If you read the Washington State Supreme Court ruling on I-1240, the ballot proposition that brought charter schools to the state after three prior failed attempts, you’ll see that the justices carefully framed their reasoning for rejecting the “public” status of charter schools on precedents dating back 100 years. In particular, Bryan was a particularly […]
Six Education Policies A 2016 Presidential Candidate Must Embrace
On the eve of passage of amendments to the Senate’s Every Child Achieves Act, the Rev. Dr. William Barber, a distinguished contemporary Civil Rights leader, released a powerful statement of support that gave qualified support for the law’s draft reauthorization and pointed to the work ahead. He said: But as we under-resource our public […]
Community Schools At The Margins Of Current ESEA Reauthorization Debates: Center Them In Bernie Sanders’ Presidential Education Platform
Right this very moment in the U.S. Senate, Senators are debating amendments being offered to the Senate-side bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, the current version commonly referred to as No Child Left Behind). Given that we have a sitting Senator (Bernie Sanders, I-VT) involved in the process and a past […]
“Value-Added” for Teacher Preparation Programs? Your Comments Needed NOW on Proposed Regulation Changes
UPDATED February 2, 2015: We submitted the link to this post to the official regulations.gov site where it was recorded. At the time of sending, almost 3500 comments from teachers, faculty at GSEs (graduate schools of education), and others with an interest in the training of public school teachers had submitted comments. In our submission, […]
Fix Education Testing and Accountability to Reauthorize No Child Left Behind
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is now chair of the education committee in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension committee, and has officially opened the door to reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, also known as the ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act). He’s seeking emails and letters talking about testing and accountability […]
BREAKING: LAUSD Parents Seek Los Angeles Superior Court Civil Grand Jury Investigation/Audit Into iPads and MiSiS Debacles
BREAKING: this morning, LAUSD parents filed a citizen complaint to ask that the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Civil Grand Jury investigate/audit the iPad and MiSiS deals that were costly but seemed highly ineffective. They want an independent body outside of LAUSD to conduct its own investigation. The Civil Grand Jury consists of 23 residents of […]
Governor Brown, Add SB69’s Revisions To Your Local Control Funding Formula
UPDATE: as of 1:13 pm, PDT, Monday, June 10: Good news, keep signing! It’s a constantly changing picture, but so far the main points of agreement seem to be these (as of the past weekend’s negotiations): Put more money into the base grants (raise all districts equally) Supplemental grant percentages would be 20% of the […]
Support S. 195, Put School Children's Mental Health First in School Safety
Mental health professionals must be the first eyes on children who could be a danger to themselves or others; mental health professionals must also provide counseling and/or therapy to school children in order to address a wide variety of everyday emotional and behavioral disorders such as bullying, abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, addictions, and other issues. […]
Community Schools, An Untapped Resource: A March 18, 2013 Convening
By Deb McCurdy, Special to K12NN On March 18, 2013, public education advocates, administrators, school board members, school administrators, non-profit organizations and philanthropists convened at the California Endowment in downtown Los Angeles. The event followed from a discussion a group of First District CA PTA delegates had with State Senator Carol Liu’s staff on state […]
The November 2012 Save California Public Schools Toolkit
Step 1: Get informed. We’re on the verge of either saving our public schools from an annual cycle of disinvestment caused by budget cuts ($20 billion in the past 5 years) — or setting off harmful triggers if the November 2012 ballot initiatives to fund K-12 (or K-14) don’t pass. Proposition 30 and Proposition 38 […]