-term issues, including the new Local Control Funding Formula and Common Core implementation.

Parents have accused the board and Superintendent John Deasy of acting secretively, making the appointment in a closed session meeting and failing to speak publicly about Rousseau’s role.

But district officials said that may be more an issue of expediency. Rather than hold an open debate to refine specific job responsibilities, board members met individually with her and agreed that she was ideally suited for the job.

“This is a person of such high esteem and caliber that we chose to trust her with the substance of the work, based on what she said to us individually,” said board member Steve Zimmer, who has been the leading advocate for finding some means of connection between the board and District 1 until the special election, which is scheduled for June 3.

Zimmer said Rousseau’s major focus will be conveying to the board “data and trends” from within District 1 so the information can be considered in two of the biggest issues before the board in the coming months — the district’s annual budget and setting priorities for how to spend new state money from the Local Control Funding Formula.

Previous Posts: The LA Unified board appoints a ‘liaison’ for vacant board seat; Does experience count? LAUSD candidates vie for attention; The LA Unified board twice voted against a caretaker for vacant seat.

E4E poses questions, 10 candidates for union chief answer

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avatars-000054535429-qf5zpr-t200x200Educators 4 Excellence, a teacher advocacy group comprised of members of the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, has developed an interactive election guide focusing on the 10 candidates running for UTLA president.

The guide poses four questions and provides audio responses from each candidate.

The interviews were conducted earlier this week and are included in a larger package of information about the candidates and the election.

Morning Read: LA schools welcome sweeping changes to the SAT

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Students, area school staff embrace changes to SAT
Pablo Muñoz is no stranger to academic rigor. And don’t expect him to shirk additional work. As many cheered sweeping changes to the SAT — such as the optional essay — the 15-year-old Loyola High School sophomore is likely not to skip that portion. “I would probably do the essay because I think it could give me a slight edge over test takers,” he said. “I think it might be a gateway for students to shortchange themselves” if they don’t write the essay. LA Times

L.A. County Supervisors approve crossing guards at certain middle schools
Weeks after a mother was killed walking her daughter to school, the county Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to deploy crossing guards at certain middle schools in unincorporated areas. While its previous policy covered only elementary schools, now the county’s Department of Public Works and Office of Education can post the guards near middle schools if there’s evidence of unusually complicated intersections or heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic. LA Daily News

Bill would provide $1.5 billion more for Common Core implementation
California school districts would receive another year of Common Core implementation funds under a bill introduced Wednesday by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord. Last year, as chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, Bonilla pushed for the $1.25 billion that schools are using this academic year to support teacher training, textbooks and other instructional materials and technology upgrades needed to carry out the transition to Common Core State Standards. EdSource

LAO says Brown’s child care funding falls short
Legislators will need to include “a few million dollars” more in this year’s budget if the state expects to fully cover the costs of its largest subsidized child care program for low-income families. While it is likely that state lawmakers will heed the advice of the Legislative Analyst’s Office and budget the additional money needed to pay for California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids – or CalWORKs, the issue of increased funding for other state subsidized child care and preschool programs is less certain. SI&A Cabinet Report

Community rallies around George McKenna for L.A. school board
The recent storm couldn’t keep parents, students, educators, and voters away from helping to celebrate the grand opening of Dr. George McKenna’s Leimert Park campaign headquarters on March 2. Among those in attendance were Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, South Los Angeles Councilmember Bernard Parks, retired L.A. Councilmember Jan Perry, and former Assemblymember Mike Davis. LA Sentinel

By easing path from high school to higher ed, CA can build its workforce
Commentary: The forecast for 2025 is grim – California will fall short by millions of college graduates of meeting workforce demands. But as a policymaker who has worked for decades on quality and accountability in our schools, and as a community college president leading change, we see no shortage of students who are eager and ready to succeed in college. Sacramento Bee

In Vergara, witness says districts can overcome ineffective teachers

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Robert Fraisse

Robert Fraisse

The defense in Vergara v California began its case today, calling to the witness stand a veteran educator whose testimony about identifying and dealing with ineffective teachers came in stark contrast to the views of earlier witnesses in the case.

Robert Fraisse, whose career included serving as superintendent in three California school districts, appeared to give the defense a boost by testifying that the five laws under challenge in the trial — governing teacher seniority, tenure and dismissal — are not to blame for the presence of ineffective teachers, that well-managed districts can operate smoothly within the laws and that the statutes don’t infringe on students’ rights to a quality education.

Point by point, his comments contradicted many of the plaintiffs’ witnesses, who appeared over the first four weeks of the case. Fraisse was the first to the stand for the defendants — the state and its two biggest teacher unions — after Judge Rolf Treu ruled yesterday that the case would proceed.

Among other things, Fraisse said appropriately trained evaluators can identify ineffective teachers within two years if the school district’s human resource plan is working properly. He said standardized test scores are not necessarily the major factors in making teacher evaluations and that alternative data is vital to consider as well, including local standardized exams, portfolio assessments and teacher evaluations.

In countering another major contention of the nine students who are the plaintiffs, Fraisse told the court that while superintendent for the Hueneme Elementary School District, he never experienced an unequal distribution of ineffective teachers in lower-income schools.

Glenn Rothner, a lawyer for the unions, asked Fraisse, “Did you do anything to encourage highly effective teachers to teach in lower income schools?’ Fraisse said he would assign the best principals to the neediest schools as a way to attract effective teachers to those campuses.

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Tensions rise as UTLA candidate take on issues, each other

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caputo pearl garcia

David Garcia (left), Alex Caputo-Pearl
Candidates for President of UTLA

Tensions deepened last night among the candidates running for the top job at United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) as one of them came close to a physical confrontation with another after the event ended.

Hosted by the teacher advocacy group, Educators4Excellence, at City Hall in Boyle Heights, the event played before a crowd of about 60 teachers, activists, students and community members dining on Subway sandwiches.

E4E members Bianca Sanchez and Jeff Austin moderated four questions to the 10 candidates — all male — running to lead the second largest union in the nation.

Friction was most evident between David Garcia, a substitute teacher, and Alex Caputo-Pearl, who is running at the top of a slate called “Union Power,” over Caputo-Pearl’s recent campaign appearances at LA Unified schools. Garcia angrily accused Caputo-Pearl of violating union election rules and misusing his ties to LAUSD. After the forum, the two nearly got into an altercation, as Garcia swatted at Caputo-Pearl before being restrained.

Other candidates, like Saul Lankster, agreed with Garcia’s accusations, saying that the school district is “giving Caputo-Pearl all the answers to the test since he has had unfettered access to all schools since September.”

The district has said Caputo-Pearl did not file proper paperwork for the unpaid leave, but he has not been disciplined.

“We have to accept fact that this is a very specialized election and the district has made its vote,” Lankster continued as a few crowd members clapped and hooted.

Such issues are why E4E hosted the forum, as the previous debates have often spiraled off topic and were rooted in rhetoric and personal attacks, according to E4E Executive Director Ama Nyamekye.

“There is too much at stake here in LAUSD and UTLA not to ask our candidates to squarely tackle tough policy issues,” she said. “We need to refocus the debate in this election.”

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Commentary: Where I would spend the ‘Local Control’ money

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imagesWant to play the least fun game in the world?

It’s called “Principal for a Day.” I know, back when you were five, it used to sound so fun to follow the principal around, issuing commands—Extra recess for everyone! Free donuts in the cafeteria!—but thanks to years of budget cuts, the game is no longer any fun, unless you really love crying over a pile of spreadsheets.

After the passage of Prop 30, though, some people are saying the game might regain its original luster. With the Local Control Funding Formula channeling fresh funds into the district budget, maybe we won’t have to stock up on Kleenex as we plan how to keep our doors open next year.

So let’s pretend we’re the principal of All-American High, an imaginary but typical school of about 550 students—a “small learning community” formed by dividing up a large public high school in south Los Angeles. Let’s say 95 percent of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch, 65 percent are English Language Learners, 15 percent are in Special Ed and 10 percent are in foster care. The school is in a high-crime area with significant gang activity. Many of our families are seeing food stamps cut this year, which means kids sometimes come to school hungry.

Whew! It’s exhausting being a principal. But now comes the fun part.

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LA Unified board votes to pay Deasy for unused vacation*

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Superintendent John Deasy: Little time for vacation

Superintendent John Deasy: Little time for vacation

Superintendent John Deasy works too much.

So much so, that he rarely takes time off for vacation. As a result, the Los Angeles Unified School board voted at its monthly meeting yesterday to pay him for up to 24 days of unused vacation time, the equivalent of nearly $30,000 added to his annual salary of $330,000, according to Megan Reilly, the district’s chief financial officer.

School board member Bennett Kayser alone objected to what he said is a salary increase for Deasy, who threatened to quit four months ago. Kayser said it was inappropriate especially, “while we have employees who have not gotten a raise in years.”

It is the kind of perk that is sure to anger union leaders on the eve of contract negotiations after years of drastic budget cuts. Warren Fletcher, president of the teachers union, along with many of his nine challengers in UTLA’s current election campaign, are making pay raises for teachers a big part of their campaigns.

“I know a lot of teachers who would love to get their vacation days paid out. It’ll be interesting to see if they can get the same thing,” a union insider told LA School Report.

In one of its shorter meetings — under five hours — the board covered a lot of other territory, with discussions on Cesar Chavez, Armenian genocide, water conservation, Women’s History Month, National Library Week and figuring out a way to encourage district employees to get health coverage. The members also spent a few hours deliberating the future of a handful of schools, based on their fiscal viability.

Conditional charter renewals for Magnolia Science Academy 6 and 7 were approved in a five to one vote, with Kayser, again, as the only dissenter.

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Morning Read: CA moving away from bilingual education

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Calif. Bill Would Repeal Bilingual-Education Restrictions

A new bill that seeks to repeal California’s long-running restrictions on bilingual education may be only the most recent signal of a shifting political climate around English-language-learner instruction in that state. California drew national attention in 1998 when voters passed Proposition 227, a ballot measure that severely restricted the availability of bilingual education for students in favor of English-only immersion programs for English-learners. EdWeek

Los Angeles preschool advocates cheer Obama’s budget
Early education advocates were thrilled at the $75 billion President Barack Obama proposed Tuesday to spend on their cause over the next 10 years – even though the budget is unlikely to pass as is. Alex Morales, CEO of the Children’s Bureau of Southern California, said the president’s proposed expansion – to $1.3 billion next year to implement universal preschool and expand other programs – would be a game changer for the poor families his organization serves. KPCC 

Linked learning promotes grad rates if not test scores
Students enrolled in linked learning programs over the past four years outperformed their peers in traditional classrooms when it came to earning high school credits and completing advanced college readiness courses, according to a new study released Tuesday. But the report from SRI International and the Irvine Foundation found only mixed results when comparing scores on standardized testing between students in the project-based learning system and their counterparts who were not. SI&A Cabinet Report

U.S. needs to add student online privacy rules
Editorial: As more of our children’s education moves online, there are increased opportunities for abusing the collection of their personal data. Last month, state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) introduced a bill that would help close a loophole in federal regulations — at least in California — in an effort to safeguard personal information of public school students. The potential privacy violations could be significant, and it makes sense for the Legislature to act now. LATimes

School districts should begin planning now for new science standards
Commentary: The Next Generation Science Standards, adopted last September by the State Board of Education, will better engage and educate all students in science, and better prepare them to enter more in-depth science, computing and engineering courses in high school and beyond. EdSource

Judge rules Vergara case goes on; defense case starts Wednesday

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Judge Rolf Treu

Judge Rolf Treu, L.A. Superior Court

After giving lawyers one more chance to make their arguments today, Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu ruled that Vergara v California will proceed, denying the defendants’ request to throw the case out.

As defendants, the state and its two biggest teachers unions tried to persuade the judge that in four weeks of testimony, the plaintiffs — nine students — did not present enough evidence to prove that the five contested statutes governing teacher dismissal, tenure and layoffs deny students right to an effective education.

As a result, Treu invited the defendants to start presenting their own witnesses, the first of whom, Robert Fraisse, a former teacher, principal and superintendent, will take the stand tomorrow morning.

Fraisse,who served as superintendent in three California school districts — Laguna Beach, Conejo Valley and Hueneme Elementary — is the defense’s second witness. Due to a scheduling issue, the first – Susan Moore Johnson, a professor of Education at Harvard — testified several weeks ago.

In the oral arguments, Jim Finberg, a lawyer for the California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association, and Deputy State Attorney Nimrod Elias insisted that plaintiffs have not shown that the statutes are unconstitutional on their face or have caused the plaintiffs any significant harm. They further said the testimony 22 educators, experts and student litigants was not enough to establish a direct link between the contested laws and the individual plaintiffs.

Ted Boutrous, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, responded by telling the court they have provided overwhelming and compelling evidence that demonstrates the challenged statutes impose a “real and appreciable” impact on students’ fundamental right to an education. He said testimony from educators and experts in labor economics and statistical research had shown that the statutes result in students not getting the educational opportunities they deserve.

After Treu’s ruling, Boutrous issued a statement, saying, “We are very pleased with Judge Treu’s ruling and look forward to the rest of the trial.” He added “These arbitrary laws are hurting kids every day. We do not believe the State and the teachers unions will be able to prove otherwise.”

Treu’s ruling was the fifth time defendants were denied in a request to have the case dismissed.

Previous Posts: Vergara plaintiffs file a response, asking that the case continues; Vergara lawyers preview their case, the one they might need.

 

Breaking News: Judge allows Vergara case to continue

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Elizabeth Vergara

Elizabeth Vergara

Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu resumed the Vergara v California trial today by telling lawyers for both sides that he would allow the case to continue.

After hearing oral arguments from both sides, he denied the defendants’ request to dismiss the case based on a lack of evidence.

“The court finds sufficient evidence, credible evidence, to move forward with a trial,” Treu said.

Details to come.

With testing moratorium, LAUSD crafts its own for ELL shift

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Standardized TestingWith a year-long state moratorium on standardized testing, LAUSD is crafting its own assessment to determine if English learning students are ready for an English-only curriculum.

The new tests will look a lot like the tests they replace, said Hilda Maldonado, director of the LAUSD Multilingual and Multicultural department. The district had initially sought to purchase the old CST tests independently but found the nearly half-million dollar price tag too expensive for the 40,000 tests needed for ELL students this year.

The new assessment will be administered by schools from March 17 to May 23, according to Maldonado, adding that students in grades 3-9 will have the option of “banking” their CST scores from the previous year if they scored a basic or above. The CST tests have been replaced by the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced tests, which are slated to be officially administered next school year.

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