Last fall, Governor Gavin Newsom approved a new state law, Assembly Bill No. 1505, which gave local districts more control over the opening of new charter schools and the renewal of existing schools’ charters. In addition the new law revises the process for appealing rejected charter school applications. Although it remains to be seen whether...

For the last 45 years, teachers unions have been the predominant political force in California, using their clout from the governor’s office down to the state’s 1,037 school districts. Except for one: the Clovis Unified School District, just north of Fresno. While there are a number of tiny districts in California without a teachers union,...

Americans assume an almost fairy-tale link between a college education and a good job. Take college freshmen. In 2019, more than 8 in 10 (83 percent) said a “very important” reason for attending college was “to be able to get a better job.” But reality is different. A 2018 study of over 800 million job...

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden on March 11 allocates $129 billion to help elementary and secondary schools rebound from the severe disruptions to school life caused by COVID-19. Additionally, the law stipulates that recipients are obliged to spend “not less than 20 percent of such funds to address learning...

Across the country, educators are working hard to support students learning in hybrid contexts, where students are attending school both online and in person. In many schools, staff availability to teach, attendance policies and a desire to have students working with teachers for as much time as possible mean many districts are pursuing a simultaneous...

When you picture a public charter school teacher, what image comes to mind? Chances are, it doesn’t look like me: a Latino male. As a former public school student in south Texas, and a longtime charter school educator, I know how powerful it is when students learn from adults who look like them, who can...

I have some bad news: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to linger for decades. One mechanism is through education. As my series on educational disruptions has shown, children who miss school time suffer academic losses in the short run, and those effects are noticeable decades later in the form of worse economic outcomes and other...

For the hundreds of schools, thousands of students and millions of fans left dismayed by the cancellation last year of the NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament, the return of March Madness is cause for much celebration and, of course, much caution. The Big Dance comes at a time when vaccinations are leading the nation...

This essay is adapted from posts that originally appeared on the New York School Talk blog.  Every adult in a school building gets a union. In New York City, most are members of the United Federation of Teachers, and together they are incredibly powerful and effective. They negotiate all the rules. They can influence hiring and firing...

How are school district budgets faring this year? That depends. Many districts are struggling financially. They have spent large sums of money dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic — buying technology, purchasing cleaning supplies, hiring more substitute teachers and attempting to address student learning loss and disengagement. This story, of districts in distress, is an easy...