-
Commentary: Open the doors for students with state-run public STEM school in LA
By Francisco C. Rodriguez and Thomas F. Rosenbaum We oversee two very different institutions. The Los Angeles Community College District is a network of community colleges that serves 250,000 students of all ages. The California Institute of Technology is a private university in Pasadena, with a few thousand undergraduates and graduate students dedicated to exploring...
By Guest Contributors | August 21, 2017
-
Commentary: Communities must hold school boards, authorizers accountable to ensure quality education
By James L. Woodworth The ultimate goal for an education system is to enable individuals to become happy, engaged, productive members of society. Unfortunately, at this time, measuring happiness, productivity, and civil contribution of individuals is difficult. Tracing those measurements back to the schools attended by an individual is practically impossible. Thus, researchers and other...
By Guest Contributors | August 17, 2017
-
Commentary reactions: Take responsibility for getting every student career- and college-ready
These two responses are to a commentary posted Wednesday by David Tokofsky: Response by Evelyn Aleman Macias “Is it realistic to expect that the kids who would have been dropouts in years past will all be getting Cs or better in college preparatory courses?” is the line that stood out for me when I read...
By Guest Contributors | June 9, 2017
-
Commentary: 11,000 LA teachers will leave the classroom by 2021, and we can stop it
By Jane Mayer and Jesse Soza, Ed.D. Los Angeles Unified School District alone employs 27,747 teachers, which doesn’t account for the thousands more employed by charters (typically younger and more likely to burn out) or private school teachers. Based on statistics, more than 11,000 of these highly passionate and well-educated members of our society will...
By Guest Contributors | October 3, 2016
Investigation: Nearly 1,000 Native Children Died in Federal Boarding Schools
Podcast: What a Mentorship Mindset Can Do for Student Motivation
Black and Hispanic Voters Say Democrats Aren’t Focused Enough on K-12 Education
Teen Activist Rhea Maniar on the Power of Abortion to Turn Out Young Voters
-
Commentary: Reversing teacher burnout in Los Angeles: Giving teachers room to invest
By Jane Mayer and Jesse Soza, Ed.D. Teacher turnover in the United States is a silent epidemic — one that is eroding the core of our schools. Every year, over 1 million teachers enter and exit our classrooms, and in Los Angeles alone, 40-50% will leave the profession entirely within five years. This creates unstable...
By Guest Contributors | September 20, 2016
-
Commentary: Empowering teachers by reinserting their voices into the education space
By Jane Mayer and Jesse Soza, Ed.D. Two previous articles in this series, here and here, have detailed the enormity and the complexity of the teacher turnover problem in our country: more than 1 million teachers entering and exiting the classroom every year, and somewhere between 40 percent to 50 percent permanently exiting within five. This lack...
By Guest Contributors | August 30, 2016
-
Commentary: Why teachers are burning out — reimagining the American education system
By Jane Mayer and Jesse Soza, Ed.D. This is the second in a five-article series about teacher sustainability in Los Angeles and California public schools and the available solutions to reversing teacher turnover. Read the first article here. Teacher turnover, otherwise known as burnout, is a multi-faceted and complex problem currently plaguing the public education system...
By Guest Contributors | August 22, 2016
-
Commentary: LAUSD should reverse cuts to immersion program at Broadway Elementary
By Jennifer Pullen Tens of thousands of people, including Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Steve Zimmer, participated in a “walk-in” last week to show support for traditional public schools at a time when they are facing increasing pressure from — and loss of students to — charter and private operators. Staged in partnership with local and national...
By Guest Contributors | February 22, 2016
-
Commentary: LA Unified schools finding hope, help in ‘Circles’
By Araceli Morfín and Raúl Ruíz Tomorrow, the LAUSD school board will ratify the 2015-16 budget, along with the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), increasing an investment in restorative justice to $7.2 million from $4.2 million. This increase is timely, as the work of restorative justice has been immensely impactful in our LAUSD schools at...
By Guest Contributors | June 22, 2015
-
Commentary: A plea to the LAUSD board to make us all college ready
An open letter from four members of the Community Coalition Youth Leaders to the LA Unified school board, which is considering a resolution tomorrow from Mónica García and Steve Zimmer to enhance support for improving the district’s college-ready graduation rate. Dear Board Members: On behalf of the thousands of students in South Los Angeles, we...
By Guest Contributors | May 11, 2015