Morning Read: LAUSD board to consider more computer science
LA School Report | March 3, 2014
Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.
L.A. school board to consider expansion of computer science offerings
An initiative to address the shortage of computer science offerings in the L.A. Unified School District will go before the school board Tuesday. Only one-in-three of the district’s high schools are offering a basic course this year, and far fewer are offering the Advanced Placement Computer Science course. KPCC
Boyle Heights school protests district’s decision to move campus
When Catherine Aleman and Ana Renteria learned that L.A. Unified might move or close their small school in East Los Angeles, they did what the Academy of Environmental and Social Policy had taught them to do: They tried to make a difference and organized a protest. LA Times
Eli Broad appoints head of philanthropic education efforts
After more than a decade of directly overseeing $1 billion in education reform grants from his non-profit foundation, philanthropist Eli Broad is grooming a replacement. He’s hired Bruce Reed, a high profile Washington political operative who spent decades in the halls of power. KPCC
New all-digital curriculums hope to ride high-tech push
English language curriculums built entirely on a digital platform — replacing written textbooks, worksheets or printed study guides — are about to enter the market from several companies, with promises that they will change the nature of classroom learning across the country. New York Times
Why teaching art to our children matters
Commentary: The reality is that Obama is not alone in revealing an attitude that marginalizes the significance of the arts when compared to “more serious” priorities. In recent years, as school funding in CA has been drastically reduced, that attitude meant that arts education programs were often the first to be cut. Sacramento Bee
About 3.5 hours of homework a day for high schoolers? That’s too much.
Commentary: A poll of public school teachers finds that on average, high school students are assigned 3.5 hours of homework per weeknight, or more than 17 hours a week. Or that’s the teachers’ perspective, anyway. If that’s how it actually plays out, it strikes me as too much by far. LA Times