Parent-trigger efforts: At a crossroads? A standstill? A dead end? Parent-trigger campaigns have spurred changes at six schools in southern California, only one of which involved a full charter school conversion. Every successful parent union had the backing of the Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution, the nonprofit group formed to promote the law, teach parents how...

Program helps L.A. County foster youths become high school grads A program in Los Angeles County has been aiming to reverse against aspirant graduates living in the foster care system. It began as a pilot program in Supervisor Gloria Molina’s Eastside district in 2008 and expanded countywide two years ago. Under the initiative, a group...

Charter schools’ $100,000 opposition helps sink district’s bond measure Earlier this month, and for the first time, the political arm of the California Charter Schools Association campaigned heavily against a proposed school construction bond in a district that hadn’t agreed to share the proceeds with charter schools. EdSource One more push for pesticide control on...

Via KQED News | By John Meyers The safe money, so to speak, in California politics for years has been that voters are usually happy to approve long-term government borrowing. In some ways, it has seemed like free money. But in the post-recession era, where debt has become a political hot potato and the incumbent...

Report: Economic prosperity relies on boosting immigrant education Home to one-quarter of the nation’s immigrants and a top-destination for incoming refugees, California must significantly improve educational outcomes for immigrant youth if the state – and the nation – are to stay economically competitive, according to a new report. EdSource Appeals tie up teacher misconduct cases...

State school bond faces critical vote today With a key committee vote set for today on legislation that would place a $9 billion, statewide school facilities bond on the November ballot, one group backing the proposal is already nearly a third of the way toward reaching its campaign finance goal of $1.6 million. The fate...

The LA Unified School Board will conduct a special meeting today starting at 2 p.m. That agenda is here, with the supporting materials available here. Then, starting at 3 p.m., the board will hear 30 public comment speakers on the topic of the District’s Final Budget and the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). That agenda is here,...

Gov. Jerry Brown and the the California legislature reached a deal on a $108 billion budget for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Here, as examined by John Fensterwald of EdSource, are some of the major education components: Proposition 98: $60.8 billion for K-12 schools and community colleges in 2014-15 through Proposition 98, the voter-approved school funding...

New child care spending a good first step Child care funding included in the final state budget adds thousands of new slots and restores reimbursement rates, but still leaves California nearly 40 percent short of the monies it provided for those programs prior to the recession. The $264 million Fair Start proposal aims to invest...

Via Sacramento Bee | By Evelyn Alemán Macias “Maybe you’re just not good at math. Some people are good at some things, and others aren’t. Maybe math isn’t your thing.” Those were the words my child, Julia Macias, heard from her second-grade teacher at a San Fernando Valley elementary school when she struggled to learn new math...