It’s a crisp Saturday morning in August and the USC campus is abuzz with students.  Football season hasn’t yet started, and classes aren’t in session — and the students in question aren’t college students at all. The campus is overrun with middle schoolers who line two sides of a red carpet waiting to welcome the...

For all the campaign arguments about immigration and the United States border, you’d think that we were embarking upon a new situation, something coming, an arriving novelty barely visible over the horizon. And yet, as far as schools are concerned, this is a past tense debate. The U.S.’s demographic reality is already shifting in remarkable...

Ever since my senior year of high school in the suburban San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles, I have tutored students ranging from elementary to high school.  I have always enjoyed working with students and felt it is a way to give back to the community.  When I enrolled at the University of Southern California...

This year, I’ve been speaking with everyday Americans to hear their ideas about the purpose of public schools and how to improve them. One aspiration cuts across all perspectives: Everyone wants their children to feel a sense of belonging in school. Parents can’t understand why this isn’t more of a priority in education policy, and...

Aug. 21 marks 50 years since the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was passed into law. Back then, student privacy looked a lot different than it does today: The classrooms and textbooks of yesteryear presented much less risk than Google or artificial intelligence do, but education officials still had growing concerns over databases...

It is a bromide in a presidential election year to fret that young people will not turn out to vote, and that the election will therefore be dominated — as in so many past years — by wealthy older voters. As thoughtful observers have already pointed out, that notion is — statistically and philosophically — a red...

In the last few weeks news media outlets have reported problems with Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) new AI chatbot portal.  But while district officials work through the program’s kinks, for many Latino and Indigenous families, talk about the use of advanced technologies to improve or simplify communication with schools is daunting. Even parents...

In an era when partisan echo chambers have produced polarized public discourse and a politically aligned unwillingness to entertain inconvenient facts, clear investigative journalism is among the highest forms of public service. It’s also increasingly rare, with many media outlets struggling to find their footing in an era of financial, political and technological instability. More...

This summer, everyone from homeschoolers to large urban districts like Los Angeles Unified is trying to process what artificial intelligence will mean for the coming school year. Educators find themselves at a crossroads — AI’s promise for revolutionizing education is tantalizing, yet fraught with challenges. Amid the excitement and the angst, and the desire to...

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley, which is regarded by many academics and observers as one of the most consequential judicial decisions in our nation’s history. The 1974 decision overturned a desegregation plan in Detroit that would have encompassed both the Detroit Public Schools and 53 nearby...