John Deasy

At Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills, every student has an iPad. That's 1,200 iPads, and if L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy can figure out how to pay for 660,000 more of them, every student in the district will have a tablet in the next few years. A good idea? "It's magical," declared a student at Valley Academy who loves his iPad. Maybe. But I've got lots of questions. Like many parents, my wife and I have tried to make sure our daughter reads real books and doesn't get addicted to everything digital.

As Gov. Jerry Brown announced more funding for public schools Tuesday, the Los Angeles Board of Education agreed to pay for more school police, maintain a classroom breakfast program and keep supplemental staff at schools. The board also heard projections of next school year's budget, which - for the first time in six years - wasn't expected to require any new cuts. L.A. Unified schools Supt. John Deasy had asked the seven-member board to approve the so-called discretionary programs, although it was unclear whether they would all be funded directly from the district's general fund.

In John Deasy, the Los Angeles Board of Education selected a new superintendent who is seemingly a man of contradictions. He was raised in a strong union household yet challenges work rules fiercely defended by unions. He supports making it easier to dismiss teachers but also insists that a school system cannot fire its way to success. He's going to be accused of being a tool of the Gates Foundation, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ?

Los Angeles' two mayoral candidates said Tuesday that they support making teacher evaluations public, going well beyond a level of disclosure that is supported by top school district officials. City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Councilman Eric Garcetti said they backed the release of individual performance evaluations based on so-called "value-added" formulas, which are controversial both locally and nationwide. These measures use the past performance of students on state standardized tests to help gauge a teacher's success, taking into account such factors as race and income.

The Los Angeles Board of Education is expected to vote Tuesday to appoint John Deasy as the next superintendent of the nation's second-largest school district, sources said Thursday. Deasy would replace Ramon C. Cortines, 78, who announced last year that he would retire this spring from the system he has headed since 2008. No Los Angeles Unified School District officials or administrators were willing to publicly discuss Deasy's presumed hiring. Employees said they had no authorization to do so, and elected officials said it would be improper to discuss the board's private deliberations.

Down on Deasy Re "On a mission to change school district's culture," April 8 In the 1980s I was a teacher in the L.A. Unified School District's Incentive Substitute Teacher Program, which was meant to ensure good instruction and classroom oversight in hard-to-staff schools. I can assure readers that "subbing" is one of the least-empowered positions in the district. That L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy would walk into a classroom unannounced and criticize "well-regarded" substitute teacher Patrena Shankling as she "carried out the assignment left by the regular teacher," and then the next day send her a letter of termination, is nothing more than bullying.

The selection of John Deasy to lead the nation's second-largest school system, expected Tuesday, would give the Board of Education a leader who is eager to make sweeping changes and who has earned the respect of disparate and often warring forces in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Taking on some of the thorniest issues in the system as top deputy to Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, Deasy has worked productively with union leaders, key community activists, the mayor's office and charter school operators.

The leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union recently conducted a survey among its members asking if they had confidence in Los Angeles Unified Supt. John Deasy. Although it was highly unusual for the union to mount this kind of frontal attack on the superintendent, the maneuver wouldn't have raised eyebrows had it not been for the union's full-court press to influence the vote. Not only did the union send out misleading information about Deasy's record, it also posted unflattering, juvenile caricatures of him on its website.

No school has meant more to the African American community in Los Angeles than Crenshaw High . For most of its 45 years, it has been an established neighborhood hub, known for championship athletic teams and arts programs, sending graduates to top colleges. But the Leimert Park campus has declined in recent years. Dropout rates have soared and student achievement has plummeted. L.A. Unified school Supt. John Deasy calls it one of the district's biggest disappointments. In an effort to turn the school around, the Board of Education on Tuesday approved Deasy's drastic proposal to remake the campus into three magnets - and require teachers to reapply for their jobs.

Former Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines agreed last year to let teachers and parents at Verdugo Hills High School implement their own reform plan, which included hiring their own principal. But Cortines' successor, current Los Angeles Unified School District chief John Deasy, has not approved the school's top choice for principal. Instead, district officials appointed an interim principal at the Tujunga campus. Deasy said that because he evaluates the district's principals, he should have a say in hiring.

Los Angeles school district officials knew of sexual misconduct allegations in 2009 against a teacher at a Wilmington campus who was arrested more than three years later, the district's top administrator confirmed Tuesday. The teacher, Robert Pimentel, 57, was arrested in January. Some of the charges result from alleged conduct at De La Torre Elementary that occurred well after senior administrators apparently became aware of concerns raised by parents in 2009. L.A. schools Supt.

At Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills, every student has an iPad. That's 1,200 iPads, and if L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy can figure out how to pay for 660,000 more of them, every student in the district will have a tablet in the next few years. A good idea? "It's magical," declared a student at Valley Academy who loves his iPad. Maybe. But I've got lots of questions. Like many parents, my wife and I have tried to make sure our daughter reads real books and doesn't get addicted to everything digital.

The leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union recently conducted a survey among its members asking if they had confidence in Los Angeles Unified Supt. John Deasy. Although it was highly unusual for the union to mount this kind of frontal attack on the superintendent, the maneuver wouldn't have raised eyebrows had it not been for the union's full-court press to influence the vote. Not only did the union send out misleading information about Deasy's record, it also posted unflattering, juvenile caricatures of him on its website.

Los Angeles Unified will eliminate a classroom breakfast program serving nearly 200,000 children, reject more school police, cut administrators and scale back new construction projects unless the school board votes to approve them, according to Supt. John Deasy. Heading into a fierce battle over funding priorities, Deasy said this week that he would give "maximum responsibility" to the board to decide between those programs and demands by United Teachers Los Angeles to restore jobs and increase pay. In an April 12 memo obtained by the Times on Friday, Deasy outlined eight items the district would not fund without explicit board approval, including a request for an additional $1.4 million for KLCS-TV public television, small schools that are underenrolled and other unspecified programs.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg donated $350,000 to the Los Angeles school board campaign this week, records show. Bloomberg's contribution, which was filed Tuesday, will enlarge the already sizable war chest of the Coalition for School Reform, a political action committee led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The goal of the coalition is to back candidates who will support the policies of L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy and pledge to keep him on the job. Before the March primary, Bloomberg contributed $1 million for the three board races - the largest contribution ever made in an L.A. school board campaign.

Record spending will continue in the last remaining race for a seat on the Los Angeles school board, as a political action committee has put together a war chest of about $600,000 to use on behalf of a candidate endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In all, the Coalition for School Reform, which is spearheaded by the mayor, has raised nearly $4.5 million for three Board of Education races to support candidates who would back the aggressive policies of Supt. John Deasy and pledge to keep him on the job. Contributors praise Deasy for including student test scores in teacher evaluations and limiting job protections that they view as impediments to academic progress.

It was obvious from the start that John Deasy had been brought to Los Angeles to be considered for the job of superintendent of schools, if not outright groomed for it. It's to his credit that his unsurprising elevation from deputy to the top spot is also something for the district and the public to be pleased about. Arriving from the reform-minded Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and intent on establishing more meaningful teacher evaluations, Deasy is, of course, viewed with suspicion by United Teachers Los Angeles, which opposes allowing student test scores to play any role in the evaluation process.

We are currently negotiating the most important labor contract in the history of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It can't come as a surprise to anyone that the district faces serious challenges. Money is extremely tight, and providing the students in our diverse district with the best possible education requires change and reform. On the plus side, we are seeing enormous energy for change within the schools. Talented teachers and administrators have come together to explore new methods of reaching students, and they are seeing results.

The Los Angeles Board of Education has approved a resolution aimed at more quickly establishing the guilt or innocence of teachers and other employees accused of serious misconduct. The measure approved Tuesday directed Supt. John Deasy to bring on professional investigators, to set up timelines for inquiries and to notify employees about allegations against them as soon as possible. “There is nothing more important than getting the most accurate, highest quality investigations of suspected physical or sexual abuse of a child," resolution author Tamar Galatzan said in a statement.

The L.A. Board of Education will weigh a proposal Tuesday designed to speed up and improve investigations of teachers accused of sexual misconduct. The point is to quickly oust the guilty and exonerate the innocent after sexual misconduct allegations at Miramonte Elementary School sparked a surge of investigations and pushed the ranks of those in "teacher jail" to more than 300. "You don't need 300 days to figure out who's a monster," said Carpenter Elementary parent Julia Bricklin.