After a week of insider chatter predicting that L.A. schools chief John Deasy would resign in February, the L.A. Unified Board of Education issued him a satisfactory evaluation—and his contract has been extended through 2016. It’s no secret that L.A.’s teacher union has no love of Deasy, due in part to his support for the parent trigger, his push for student-performance-based teacher evaluations, and his Breakfast in the Classroom program. Most recently, he has been criticized for his handling of the district’s $1 billion iPad rollout. For Dara’s analysis of what’s next for Deasy and LAUSD, check out this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast. [Link to podcast]
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice filed a motion asking a Louisiana district court for more time to produce documents requested by the state’s attorneys—including the federal desegregation orders upon which the DOJ based its lawsuit against the Bayou State’s school-voucher program in the first place. Governor Jindal promptly responded, pointing to this as yet another example of the Obama administration’s incompetence. “Were these documents lost in the Obamacare website? Or did the Department of Justice just ignore the documents and file a lawsuit against the state without having all of the information available?” Whatever the case, Holder’s certainly made a hash of it. Here’s hoping he cancels the lawsuit entirely.
