Two major players in K–12 education launched a joint effort last month to develop new assessments that could help shift schools’ focus away from traditional “seat time” requirements and toward more accurate measures of mastery over academic content. The new tests, to be created by the Educational Testing Service and the Carnegie Foundation for the...

Twenty kindergartners at Los Angeles Unified’s Coeur d’Alene Avenue School sit on a multi-colored carpet, listening to their teacher present the day’s math lesson. Projected on the whiteboard are clip art images of a gold coin and a pot of gold against a rainbow background. St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and the...

The nation’s public pre-K programs saw a rebound last year as enrollment nearly reached pre-pandemic levels, new data shows. Thirty-two percent of 4-year-olds attended a state-funded program in the 2021-22 school year — up from 28% the year before, when the National Institute for Early Education Research, which publishes the annual “yearbook,” reported that COVID had “erased”...

Catholic Church leaders in Oklahoma could within weeks get the go-ahead to create the nation’s first explicitly religious, taxpayer-supported charter school. And while a few charter and school choice leaders are quietly supporting the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, seeing it as a watershed moment for religious freedom, others are saying, in...

Los Angeles has been shaken recently by a series of crimes and other dangerous or deadly incidents at local schools. The situation is drawing high-level attention. “In the past two weeks, we’ve seen near-death overdoses at an LAUSD middle school, the death of a mother and critical injury of her child as they walked to school, and...

Three years and counting since the pandemic shuttered schools and tethered students to their laptops, new data shows that enrollment in the vast majority of the nation’s largest school districts has yet to recover. Kindergarten counts continue to dwindle in many states — evidence of falling birth rates and an ever-growing array of options luring...

As America’s schools continue to face mounting teacher shortages — particularly in low-income communities and crucial subject areas like special education — it’s encouraging to see long-needed legislation like the American Teacher Act and the Pay Teachers Act, which seek to raise the salaries of K-12 educators to at least $60,000. Either bill would be a major step forward in addressing the worrying...

For LAUSD student Delilah Brumer, journalism was not all that appealing — until a series of events tested her and her classmates, revealing the power of the pen and the press. Delilah’s reporting in her community and school led to her selection as California’s 2023 Student Journalist of the Year. Last month, Delilah was recognized...

Every parent, no matter race, background, or neighborhood, wants their children to thrive. We do our very best to meet their physical and emotional needs and protect them from pain. But if the last few years have taught us anything, it is that there are some things we cannot control. Despite our best efforts, our...

Eighth graders’ knowledge of both history and civics fell significantly between 2018 and 2022, according to the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Federal officials called the decline an ominous sign for America’s civic culture, with U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona criticizing some states for “banning history books and censoring educators.”...