Performance Evaluations

Ending a yearlong power struggle, a judge ruled this week that former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick lacked legal authority to conduct performance audits of programs managed by City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo. Less than 10 days before Delgadillo is slated to leave office because of term limits, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney found that the City Charter did not grant Chick the power to evaluate Delgadillo's handling of workers' compensation issues.

The California State Athletic Commission, one of many consumer-protection boards, is responsible for ensuring the safety of athletes in boxing and mixed martial arts by licensing them and event promoters, among other tasks. But records from the state and the boxing industry reveal a pattern of poor performance by a board that has had trouble following its own rules. An internal audit in late 2003, around the time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, found sloppy record-keeping, inaccurate revenue collection, outdated technology and staffing shortages.

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 country's top education official challenged teachers unions Thursday to embrace historically controversial ways of promoting teacher effectiveness, including offering merit pay and evaluating instructors based on student test scores. "You must become full partners and leaders in education reform. You must be willing to change," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the National Education Assn. at its annual meeting in San Diego.

As President Obama prepares to mark his 100th day in the White House, he acknowledged Monday that the nation might not reach one of his major environmental goals for a while longer: 15,000 days, or 41 years. That's how long it could take for the nation to cut its carbon emissions by 80%, Obama said during an appearance at the National Academy of Sciences. His caution plays into the administration's efforts to deflate expectations about what he reasonably could have solved by Wednesday.