By Kaitlin Pennington Yesterday, my Bellwether Education Partners colleague Andy Rotherham wrote on this blog that “as long as the Democrats don’t burn the place down, it’s going to be hard for them to have a worse convention than the GOP just did.” Well, it came close. The Democratic National Convention delegates didn’t seem to get...

By Rachel Uranga School children and parents living near the single largest source of pollution in Southern California were promised air-cleaning filters in classrooms nearly four years ago – but many never saw them. In 2012, the Port of Long Beach signed a deal to give Long Beach Unified School District $4 million to install...

U.S. issues federal guidelines to prevent discrimination against students with ADHD The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidelines aimed at preventing schools from discriminating against the growing numbers of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In a letter to school districts and a “know your rights” document to be posted on its website Tuesday,...

At the final panel of the “Promising Practices” forum held all day Saturday, participants called for an arbiter at the district level who could step in to help solve disputes at schools sharing campuses. The panel discussion was titled “Leading the Way with Collaboration and Sharing of Promising Practices: Perspectives from the Field” and included three sets of principals...

LA Unified School Board President Steve Zimmer offered a rousing speech at Saturday’s “Promising Practices” forum that was praised by charter leaders because of his inclusiveness. “We understand that a narrative that blames charter schools for all that is wrong in public education may serve short-term organizing goals but is counterproductive and doesn’t help every...

As those inside the district voice a repeated refrain that declining enrollment will likely plunge LA Unified into bankruptcy, new data show it still attracted nearly the same number of kindergarten students last year as it had nine years earlier when it had 133,000 more students overall. The data come as a surprise amid declining enrollment as the county’s...

Long before Donald J. Trump came one election away from becoming the most powerful man on Earth, he played at being the most powerful man at P.S. 70 in the Bronx. Memories of Trump’s tone-deaf “Principal for a Day” performance at the poor New York City elementary school — where he offered to buy a select group of kids...

As the country’s electoral sweepstakes moves a few hundred miles east from Cleveland to Philadelphia, where Democrats are set to nominate Hillary Clinton, discussions of policy look to become more substantive. Unlike Trump, Clinton has a substantial education record – during the campaign, she released detailed proposals on home visits and the school-to-prison pipeline. She recently addressed...

California needs not just more teachers but more master teachers California is trying to increase both the quantity of teachers and the quality of teaching. However, we should be wary about just expanding the pipeline of teachers. What we also need is a different kind of teacher.  By Derek Mitchell, EdSource Experts say schools must...

LA Unified’s district schools and independent charters enroll nearly the same percentage of students with disabilities after five years of gains by charters, a new report shows. But cooperation between nearly 100 of LA Unified’s 221 charters and the district could slide into chaos if the LA Unified school board decides not to continue a...