By Marshall Tuck This year, we have a chance to help students and protect taxpayers across California, and I hope we don’t miss it. The California State Legislature is currently considering whether to ban for-profit charter schools. Educators — whether at district or charter public schools — can agree: public schools must serve students, not shareholders....

By Mike Antonucci The California Teachers Association is not only on the opposite coast from the New York State United Teachers, it is on the opposite side of the financial ledger. While NYSUT battles budget deficits and cumbersome staff pension debt, CTA has loads of cash, consistent budget surpluses, net assets of more than $300 million,...

By Andrew Rotherham and Kaitlin Pennington It’s an education policy only TurboTax could love. Trying to find and keep teachers in California, legislators there are sponsoring the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act. The bill’s idea is straightforward: eliminate income tax for teachers. Really, who could be against that? Specifically, the bill would exempt teachers who remain...

Note: SB 304 is scheduled to be heard Tuesday, April 18.  This column originally appeared at AheadOfTheHeard.org By Hailly Korman Last month, I gave testimony before the California Senate Education Committee on SB 304, a state bill to define the required elements of an education transition plan for a student leaving a juvenile court school and returning...

By Seth Litt “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin For more than a year, families from Parent Revolution’s Parent Power Network have voiced their concerns about the direction of California’s school accountability system. They’ve met with legislators, taken multiple overnight bus...

By Stephanie Kozofsky On a recent field trip, Paola told me that she has not seen her parents in four years. A senior, Paola has a 3.4 GPA, is on the flag football team and the varsity soccer team, and is taking a college course after school. Her love for this school, her education, and...

By Phylis Hoffman I was glad when I received tenure in LAUSD. I was also surprised. As a new teacher in LAUSD, I had no idea I was under evaluation for tenure until that moment. Suddenly, the code on my paycheck changed, notifying me I’d been granted the permanent status known as tenure. I’d been...

By Marco Petruzzi In today’s world of frenzied news alerts from the D.C. bubble, speculation about the new administration and persisting education debates make it easy to forget that out here in the real world, education leaders and local communities are quietly moving forward adapting new federal guidelines designed to help ensure access to a quality...