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Teacher Spotlight: Rosalie Reyes celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month by creating Central American curriculum to bring that rich culture, history to the classroom

This interview is one in a series spotlighting Los Angeles teachers, their unique and innovative classroom approaches, and their thoughts on how the education system can better support teachers in guiding students to success. Rosalie Reyes has always been proud of her Latin origin. Her parents are from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, but...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 2, 2019
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Challenging charter critics, new study finds that as sector enrollment grows, so do test scores for black and Hispanic students

What happens to traditional school districts when charter schools come to town? Do they offer families new, high-quality educational options and help spread better teaching techniques? Or do they represent unwanted competition, swiping students and funding from districts until academic performance begins to suffer? It’s a debate that divides much of the education community and...
By Kevin Mahnken | September 30, 2019
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After school, students are ‘playing the whole game’ in activities from drama to sports to debate. Backers of project-based learning ask: Why can’t all of education look like this?

In 2013, attorneys at the California Innocence Project, weighed down by a backlog of casework, turned for help to an unusual group: humanities students at High Tech High Chula Vista, a nearby charter school. The students, all juniors, trained on a past case handled by the San Diego nonprofit, which reviews pleas from prisoners who...
By Greg Toppo | September 30, 2019
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Teacher Spotlight: Sylvan Park’s early ed teacher Diego López on exposing preschoolers to technology without limits

This interview is one in a series spotlighting Los Angeles teachers, their unique and innovative classroom approaches, and their thoughts on how the education system can better support teachers in guiding students to success. Diego López has been part of the Los Angeles Unified School District since he began his education in a Head Start...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | September 25, 2019
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Americans view principals positively, according to Pew study comparing school leaders to lawmakers, journalists, tech execs

A majority of Americans hold a positive view of K-12 public school principals, who are typically seen as caring and trustworthy. How about tech executives, journalists and members of Congress? Not so much. A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday found that Americans hold mixed views about the job performance of people in positions of power,...
By Mark Keierleber | September 24, 2019
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California is the country’s largest school textbook market. Now EdReports is disrupting the industry by putting teachers in charge of selecting course materials

In early 2011, when Maryland and other states were adopting the Common Core State Standards, teachers in the Baltimore City Public Schools were starting to grumble. “The materials in a lot of districts fell woefully short of the new standards,” said Sonja Santelises, now Baltimore’s superintendent. “[I was] hearing classroom teachers rightly point out that...
By Brendan Lowe | September 23, 2019
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Millions of students are chronically absent each year. Improve school conditions and more kids will show up, report argues

An obvious educational rule of thumb is that in order for students to learn at school, they first have to show up. But with millions of children counted “chronically absent” each year, a new report argues that educators can improve attendance by first making their schools more welcoming places to attend. The report, released Tuesday...
By Mark Keierleber | September 23, 2019
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California has voted to expand its ban on “willful defiance” suspensions. A look at how an even more expansive 2013 reform has played out in L.A. Unified

Updated and corrected, Sept. 20 As California this month expanded a statewide ban on suspending younger students for defiant behavior, lessons on how this increasingly sweeping school discipline reform may play out can be found in Los Angeles, which barred such suspensions on an even broader scale six years ago. Previously in California, “willful defiance”...
By Taylor Swaak | September 18, 2019
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As schools diversify, principals remain mostly white — and 5 other things we learned this summer about America’s school leaders

While kids were running through sprinklers and eating popsicles this summer, a handful of education researchers crunched the numbers about their principals. Reports released this summer offer new insight into America’s school principals, from their racial diversity to how turnover affects student achievement. The new papers add to a growing body of research about principals...
By Laura Fay | September 16, 2019
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Teacher Spotlight: Alliance’s Guillermo Lopez on setting higher expectations in math for low-performing students and convincing their teachers that excellence is possible

This interview is one in a series spotlighting Los Angeles teachers, their unique and innovative classroom approaches, and their thoughts on how the education system can better support teachers in guiding students to success. Guillermo Lopez has one expectation for all his students, including the ones with the most challenges to learn, and that is...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | September 16, 2019