Testing limits
L.A. teachers refuse to give assessment exams
Los Angeles, CA - Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District spend about one month out of the school year administering tests to their students at a cost of $150 million annually for non-State and Federally mandated tests, according to United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), and at a press conference held Tuesday at Emerson Middle School, the educators have vowed beginning immediately to boycott what they called “unnecessary” periodic assessments.
In response to the decision, Superintendent of the L.A. schools Ramon C. Cortines reminded teachers that testing is part of their jobs and are required to be administered. Additionally, Cortines said these assessments are not a waste of time, nor are they futile.
UTLA said its members will only administer the state and federal mandated tests. According to a union spokesperson, depending on the subject and grade level, teachers may give up to 15 additional periodic assessments. The sense that they are over testing is not unique to LAUSD but is a nation-wide phenomenon that they are just fed up about, added the UTLA representative.
The union said teachers will take to the streets today in a fight-back march to protest budget cuts and the over testing beginning at 3:30 p.m. at school district headquarters at 333 S. Beaudry Ave.
Protestors will then march to Pershing Square at Fifth and Olive and around to the State building on Third and Spring.
The superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) believes that student test scores should be part of teachers’ evaluations.
Ramon C. Cortines, who is retiring next year, told administrators recently that the district will develop a new evaluation system, and he wants at least 30 percent of a teacher’s evaluation based on the scores. Currently, pupils’ California Standardized Test (CST) scores do not figure in the instructors’ evaluations.
While about 100 parents, community stakeholders and school officials spent Saturday and Monday vetting plans to operate three Los Angeles Unified School campuses as part of the Public School Choice program, the next step in the process to select new operators will depend on how members of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) vote on a proposed agreement.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—A board covering a sign naming the auditorium of a Hollywood elementary school for Michael Jackson was removed.
The sign was unveiled in 1989 when the auditorium at Gardner Street Elementary School, which Jackson attended, was refurbished, but was covered when Jackson was charged with child molestation. The sign remained covered despite his acquittal.
Students at Carver Middle School, Tuesday, turned out to protest the decision the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education made last week to award control of their school to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. The youngsters also voiced their objections to increasing class sizes and teacher lay-offs.
Los Angeles, CA -- At the same time that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is making incremental steps to get out of its Program Improvement three status under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines announced a package of personnel cuts, programmatic and organizational changes that some believe could impair the progress already made.
