California accelerates shift in student testing In a major shift in how California’s 6.2 million public school students are taught and tested, state officials plan to drop the standardized exams used since 1999 and replace them with a computerized system next spring. The move would advance new learning goals, called the Common Core, which are...

More districts in L.A. County taking less punitive approach to truancy A growing number of school districts and public agencies in Los Angeles County have joined a campaign to take a less punitive and more holistic approach to truancy — and education officials insist it’s paying off. School officials from all over the county held...

If you’re not an online subscriber to the New York Times, you might want to max-out your free monthly quota (of ten stories) today. The Science Times section, entitled “Learning What Works,” focuses exclusively on education with a look “beyond the alarming headlines about science and math achievement.”  One article, “Fewer Topics, Covered More Rigorously” reports...

Nearly two-thirds of California voters said students should be tested in every grade to ensure that they are progressing, a new PACE/USC Rossier Poll shows. The strong majority contradicts calls in Sacramento to reduce standardized testing. The poll found that only 22 percent of voters said California should cut back on testing. “Most of the political...

In iPad Project, Key Need Emerges Los Angeles school officials are acknowledging a new looming cost in a $1-billion effort to provide iPads to every student: keyboards. Officials so far have not budgeted that expense, but they said the wireless keyboards are recommended for students when they take new state standardized tests. If keyboards were...

In shadow of March on DC, schools increasingly segregated in California Fifty years after the March on Washington, a major challenge facing California and the West in general is increasing segregation of black and Latino students, reviving a debate that Brown v Board of Education was supposed to resolve: whether it is possible to have...

 LAUSD launches its drive to equip every student with iPads Two local elementary schools became the first to roll out tablet computers Tuesday in a $1-billion effort to put iPads in the hands of every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District. For Broadacres, in Carson, the tablets were an exhilarating upgrade for a...