Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

New Ninth Street School Deserves Community, Business Support
Editorial: Amid all the Downtown development activity, one big-budget project has been frequently overlooked. The project is the Ninth Street Elementary School, which, like all Los Angeles Unified School District institutions, began classes on the ridiculously early date of Aug. 13. About 300 kindergarten through fifth grade students met their teachers that day. The school has been ignored by most Downtowners because of two things: its location and its past. LA Downtown News

At Charter Schools, Short Careers by Choice
As tens of millions of pupils across the country begin their school year, charter networks are developing what amounts to a youth cult in which teaching for two to five years is seen as acceptable and, at times, even desirable. Teachers in the nation’s traditional public schools have an average of close to 14 years of experience, and public school leaders and policy makers have long made it a priority to reduce teacher turnover. New York Times

How the public is deceived about ‘highly qualified teachers’
Editorial: Our federal government supports a practice of putting the least-prepared teachers in the highest-need classrooms — classrooms that are most often filled with children from low-income families, English language learners, students with disabilities and students of color. There are powerful players in the education reform world who are advocating for the Obama administration and Congress to maintain a federal policy that promotes this practice. Washington Post

---

Exercise in, junk food out at nation’s schools, CDC study finds
Increasing numbers of school districts nationwide have adopted policies to prohibit junk food sales, ban tobacco use during school events and require physical education classes in elementary grade levels, according to a major new study released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 2012 School Health Policies and Practices Study is the largest and most comprehensive survey yet to assess school health policies. EdSource