By Richard Whitmire Without a doubt, pro-charter school forces took a beating over the past year. There was a big setback in Georgia, and the Massachusetts vote on allowing charters to expand was nothing short of a money-losing, brutish beatdown. Things only worsened with the election of Donald Trump and his appointment of the wildly...

By Seth Litt On Wednesday, May 17, Los Angeles families woke up to a new reality for education in the nation’s second-largest school district. Voters in two Los Angeles Unified school board districts voted resoundingly for change, electing two young progressive educators — both of them either current or former teachers — as our newest school board...

By Ramon Altamirano I was already a freshman at Cal State Northridge before I realized that my schools had failed me. It was apparent, very quickly, that the prior 12 years of my education had not been on par with that of my classmates. Other students had come to their higher learning with the academic...

By Nadia Diaz Funn The Alliance for a Better Community (ABC), an advocacy organization committed to the advancement of the Los Angeles Latino community, congratulates Kelly Gonez and Nick Melvoin on their election to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. With a long, exhausting, and divisive campaign season now behind us, this...

(Note: This article first appeared on La Comadre and Education Post) By Chris Bertelli When the ballots were finally tallied in the early morning hours on Wednesday, those of us who work for educational equity in California’s public schools had reason to celebrate. After an expensive, hard-fought campaign, two political newcomers – Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez – were...

By Evelyn Aleman Macias As a Los Angeles Unified School District parent, school volunteer, and a member of the district’s Parent Advisory Council for the Local Control Funding Formula, I’m often dismayed by the ongoing rift between charter and non-charter school advocates. The issue seems to become even more of a focal point during elections,...

By Karin Kroener-Valdivia It’s National Charter Schools Week, and I’m remembering my first experience at a charter school. Fifteen years ago, after my fourth year of teaching in LA, I was burned out, exhausted from having my track constantly change and from moving rooms during the day without a classroom of my own. I came...

By Martin Capuchino This week is National Charter Schools Week, and though many of Los Angeles’ public charter schools serve children of color, the inaccurate dissemination of information regarding charter schools and traditional schools creates confusion in many communities — especially communities of color. During the summer of 2016, a group of students and I...