This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. A few months ago, a high school English teacher in Los Angeles Unified noticed something different about his students’ tests. Students who had struggled all semester were suddenly getting A’s. He suspected some were cheating, but he couldn’t figure out how. Until a...

This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter Only a few months into Rosie Leyva’s job as a literacy specialist at Butler Academic Center, Alameda County’s juvenile hall school, she learned that success looks different for each student. One student could not write his name. Over three sessions, which turned out to...

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. At CART High near Fresno, there is no gum stuck to the floor. The saffron-yellow walls are unmarred by graffiti. Toting laptops, students file calmly down spacious, light-filled hallways to classes like biotechnology and digital marketing. There’s no fighting, no shouting, no bells....

This story was originally published from EdSource Four Head Start programs serving nearly 1,000 of California’s most vulnerable children will not receive their annual federal funding on Saturday because of the U.S. government shutdown. One of the programs has already closed temporarily. Losing Head Start programs could be a one-two punch for low-income families who...

They are two LAUSD schools just a mile apart. Yet in many ways Canfield Avenue Elementary School and Shenandoah Elementary School in the Beverlywood and Reynier Village neighborhoods of Los Angeles are worlds apart.  Canfield’s student body is 46% white, while Shenandoah is 95% Black and Hispanic. Canfield has a pass rate of 77% on...

This story was originally published on CalMatters. Almost 20 years ago a San Diego nonprofit created a preschool to focus on the “little guys” — children who experience domestic violence and other serious traumatic events before kindergarten. Today, Mi Escuelita is still going strong and it’s something of a model in showing other schools how...

This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter. When students walk into Gina Gray’s English classroom in Middle College High School on any given testing day, she greets them with encouragement: “Tap into your genius. You have it,” Gray reminds the 11th graders. “Just do your best. … All we can ask...

This story was originally published on EdSource A new survey paints a difficult but optimistic picture of California’s youth.  About 94% of young people in the state said they experience regular mental health challenges — up from 87% in 2023, with one-third reporting their mental health as “fair” or “poor,” according to a new report by Blue Shield...

This story was originally published on EdSource. The Los Angeles Unified School District’s school board approved a new employment agreement for Superintendent Alberto Carvalho at Tuesday’s board meeting, weeks after unanimously reappointing him.  Carvalho said during the Sept. 17 meeting that he would not accept any salary increases or additional benefits, and the agreement approved by the board...

One in four young adults across the U.S. is functionally illiterate – yet more than half earned high school diplomas, according to recently released data. The number of 16-to-24 year olds reading at the lowest literacy levels increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, according to data released in December from the National...