OPINION: Education in California is experiencing a once-in-a-generation transformation, as tens of thousands of parents make crucial decisions about how and where their children learn.
A school bus awaits to pick up children at a California school. (Photo: Debbie Ann Powell, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The accumulation of harmful public policy proposals which would have eliminated parent choice in California demonstrates what happens when Sacramento’s public education establishment awakes a sleeping giant.
Photo: Tony Savino, via Shutterstock)OPINION: It is critical that as the budget discussions progress one sector of public school students who have been shortchanged are treated — and funded — equally as their peers: Personalized Learning public charter school students.
A vintage blackboard in a charter school. (Photo: Greg and Jan Ritchie, via Shutterstock) California’s charter schools could face tighter restrictions if a pair of bills making their way through the Legislature is approved. One would give school districts the right to deny charter schools if they believe they would negatively impact neighborhood schools’ finances, academics or facilities. The other would prohibit school districts from approving a charter school outside their boundaries.
Charter school curbs authored this year by Assemblywoman Christy Smith, left, stem from her experience with far-flung charters as a school board member in Newhall. At right is Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-LAguna Beach. (Photo: Max Whittaker, via CALmatters)One was a charter school operator desperate for authorization after years of rejection by multiple school districts. The other was a teeny district in the rural high desert, hemorrhaging students, facing insolvency and in dire need of revenue.
Information in many languages outside a California voting place. (Photo: Underawesternsky, via Shutterstock)As California counties continue to process mail-in and provisional ballots, Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, has taken a substantial lead over Marshall Tuck in the race for California’s state superintendent of public instruction.
A chalkboard in a vintage charter school.(Photo: Greg and Jan Ritchie, via Shutterstock)OPINION: With Election Day less than a week away, voters have started casting ballots in the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction between Assemblymember Tony Thurmond and former Partnership for Los Angeles Schools CEO Marshall Tuck. Pundits are framing the race as a face-off between teachers’ unions and education reformers – no surprise, since one of the race’s key debates has been about whether or not charter schools are good for public education.
The Orange County School of the Arts, a charter school. (Photo: Lunasee Studios, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The story of the Paramount Collegiate Academy’s demise is important because it spotlights an alarming trend: California’s state board is approving charter schools that were denied by local decision makers at a high rate — 71 percent —and a number of those schools have failed, just like Paramount.