Performance Evaluations

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, in an effort to quiet a rebellion over federal education policy, announced Thursday that states with strong accountability systems already in place would be given greater flexibility in implementing the No Child Left Behind Act. "It is results that truly matter, not the bureaucratic way you get there," Spellings said at a meeting with state education chiefs at George Washington's estate, Mount Vernon, just south of Washington.

Billie Weiser is a researcher at UCLA, accustomed to high-level thinking and debates among academicians. But while visiting the Long Beach Day Nursery one bright morning, she furrowed her brow and focused intently on several children washing their hands and singing about Mr. Bubbles. Weiser marked her notepad and seemed content.

The Bush administration said Tuesday it would ease demands on California to identify troubled school districts, allowing the state to reduce the numbers of districts that could face takeovers and other sanctions. Even with the new flexibility, 184 school systems would immediately be classified as needing improvement. That would be reduced, however, from the more than 300 that previously were going to be placed on a state watch list.

The "culture of excuses and blaming" at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center is so deeply ingrained that fixing the troubled public hospital probably will take much longer than a year and cost much more than the millions of dollars Los Angeles County has committed to the effort so far, officials said Monday. Just getting King/Drew "back to an average American hospital" will take at least a couple of years, said Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the county Department of Health Services.

The U.S. Department of Education may withhold as much as $7 million from President Bush's home state for failing to tell parents whether schools performed up to standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. Parents won't be able to request transfers to move their children from poorly performing schools until the information is released, and the funding may be withheld until then.

The City Council will consider retaining an outside expert to evaluate the job performance of City Manager Dan Joseph, whose future has been in limbo since new council members were elected in November. Joseph, city manager for eight years, said the closed-session decision Monday is a positive sign because a vote on his potential dismissal has been canceled. "This is dragging out; that part is frustrating," he said. The council is set to discuss Joseph's performance Feb. 17.

When a regional planning agency released its annual report card for Southern California on Thursday, one local official joked that, if a teenager brought home similar grades from school, most parents would take away the kid's car keys until the grades improved. The report card for 2001 from the Southern California Assn.

Clad in gray sweats and a warmup jacket, Debbie Palty walks into a Taco Bell in Costa Mesa. She looks at her watch and makes a mental note of the long line ahead of her and the debris on the counter--seven straw wrappers, a couple of loose napkins. She orders three tacos and a drink, listening for the cashier to repeat the order. When her food arrives, Palty grabs it and dashes for her car, where she jabs a thermometer into the tacos. Then she weighs the food on a digital scale.

About one in six of Ventura County's 197 public schools have been flagged by the state as underperforming, officials said last week. The 31 schools are about half as many as were identified in 1999, when the state launched a package of reforms meant to improve student test scores. But it's also 50% more than the number of local underperforming schools identified last year. County schools Supt. Charles Weis said he was disappointed.

Performance reviews can be agony for managers and subordinates alike. Managers dread them, fearing challenges and damaged work relationships--never mind the lost hours filling out forms. Subordinates worry that less-than-stellar ratings will mean a puny raise or placement on an upcoming layoff list.