The Morning Read
Your Daily Roundup of LAUSD news from across the web | 10.05.21
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Analysis: We reviewed the school reopening plans for 106 districts around the country. Here’s how they square with reality

After tracking and detailing school systems’ reopening plans for months, and identifying a range of best practices and improvements from the spring, our research at the Center on Reinventing Public Education now turns to how districts are translating their plans into action. Perhaps as to be expected, districts’ already lackluster plans for the start of school...
By Robin Lake and Bree Dusseault | October 19, 2020
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Gray: Windows, movable walls & furniture, outdoor space — How flexible school design makes socially distanced education work in a pandemic

School districts with new projects or renovations underway are in a form of limbo. They don’t know if students will be there when the doors open or the ribbon is cut. They are reexamining designs they approved months ago, exploring whether environments will meet the requirements of a post-COVID world. We have several projects in...
By Kathryn Gray | October 15, 2020
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KIPP launches first-of-its-kind alumni network to help its 30K graduates with careers, mental health and finances

A first-of-its-kind alumni network for K-12 KIPP charter school graduates launches today, drawing on its unique national alumni base of 30,000 students that’s expected to grow to 80,000 by 2025. The National KIPP Alumni Network offers both alum-to-alum support as well as outside professional guidance. The three external players in the network programs, financed by California-based Crankstart...
By Richard Whitmire | October 14, 2020
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Students could have lost as much as 183 days of learning time in reading, 232 days in math during first four months of largely virtual schooling

The last time Deyanira Hooper’s son Jeremy took California’s state assessment, he was 15 points from meeting proficiency standards. But when schools closed last spring, his live instruction from a teacher dropped to 20 minutes every three days. Even though her fifth grader is now getting three hours of class on Zoom each day from...
By Linda Jacobson | October 13, 2020
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McCloud & Marigna: It’s not just about policing — 3 ideas for addressing systemic racism in our schools and communities

We are sitting at a historic crossroads as a country, and we have the opportunity to create a more just world for all Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic, the senseless murder of Black Americans by police and the resulting protests have forced a reckoning with the racism that’s embedded in our national DNA. Our systems have...
By Shennell McCloud and Vincent Marigna | October 9, 2020
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Analysis: How districts are trading traditional test scores for real-time data that can truly help students improve

As students return to learning this fall, they are going back in a variety of ways — in person, online or in some combination. This is creating issues for collecting and using education data consistently. While this is a challenge, it also presents an immense, and overdue, opportunity to move away from data like standardized...
By Jennifer Blatz | October 8, 2020
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Chávez: The federal government must provide financial help for public school students now, or we face losing an entire generation

School districts across the country are making the tough decision between in-person versus remote learning. Regardless of the path they choose, students are returning to a public school system more underfunded than at any time in recent memory. Direct federal support to state and local budgets is needed now more than ever as local school...
By Anna Maria Chávez | October 7, 2020
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‘Where are the rest of you?’ With as many as 600,000 students skipping kindergarten during the pandemic, districts plead with parents not to delay

Like many preschool parents last spring, Sara Mauskopf tried to keep her 4-year-old daughter, Bryn, interested in Zoom sessions with her classmates. “She didn’t hate it,” said Mauskopf. “Kids will just sit in front of the screen, but they’re not engaging and not getting much out of it.” With two younger siblings at home, Bryn...
By Linda Jacobson | October 6, 2020
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Barrett’s SCOTUS confirmation would give conservatives a supermajority on education issues from race-based admissions to school choice, but could create a ‘desert for equity,’ experts say

Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, is the product of a Catholic education who served as a trustee for a religious school participating in Indiana’s publicly-funded school choice program. The background of the conservative federal appeals judge could draw scrutiny at a time...
By Linda Jacobson | October 5, 2020
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Analysis: The pandemic has left students in foster care even more detached from classrooms and support systems. Here’s how LA educators and policymakers can help

The more than 7,000 youth in foster care in the Los Angeles Unified School District experience significant obstacles in receiving an uninterrupted, quality education. A student in foster care is likely to encounter multiple, overlapping agencies, programs, and service providers when moving schools, especially if crossing district or county lines. And their academic and health...
By Hailly Korman and Justin Trinidad | October 1, 2020