EducationCA Parents opposing national Common Core school standardsThursday, May 23rd, 2013 May 23, 2013 By Warren Duffy Earlier this month, a rally sponsored by Citizens Against Common Core was held in Sacramento on the steps of the Capitol. What is Common Core? In a nutshell, it's a new, top-down national educational program that California is adopting in 2014 for students in grade... Are school parcel taxes social status symbols?Tuesday, May 7th, 2013 May 7, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Question: Are working-class communities smarter than wealthier school districts by not putting increased school parcel taxes on local election ballots? This is not the conclusion suggested in a new study released May 2013 by EdSource, a non-profit education re... Unions kill teacher evaluation billFriday, May 3rd, 2013May 3, 2013 By Katy Grimes For most parents in California, education is a nonpartisan issue. But too many of the state’s elected politicians, who claim to represent all constituents, accept teachers union campaign contributions -- and lots of them. This makes education very political.... School reformers aim for teacher evaluationsWednesday, May 1st, 2013 May 1, 2013 By Katy Grimes Efforts in California to usher in teacher and school administrator accountability have been nearly impossible due to opposition from the teachers' unions. But some reformers aren't giving up, including in the Democratic Party. Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, has... Gov. Brown calls for redistribution of school fundingWednesday, April 24th, 2013 April 24, 2013 By Katy Grimes Citing a lack of civil rights and social inequities as what is wrong with California public schools, Gov. Jerry Brown vowed Wednesday at a Capitol press conference to give more money to the K-12 school districts that serve poorer students and English-language ... 700,000 CA school suspensions spark legislative hearingTuesday, April 16th, 2013April 16, 2013 By Katy Grimes At the California Democratic Party Convention this past weekend, Democrats killed efforts led by other Democrats to call for much needed public school reforms. Convention delegates even passed a resolution slamming education reform groups like Students First... Cutting pork could close CalSTRS funding gapTuesday, April 9th, 2013April 9, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi The California Legislative Analyst recently reported that the funding gap for the California State Teachers' Retirement System was $4.5 billion per year in additional funding. There's no proposal on the table anywhere on how to fund that. In California’s ed... Economics curriculum bill changes one word in education codeTuesday, April 2nd, 2013April 2, 2013 By Katy Grimes SACRAMENTO -- A one-word change in the state education code is going through the cumbersome legislative process at the state Capitol. Is the bill necessary? The one-word answer is "no." The bill, as adopted in the Assembly Education Committee, will not ... Class warfare hits CA K-12 educationWednesday, March 27th, 2013March 27, 2013 By Joseph Perkins “Class warfare applied to schools.” That’s how pollster Dave Kanevsky describes the plan by Gov. Jerry Brown to change the way public school funding is allocated to divert money from the state’s middle-class and upper-income children to low-income child... |