Long Beach Unified School District

California's top education official sought Tuesday to counter federal criticism of the state's reluctance to use student test scores to evaluate teachers, paying a visit to Long Beach to highlight one of the few California school districts to make extensive use of such data. The Long Beach Unified School District's use of student scores to assess the effectiveness of programs, instructional strategies and teachers is a rarity in California, and state Supt.

The Long Beach Unified School District was again named a finalist Wednesday for the prestigious Broad Prize, which honors academic excellence and strong performance by minority and poor students in urban districts across the nation. "It's a huge honor," said Christopher J. Steinhauser, superintendent of the nearly 91,000-student district.

Five urban school districts, including the Long Beach Unified School District, were named Wednesday as finalists for the annual $1-million Broad Prize for Urban Education, which honors urban school systems judged as making the greatest progress in raising student achievement. Long Beach is the first former winner since the competition began in 2002 to return as a finalist, according to the Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation. A winning district is not eligible to reapply for three years.

Once again, Long Beach Unified School District has been recognized as one of America's best. Although New York City won the Broad Prize for Urban Education on Tuesday -- a distinction awarded to the district for demonstrating progress in closing the achievement gap between black and Latino students and whites -- Long Beach, which won the prize in 2003, made history by returning this year as a top-five finalist.

Familiarity doesn't breed only contempt, but also wackiness. That's the opinion of Ventura Coach Ann Larson, whose girls' basketball team beat rival Ventura Buena, 48-35, Thursday and earned a share of first place in the Channel League. It was the teams' fourth meeting this season. The Cougars won for the third time and avenged a 48-27 loss in the first round of league play.

Years before he would kill student Mayra Mora-Lopez, he described beating another young woman when he applied to be a teacher's aide for the Long Beach Unified School District. "I had an argument with my ex-girlfriend.... I hit her, causing her injuries. I was arrested and convicted to a city jail for 90 days," Pedro Tepoz-Leon wrote on a 1992 form the district requires of applicants with criminal records.

Long Beach Unified School District, the state's third-largest school district, this week adopted a requirement that students complete 40 hours of community service for high school graduation. District officials stress that Long Beach's program, which will go into effect for the class of 2007, will be connected to classroom objectives or to a school's extracurricular activities rather than simply tracking the time a student spends picking up trash.

The Long Beach and Garden Grove school districts have been named as being among the five national finalists for the annual $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education. The award was created last year by businessman and education activist Eli Broad to recognize school systems that are improving test scores and providing quality education to students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and income levels. Broad said that finalists "have all set clear achievement goals.

The Long Beach Unified School District on Monday received the $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education, an award created last year by Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist Eli Broad to recognize urban school systems that have closed achievement gaps. "We hope that Long Beach will be an inspiration to all of the Southern California urban districts," Broad said, adding that the district had been chosen from more than 100 reviewed.

The Garden Grove Unified School District received $125,000 Monday as a finalist for the Broad Prize for Urban Education, a national award created last year by Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist Eli Broad to recognize urban school systems that have closed achievement gaps. The prize was created to honor districts that are improving test scores and providing quality education to students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and income levels, Broad said.