For a moment, the issues seemed insurmountable. Some 150 parent activists, all strong-willed veterans of battles with their respective education establishments, were gathered in a New Orleans hotel ballroom trying to hammer out statements of joint belief. It was important to arrive at precise wording, the organizers running the meeting told them, because the statement...

Do the presidential candidates understand what it will take to ensure our public education system serves all students? It’s hard to know because they haven’t said enough in debates and other public sessions, so far, about how they plan to improve public education. We know they agree with us that increased funding is necessary and...

With the 2020 presidential primaries about to kick off in Iowa, a new poll shows that a majority of voters are less likely to support candidates who want to eliminate federal charter school funding. The results of the sixth annual poll, conducted for the American Federation for Children, an organization that advocates for school choice,...

As the Democratic presidential hopefuls release campaign promises to woo America’s K-12 educators — a key voting bloc — teachers feel left in the dark on major policy conversations, a new survey revealed. Just a third of educators said their perspectives are considered a “great deal” in teachers union policy decisions, and the numbers fall...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. The California Teachers Association has made the passage of a split-roll property tax initiative its top priority for 2020, allocating an initial investment of $6 million for the campaign. But three months into signature-gathering to place the measure on the November ballot, the union is...

This month marks a notable milestone for L.A. Unified: For the first time in more than two decades, it’s now in full control of its special education system. Until this month, the nation’s second-largest school district had unique court-ordered mandates to improve and expand services for its nearly 62,000 special education students, stemming from a 1996...

The Rust Belt city of Rochester in upstate New York has the most economically segregating school district border in the country, walling off the high-poverty education system from its affluent neighbors next door, according to a new report. About half the children in Rochester live in poverty, many of whom struggle to get adequate food,...

A first-of-its-kind study found mixed evidence that a type of reform meant to improve the odds that college students graduate is truly effective. The researchers homed in on corequisite courses, an instructional model that allows students to skip remedial math and English courses and instead take college-level, or gateway, classes with additional instructional support. The...

Nearly 60 percent of children in L.A. County have at least one immigrant parent, according to a new report by the USC Center for Immigrant Integration which highlights deep disparities in education and the workforce among Latino and black immigrants. The report, “State of Immigrants in LA County” and the challenges faced by immigrant students...

L.A. Unified schools on Wednesday opened as normal with communities still processing an emergency jet fuel dump the day prior that inflicted minor injuries on dozens of adults and children across six schools — five of them elementary schools. “We came out and we were playing, and the airplane was outside and we thought it...