After a seven-hour hearing and in a room inundated with advocates in color-coordinated T-shirts, the California Senate Education Committee narrowly passed two bills this week that will more strictly regulate charters, including giving local districts greater leeway to deny charter applications. The sharply contested bills split the committee 4-3, with state Sen. Steve Glazer, a...

California legislators are considering a change to education law that would address a peculiar and controversial feature of the state’s charter school sector. The proposed fix is dredging up long-standing issues around how the state permits and oversees schools of choice. At present, California school districts have the option to authorize charter schools that don’t...

A controversial charter school regulation moving through the California legislature will take its next step Wednesday when the state Senate Education Committee holds a public hearing that’s expected to draw crowds of supporters and opponents of the state’s large charter school sector. Assembly Bill 1505 would grant local districts sole authority to approve or deny...

Updated California’s years-long debate over school choice has taken a decisive turn over the first few months of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s tenure — and the shift has come at the expense of charter schools. In February, Newsom convened a panel of experts to investigate whether charters siphon funding from school districts. The next month, he...

This article is from The 74’s ongoing ‘Big Picture’ series, bringing American education into sharper focus through new research and data. Go Deeper: See the full series. Over the past few years, education researchers have coalesced around a striking, if somewhat unpalatable, observation: Kids learn more from teachers of their own race. A decade of studies from...

California lawmakers have spent the past several weeks debating laws that would seriously hurt charter schools. While two of the bills have been shelved, others are moving forward that would be disastrous for students like me. What makes this situation especially disturbing is that voices like mine have not been heard. I’m a public high...

What started as a package of four bills tamping down on charter schools in California quickly became two this week, as legislation in the Assembly and the Senate that looked to cap the schools in one chamber and place a moratorium on their future growth in the other were both withdrawn. The demise of Assembly...

The biggest statewide battle over charter schools in the country is coming to a head in California. Amid competing protests in Sacramento on Wednesday, the California Assembly narrowly passed legislation that would give local school districts sole authority to approve new charter schools. The bill, titled AB 1505, is one of several new measures the...