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The nation’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, opposed press efforts to publish teacher evaluations, according to a letter from the school district (PDF) to the Los Angeles Times that was obtained by the writer Alexander Russo.

The letter urges the Los Angeles Times not to publish a second batch of teacher evaluations that the newspaper calculated and published anyway on Sunday. It was signed by LA superintendent John Deasy as well as the president of the city’s school board and two civic leaders, the president of the city’s chamber of commerce and its United Way chapter.

“The individual evaluations, in our opinion, should be private conversations that are intended to help professionals improve their performance in the classroom,” the letter argues.

Deasy’s position stands in sharp contrast to the one New York City school officials are taking in a court battle with the teachers union. School officials here argue that teacher evaluations calculated with value-added formulas are statistics that are subject to public information laws and therefore can be released to the public. (more…)

A point I didn’t make strongly enough about Governor Paterson’s proposed budget is that the plan would delay, by four years, the cash infusion that was supposed to come as the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. The terms of the settlement were that both the state and city agreed to pour an extra $5.4 billion into the city schools over four years.

Now that budget proposals are not only not following up on those increases but also cutting away from what was given last year, the group that filed the lawsuit in the first place — the Campaign for Fiscal Equity — is pushing back. The group will be lobbying the legislature hard to say no to Paterson’s budget. Their better idea for how to tackle the state’s giant deficit: tax the affluent, the proposal the Working Families Party has floated.

Helaine Doran, the campaign’s deputy director, said officials are also consulting with their lawyers. “We have no process of like, ‘Oh yes, we’re going back to court immediately,’” she said on the phone this afternoon. “You have to look at the numbers and figure it out. We have geniuses helping us.”

CFE will be joined by the teachers union in lobbying the legislature to make fewer cuts to the city school system. Randi Weingarten called the proposals “chilling” in a statement yesterday that estimated the overall impact to city schools — state and city cuts combined — at $1 billion.

Weingarten’s full response, plus a long press release from CFE and other education advocates who are joining them in fighting the budget cuts, are below. (more…)