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In shadow of March on DC, schools increasingly segregated in California
Fifty years after the March on Washington, a major challenge facing California and the West in general is increasing segregation of black and Latino students, reviving a debate that Brown v Board of Education was supposed to resolve: whether it is possible to have “separate but equal” schools. Echoing his remarks is a report issued this week by the Economic Policy Institute lamenting the increasing educational isolation of black students nationally. EdSource
Making room for charter students
Editorial: When voters passed Proposition 39 in 2000, they surely had no idea of the headaches it would cause Los Angeles schools. Most Californians probably never even noticed the wording about providing space for charter schools, and if they did, they had little idea of what a charter school was. The chief purpose of the measure was to allow school bonds to pass with 55% of the vote rather than the two-thirds supermajority required up to that point. Schools were falling apart and classrooms were so tightly packed that many campuses operated on year-round, multitrack schedules. By making it easier to pass school bonds, Proposition 39 literally changed the school landscape. LA Times
LAUSD: Students Can’t Take School-Issued iPads Home
The Los Angeles Unified School District’s plan to equip each of its students with an iPad has hit a snag, families too poor to afford a broadband connection. Steve Reneker who heads LA’s Information Technology Agency says parents of about 30 percent of LAUSD students can’t afford a $40 a month or more broadband connection at home. KABC
Students struggle with healthy options in short lunch periods
“A student can eat a cup of apple sauce in no time — you can practically drink that. But chewing through an apple takes a lot longer,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokeswoman for the School Nutrition Association, a national advocacy organization. “If we want our students to eat more salads, fruits and vegetables, we need to give them more time to consume them.” Bakersfield Californian
Study Finds Childhood Bullying Damages Long-term Health and Wealth
A new study reveals that childhood bullying casts a long shadow on health and wealth in one’s adult life, and also indicates long-term negative consequences for job prospects and relationships. As BBC News reports, the study, which tracked more than 1,400 people between the ages of nine and 26, found that school bullies were also more likely to grow up into adult criminals. EdNews
Five bad education assumptions the media keeps recycling
Editorial: It very rarely happens that the cover of The New York Times Book Review, which represents some of the most prestigious intellectual real estate in the United States, is given over to a discussion about education. When that does happen, as it did last Sunday, it becomes clear why “school reform” just perpetuates and intensifies the education status quo. A certain ideology, along with a set of empirical assumptions, underlies most conversations about education in this country, most of what actually happens in schools, and most proposals for change. Washington Post