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California lawmakers consider softening proposed crackdown on medical exemptions from vaccines amid protests, concerns from governor about overstepping parents
Confronting a national measles outbreak, California lawmakers this week are mulling how to tighten the state’s already-strict vaccine policy for students while balancing parental rights. State Sen. Richard Pan, a pediatrician representing Sacramento, on Tuesday announced changes to legislation he previously unveiled intending to stop unnecessary exemptions from mandatory immunizations. According to a statement from Pan’s...
By Laura Fay | June 18, 2019
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Antonucci: 650,000 x $54,144 = ? California’s teacher retirement system by the numbers
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. You can’t get very far in the public education policy debate without coming across the pension issue. School districts are seeing a greater portion of their budgets going toward covering their obligations to retired employees. The fiscal pinch makes negotiating with current employees even more...
By Mike Antonucci | June 18, 2019
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Teacher’s perspective: Looking for a low-stress cure for overparenting that’s good for children too? Let your kids travel independently
Helicopter parenting may seem like a faddish term that applies only to those who would do their child’s homework or sit out a detention on their behalf, but the rise of what psychologists call “overparenting” has become so pervasive that education experts have labeled it a crisis. While researchers and commentators tend to be aligned...
By Wendy W. Amato | June 17, 2019
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Even after ‘historic’ federal spending, today’s child care system serves only 1 in 6 eligible kids. Now Congress might approve billions more to stem the crisis
U.S. child care is widely seen as being in crisis. It’s costly, in many states more expensive than college tuition, and hard for parents to find. Workers in the field receive low wages, leaving many eligible for public assistance. And the programs available for many families are often not up to the quality standards that...
By Carolyn Phenicie | June 17, 2019
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Commentary: After the rejection of the parcel tax, how we can all convince Los Angeles voters to reinvest in public education
We know that Los Angeles voters believe in the importance of education. In 2002, nearly 64% of voters approved Measure K, which authorized $3.35 billion for school repairs and renovations. Six years later, voters overwhelmingly approved Measure Q, the largest local school bond in state history that allocated $7 billion for facilities. Additionally, Angelenos voted...
By Layla Avila, Katie Braude, Alex M. Johnson, Seth Litt and Ana Ponce | June 14, 2019
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‘Voters are tired of you’: A week after parcel tax defeat, LAUSD parents rail at district leaders during 2019-20 budget hearing
*Updated June 17 Parents blasted L.A. Unified officials at a school board hearing this week — one even bursting into tears — offering an angry glimpse into the fractured trust between the community and the district just one week after voters overwhelmingly rejected a new parcel tax. Many of the more than 20 speakers at Tuesday’s...
By Taylor Swaak | June 13, 2019
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With new report from state task force, pressure mounts on Gov. Newsom to break silence on pending legislation that would restrict charter schools
*Corrected June 20 After three months of meetings, the California charter school task force has released its much-anticipated report, raising questions about the future of legislation that could reshape the state’s growing charter school landscape. The report, sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, outlined four unanimously supported recommendations revising the authorizing process for new...
By Noble Ingram | June 12, 2019
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Antonucci: LA Unified & UTLA like to cite school funding in NY and CA when crying poverty. They’re just playing a numbers game
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Voters in the Los Angeles Unified School District last week rejected a parcel tax designed to raise $500 million annually for district operations. Needing a two-thirds majority to pass, Measure EE failed to receive 46 percent of the vote. The measure had the support of...
By Mike Antonucci | June 12, 2019
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The truth about school equity: Expert Rucker Johnson reflects on how integration helped black students — and why California must do a better job in giving every family access to high-quality early education
Most Americans believe that after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, everyone tried their best to integrate schools and it just didn’t work. But that’s a myth, professor Rucker Johnson argues in a new book. Johnson in his new book “Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works” argues that integration did improve...
By Carolyn Phenicie | June 11, 2019
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Analysis: From Los Angeles to New York City to Anchorage, it’s time for all of us to start minding the school quality ‘performance gap’
Every parent knows that school quality and student performance can vary widely in any given city. That’s why families look closely at the school quality in the neighborhoods they’re considering when they’re planning to move. What’s less understood is how cities across the country rank in terms of providing consistently good public schools and educational...
By Marcus A. Winters | June 11, 2019