FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Wednesday, September 18, 2013

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

Fensterwald: Feds elaborate on the requirements California can’t meet for testing waiver

Education Headlines

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Last-minute proposal may keep Tokay Colony open

Lodi Unified will research the possibility of transforming the rural Tokay Colony Elementary School into a technology-themed magnet school, an eleventh-hour effort to try to keep the small school open as enrollment declines.

Local Tea Party activists oppose Common Core standards

They’re promoted as making American students more competitive with their international peers, but some local conservatives say new educational standards set to be fully implemented next school year amount to a federal takeover of local education.

Freedburg: LAUSD board-administrator conflicts underscore challenges of “local control”

Tensions are on the rise between top administrators and the new majority on the Los Angeles Unified School District school board – underscoring the perils inherent in Gov. Jerry Brown’s move to push more control and authority for what happens in schools down to the local level.

Board wants staff proposals for adult school

Riverside school board members apologized this week to families of developmentally disabled students for the way their Riverside Adult School class was canceled with no clear notice.

LAUSD pays out $27 million, resolves 58 Miramonte molestation claims

Los Angeles Unified has paid out more than $27 million to settle claims by nearly five dozen children who allege they were molested by former Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt, the district announced Tuesday.

Students build futures in old-school shop classes

Along with '80s pop culture, high school auto shop has made a comeback at Washington High School in San Francisco, with students learning the ins and outs of car repair and maintenance and earning elective course credit for it.

L.A. school board approves budget for training in new curriculum

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved a proposal to spend $113 million to implement new learning standards, an issue that became surprisingly controversial and contributed to the resignation of the district's No. 2 administrator.

Fensterwald: Feds elaborate on the requirements California can’t meet for testing waiver

The federal Department of Education specified for the first time Tuesday what states would have to do to receive a waiver from giving state standardized tests next spring in the one-year transition to implementing the Common Core standards.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Ventura police aim to improve safety by monitoring live video feeds from schools

In what may be the first such arrangement statewide, police soon will be able to view live video footage from five of Ventura’s largest schools in the hope of responding faster to and being better prepared for a campus shooting or other emergency.

Local schools lead state in personal belief vaccine exemptions

Health experts say the Sacramento region’s large immigrant population is one factor in the growing number of parents declining to get shots for their children. The number of children in Yolo, Sacramento, Placer and El Dorado counties starting kindergarten without vaccines jumped 30 percent, or by 350 children, in the last school year, according to new data from the California Department of Public Health.

School taxes concentrated in wealthier areas

Lowering the vote threshold for California school parcel taxes likely would allow more of them to pass but probably would not have a significant effect on school funding statewide, according to a report released Monday from the Public Policy Institute of California.