School districts with new projects or renovations underway are in a form of limbo. They don’t know if students will be there when the doors open or the ribbon is cut. They are reexamining designs they approved months ago, exploring whether environments will meet the requirements of a post-COVID world. We have several projects in...

A first-of-its-kind alumni network for K-12 KIPP charter school graduates launches today, drawing on its unique national alumni base of 30,000 students that’s expected to grow to 80,000 by 2025. The National KIPP Alumni Network offers both alum-to-alum support as well as outside professional guidance. The three external players in the network programs, financed by California-based Crankstart...

We are sitting at a historic crossroads as a country, and we have the opportunity to create a more just world for all Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic, the senseless murder of Black Americans by police and the resulting protests have forced a reckoning with the racism that’s embedded in our national DNA. Our systems have...

As students return to learning this fall, they are going back in a variety of ways — in person, online or in some combination. This is creating issues for collecting and using education data consistently. While this is a challenge, it also presents an immense, and overdue, opportunity to move away from data like standardized...

School districts across the country are making the tough decision between in-person versus remote learning. Regardless of the path they choose, students are returning to a public school system more underfunded than at any time in recent memory. Direct federal support to state and local budgets is needed now more than ever as local school...

The more than 7,000 youth in foster care in the Los Angeles Unified School District experience significant obstacles in receiving an uninterrupted, quality education. A student in foster care is likely to encounter multiple, overlapping agencies, programs, and service providers when moving schools, especially if crossing district or county lines. And their academic and health...

This year, parents’ lens on education has radically changed. Many school buildings are empty while their students sit at the kitchen table, learning on video screens. Some children have returned to school, bringing home anecdotes about masks and socially distant lunch lines. More than ever, parents can see clearly what their children need academically and...

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic closed Los Angeles County schools, Elena, a Promotora (community educator) who has been with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) for more than 15 years, reached out to a mother who had taken parent education classes at a LAUSD high school. Elena called to find out if the mother had followed...

The clamor to equip teachers to respond flexibly to another uncertain school year has brought to the forefront a problem that has impeded schools for years, albeit in a less obvious way: Teachers need an updated skill set for the modern world. The basic structure of the classroom is shifting from the monolithic, standardized model...

American schools’ responses to COVID-19’s sudden interruption to public education varied considerably across the nation as students went from daily classroom learning to stay-at-home orders nearly overnight. Now, a new survey reveals the limits of that patchwork response to the emergency — and indicates key lessons for schools’ reopening this fall. Over the past several months, Californians...