For decades, stereotypical homeschoolers have been white Christian families seeking to mix their children’s education with moral values. But in recent years, the demographics of homeschool families and the reasons they are choosing to teach their kids at home have grown more diverse. These days, homeschool parents are more likely to cite a negative school...

While LA Unified continues to drive toward higher and higher graduation rates, district data provided to LA School Report show that more than half of last year’s graduates were not eligible for admission into California’s public universities. Of the Class of 2016’s 26,806 graduates, 47 percent received a C or better in all of their...

AltSchool, a four-year-old network of independent schools, has a dream of growing so that millions of students nationwide can use its personalized learning technology — and it’s starting by adding five executives from charter schools, public school districts, and the tech sector to its team, it announced Thursday morning. “This is a big moment for...

A charter school that was repeatedly denied classroom space in its neighborhood by LA Unified is giving up the fight and will close in June. Westchester Secondary Charter School has operated in three sites during its four years and has never been granted district space in the west side community where its founding families and...

It’s a common refrain in education that research isn’t used wisely, or at all, to inform policy. As states have to redesign their accountability systems under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the new federal K-12 law, policymakers have the opportunity anew to use evidence to help guide their decisions. That was the topic of...

As many as 17 LA Unified schools could be impacted by California’s bullet train, district officials reported Tuesday. The high-speed rail line, which was just approved last month to begin work in the Central Valley, is intended to take riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Depending on its route,...

State Assemblyman Tony Thurmond on Monday announced he will run for state superintendent of public instruction in 2018, setting up a fight between Northern and Southern California as well as a union vs. reform battle. Thurmond vowed to fight the agenda of President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and to secure more funding...

For one more day, the nation gets to continue its escape from world events via the thrills of March Madness. While important issues of governance have been tying Congress and the Trump administration into knots, a wide cross section of the population has been preoccupied instead with the Sweet Sixteen and the Final Four, fixating...

John King didn’t have long. It was October 2015, and Arne Duncan announced he would step down as President Barack Obama’s education secretary. Obama tapped King, a K-12 adviser at the federal Education Department with years of classroom and government experience, to fill the vacancy. In only about a year in the job, King, among...

Kiersten Franz has a bachelor’s degree in math, a master’s in education, and several years’ teaching experience under her belt — excellent qualifications, presumably, for becoming a New York City high school statistics teacher. But her record wasn’t quite good enough to meet New York state’s stringent licensure requirements. Because her training was out-of-state and...