This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. As California intensifies its fight with the Trump Administration, the race for the state’s top schools job is becoming ever more crowded. Today, former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon formally entered the race to succeed Tony Thurmond as State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He...

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. California after-school and summer programs will get some of their funding back after the federal government said on Friday that it would restore grants it had previously withheld. But the money is contingent on states complying with Civil Rights laws – a cudgel...

This was originally published by CalMatters. In Kern County, the first rule in counting homeless students is not saying “homeless.” Instead, school staff use phrases like “struggling with stable housing” or “families in transition.” The approach seems to have worked: More families are sharing their housing status with their children’s schools, which means more students...

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. When Brigitta Hunter started her teaching career, she had $20,000 in student loans and zero income – even though she was working nearly full time in the classroom. “We lived on my husband’s pathetic little paycheck. I don’t know how we did it,”...

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. A bill that could reshape literacy education in California elementary schools cleared a major hurdle in the Legislature this week after dueling sides reached a compromise that provides funding for phonics-based instruction but stops short of requiring it. The compromise between English learner...

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The Trump administration overstepped its authority when it cut short pandemic relief grants for K-12 schools, a move that cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a lawsuit filed today by California and a dozen other states. The suit, filed against...

This story was originally published on CalMatters. It’ll be a while before Los Angeles can fully assess the damage to its schools from this recent spate of fires, but a few things already seem certain: rebuilding will take a long time, it will be expensive, and it may sap the statewide fund for school repairs. At least a...

This story was originally published on CalMatters. Rural school districts — already beset with financial struggles — are furiously scrambling to save a century-old funding source that Republican lawmakers last month eliminated from the federal budget.  The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which has been approved almost continuously since 1908, is intended to compensate rural counties...

California lawmakers are proposing steps to protect K-12 students and families from mass deportations — although the real value of those proposals may be symbolic. A pair of bills in the Legislature — AB 49 and SB 48 — aim to keep federal agents from detaining undocumented students or their families on or near school property without a warrant....

As a new school year gets underway in California, districts are desperately trying to lure thousands of missing, tardy and truant students back to the classroom in what many view as a pivotal moment for education in California. In 2021-22, 30% of students in California’s public schools were chronically absent, an all-time high and more...