Teachers

The teacher whom the Los Angeles school district has spent seven years and nearly $2 million trying to fire spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday, saying he did not sexually harass students and is the target of discrimination. Matthew Kim, a former special education teacher at Grant High School in Van Nuys, had declined to speak to The Times numerous times over the last several months.

A majority of Los Angeles school board members said Tuesday that they believe state laws governing teacher discipline need to be revised to allow more swift and effective removal of substandard teachers and other employees, although they acknowledged that changes appear unlikely this year.

The head of the Los Angeles teachers union was among 39 people arrested Friday during a sit-in outside the school district headquarters, one among dozens of peaceful protests around the city by teachers and students outraged by plans for deep cuts in education spending. "Don't raise class size!" the protesters chanted before Los Angeles Police Department officers moved in to break up the demonstration. United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J.

After listening to the debate at last week's Los Angeles school board meeting, business leader Carol Schatz said she was appalled. She had attended to support a resolution to speed the firing of teachers accused of serious crimes. But even this proposal -- tiptoeing on the margins of improving teacher quality -- generated heated objections from the teachers union and its supporters. With some last-minute amendments and sniping among board members, the resolution passed by a single vote.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has given school district officials the go-ahead to fire a special education teacher seven years after they decided he did not belong in a classroom because of alleged sexual harassment. In his decision made public Monday, Judge David P. Yaffe sharply criticized the state panel that oversees contested teacher firings for disregarding earlier judicial orders.

A President Obama appointee in the Education Department acknowledged Wed- nesday that as a teacher 21 years ago he mishandled an incident in which he failed to notify authorities that a 15-year-old student had told him he had sexual relations with an adult. Kevin Jennings, head of the department's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, said in a statement that he "should have handled this situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted legal and medical authorities."

Veteran substitute teachers, who have recently lost teaching assignments because of an effort to help laid-off full-time instructors, won't be getting the work back any time soon, Los Angeles school officials confirmed this week. L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines stands by a one-year deal signed in July with teachers union President A.J. Duffy, according to a district statement. Under the pact, full-time teachers who were laid off have priority for random substitute assignments, even if that means passing over veteran substitute teachers with more seniority.

As healthcare reform legislation advances in Congress, more state lawmakers are looking for ways to limit its effects on their constituents. At the front of the pack is the Arizona Legislature, which agreed to put a constitutional amendment on next year's ballot that would provide three new rights to its citizenry: to obtain coverage from a private insurer, to buy healthcare services with their own funds directly from doctors and hospitals, and to...