L.A. school board to consider expansion of computer science offerings
An initiative to address the shortage of computer science offerings in the L.A. Unified School District will go before the school board Tuesday. Only one-in-three of the district’s high schools are offering a basic course this year, and far fewer are offering the Advanced Placement Computer Science course.  KPCC

Boyle Heights school protests district’s decision to move campus
When Catherine Aleman and Ana Renteria learned that L.A. Unified might move or close their small school in East Los Angeles, they did what the Academy of Environmental and Social Policy had taught them to do: They tried to make a difference and organized a protest. LA Times

Eli Broad appoints head of philanthropic education efforts
After more than a decade of directly overseeing $1 billion in education reform grants from his non-profit foundation, philanthropist Eli Broad is grooming a replacement. He’s hired Bruce Reed, a high profile Washington political operative who spent decades in the halls of power. KPCC

New all-digital curriculums hope to ride high-tech push

English language curriculums built entirely on a digital platform — replacing written textbooks, worksheets or printed study guides — are about to enter the market from several companies, with promises that they will change the nature of classroom learning across the country. New York Times 

Why teaching art to our children matters
Commentary: The reality is that Obama is not alone in revealing an attitude that marginalizes the significance of the arts when compared to “more serious” priorities. In recent years, as school funding in CA has been drastically reduced, that attitude meant that arts education programs were often the first to be cut. Sacramento Bee

About 3.5 hours of homework a day for high schoolers? That’s too much.
Commentary: A poll of public school teachers finds that on average, high school students are assigned 3.5 hours of homework per weeknight, or more than 17 hours a week. Or that’s the teachers’ perspective, anyway. If that’s how it actually plays out, it strikes me as too much by far. LA Times

Billions would be needed to repair L.A. schools, officials say
Maintaining Los Angeles Unified campuses will be difficult because of staffing and funding shortages combined with repair backlogs, aging buildings and more than 100 new schools, officials said Thursday. LA Times

LA teachers can only afford 8.7 percent of LA houses
A new real estate study out from listing site Redfin shows that only 8.7 percent of the residences on the market in Los Angeles are at all affordable for working teachers in the city. CurbedLA

Surveys differ on teacher preparedness for Common Core
The results from two studies that examine teachers’ perceptions on the Common Core State Standards were released this week, and they come to some markedly different conclusions on how ready teachers are for implementation.  EdWeek

Summer and after-school programs provide a jump on Common Core
Adopted by California and 44 other states, the new standards emphasize an in-depth approach to subjects, the development of verbal and analytical skills, teamwork, and student-centered learning focused on real-world examples. Hands-on projects and robust discussions among students replace lecture-style teaching. EdSource

Wait, What? Educators Highly Satisfied With Classroom Autonomy, Morale

A recent report from the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think-tank in Washington D.C., found that the majority of educators 1) are happy in their jobs and 2) report high levels of autonomy over almost “every aspect of teaching, including what to teach and how to teach.” NEAToday

State lawmaker makes new bid to change teacher dismissal rules
A state lawmaker introduced a bill Wednesday that would attempt to streamline the process for dismissing California teachers accused of misconduct. The proposed bill by state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) also would strive to make the dismissal process less expensive. Recent attempts to change rules have wilted under opposition from teacher unions. LA Times

School Boards Association proposes teacher dismissal bill
Picking up pieces from two failed attempts to rewrite the law on teacher dismissals, the California School Boards Association will lead this year’s attempt to make it easier and less expensive to fire teachers accused of serious misconduct and sex crimes against children. EdSource

LAUSD kicking off district-wide Arts Fest
Dozens of Los Angeles-area schools are opening their doors to showcase student films, dance recitals and art exhibits. Seeking to spark creativity among its students, Los Angeles Unified School District’s “Arts Fest” kicks off Saturday and will feature events at about 30 schools over a two-week period. LA Daily News

Funding dispute threatens health, counseling program
School nurses, speech pathologists, counselors and psychologists throughout California face pink slips this spring as districts struggled to close a $600 million gap created by a withholding of federal funds.  SI&A Cabinet Report

CA district makes a tough choice between NCLB, Obama policies
At a table strewn with papers, four eighth-grade boys with gelled hair and flashy sneakers comb through lyrics, discussing everything from girls to grammar. Only one remains silent, nodding lazily. When they reach the line, “You were my pills, you were my thrills,” the unofficial leader shouts: “That’s a metaphor!” He asks the silent one what he thinks. Hechinger Report

Teachers: LA schools’ arts budget ‘a step in the wrong direction’
A plan by the Los Angeles Unified School District to cut the time elementary school children are taught orchestra in half is angering teachers – many of whom learned about it only after KPCC reported on the arts budget, which was released unexpectedly at a committee meeting last week. KPCC

Lawmakers seek to streamline financial aid applications
Lawmakers announced a new bill Tuesday that would streamline the college financial aid application process, in hopes of increasing high school students’ access to higher-education cash. LA Times

Call to fix or phase out school transportation
With the Legislature set to tackle a remake of California’s 67-year-old school transportation funding system, the Legislative Analyst on Tuesday offered up three options ranging from a complete phase-out of the program to covering an increased share of reimbursement costs for districts receiving less than the state average. SI&A Cabinet Report

SF Unified eliminates ‘willful defiance’  to expel or suspend
Administrators in San Francisco Unified will no longer be able to use “willful defiance” as a reason to suspend or expel a student, beginning in the 2014-15 school year. San Francisco’s school board voted unanimously Tuesday to eliminate the controversial category, which has been used disproportionately to suspend African American students in that district and also statewide. EdSource 

What do teachers think about the Common Core standards?

The more teachers get to know the controversial Common Core State Standards, the more they like them, according to a teacher survey published this week. And even as many states debate whether to stick with the standards, the survey suggests that the Common Core is already being taught at most schools in the 45 states that adopted it. Hechinger Report

Common Core for schools: Boon? Horror? You tell me
Commentary: You would have thought that after 45 states leaped forward to adopt the Common Core curriculum standards for their schools, the only issue going forward would be how to make this big change happen in the smoothest and most successful way. LA Times

New funding law puts focus on translation for non-English speakers
School districts with high concentrations of English-learner students are facing a new challenge in ensuring that parents who need language translation are informed of their role under the funding formula for schools. California’s new Local Control Funding Formula emphasizes the importance of parental involvement in guiding school spending decisions. EdSource

Rules to limit marketing unhealthy food in schools
Even the scoreboards in high school gyms eventually will have to promote good health. Moving beyond the lunch line, new rules that will be proposed Tuesday by the White House and the Agriculture Department would limit marketing of unhealthy foods in schools. Sacramento Bee

Bipartisan effort to restore school bus funding
School districts could see significant increases in funding for transportation costs if either of two separate Senate proposals introduced this week ends up as law. Because the funding distribution is so uneven, critics say, children – depending upon where they live – are denied equal access to their schools, especially in lean budget times. SI&A Cabinet Report

Repeal of California transgender student rights bill fails
Efforts to overturn a law shielding transgender students stalled Monday, with advocates of the repeal failing to gather enough signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot. Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that the referendum on Assembly Bill 1266 finished about 17,000 signatures short of the 504,760 valid names needed to go before voters. Sacramento Bee

‘Platooning’ on the rise in early grades
At Sharpstein Elementary School, 2nd graders are getting used to a routine that most American children don’t learn for four more years: Several times a day, they line up and switch classrooms and teachers by subject. They spend the morning with one teacher for reading and writing, breaking in the middle for music, library, or physical education classes. EdWeek