LA parents submit ‘trigger’ petition
Last week, the first “parent trigger” school takeover was approved in California’s Mojave Desert. A high-scoring charter operator will take over low-scoring Desert Trails Elementary in Adelanto. Today,...
View ArticleNo ‘parent trigger’ fight in Los Angeles
California’s first two parent trigger campaigns were bitter fights, but Los Angeles parents seeking to transform 24th Street Elementary have found a “willing partner” in the school district, reports...
View ArticleCollege prep for all relies on false data
Starting with the class of 2002, San Jose Unified raised its graduation requirements: All students must pass the college-prep courses required for admission to state universities. The rule doubled the...
View ArticleDo cops make schools safe?
Do police officers make your schools safer? Los Angeles students don’t think so, reports Colorlines. South Dakota has passed a law allowing teachers to carry guns in school.
View Article‘I want to be a mass murderer’ when I grow up
“When I grow up, I want to be a mass murderer,” wrote Brian McGuigan in his second-grade journal. Abandoned by his father, he was an angry child who was “hated” by classmates. The entry was a story...
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Charters get $4,000 less per student
Charter schools received one third less per-pupil funding — about $4,000 less per student — than district-run schools in Denver, Milwaukee, Newark, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles in 2007 to 2011,...
View Article‘Converted’ school fires activist teachers
Half the teachers at Crenshaw High in Los Angeles were fired this month as part of the latest plan to turn around the low-performing school, writes Dana Goldstein. The “conversion” got rid of Alex...
View ArticleLos Angeles won’t suspend for ‘willful defiance’
Los Angeles Unified will not suspend students for “willful defiance,” reports the Los Angeles Times. The proposal would ban suspensions of students for “willful defiance,” an offense criticized as a...
View ArticleParent trigger used to oust principal
Using the parent trigger law, Los Angeles parents have ousted the principal of their low-performing elementary school. The school board voted 5-2 to accept the parents petition after 61 percent of...
View ArticleLA students win cars, iPads for attendance
I had perfect attendance in fourth grade at Ravinia Elementary School in 1961-62. The teacher gave me a plastic trophy — painted gold — that he’d won in a dance contest at the Hotel Fontainebleau in...
View ArticleIt’s time to break up Los Angeles Unified
It’s time to break up Los Angeles Unified, argues Dropout Nation, which sees an anti-reform turn on the school board. There are 32 cities within the giant district. “L.A. Unified’s bureaucracy has...
View ArticleNo choice for the wealthy
Actor Matt Damon, who opposes school choice for low-income students, has chosen to send his children to private school in Los Angeles, where he’s just moved, notes Andrew Rotherham in TIME, who calls...
View Article‘Parent trigger’ schools open
The first “parent trigger” schools have opened in California. Desert Trails, a low-performing elementary school in Adelanto, is now a charter “preparatory academy.” The school year started in early...
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$1 billion for iPads, 1 week to hack security
Beautiful Morris smiles as she works on her new iPad, provided by the Los Angeles Unified School District. — Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Unified is spending $1 billion to give iPads to every...
View ArticleiPads that work
After writing about the iPad disaster in Los Angeles Unified, Hechinger’s Anya Kamenetz talked to a Chicago teacher who’s using iPads to help students succeed. When the iPad first came out in 2010,...
View ArticleLA’s Parent College raises expectations
At Parent College, which serves low-income Los Angeles neighborhoods, parents learn how to improve their children’s college prospects, reports PBS NewsHour. Nadia Solis, a single mother and high...
View ArticleMiami-Dade rethinks tablet handout
The Miami-Dade school district has “pushed the pause button” on buying tablet computers for every student. Similar initiatives have run into trouble in Los Angeles, Guilford County, N.C., and...
View ArticleSuspended learning
Reformers should support the Obama administration’s effort to “reduce the overuse of suspensions and expulsions,” argues RiShawn Biddle in a Dropout Nation podcast. Harsh discipline pushes troubled...
View ArticleLA superintendent speaks at choice rally
“We believe that every single family and student has the right to a choice of a highly effective school in Los Angeles,” said Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy at a National School Choice...
View ArticleLA charters raise math, reading scores
Los Angeles charter students gain 50 more days of learning in reading and 79 days in math than similar students in district schools, concludes a study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on...
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