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Silicon Valley-funded startup AltSchool ends management of its private lab schools but invests in growing national network of partner schools

The education startup AltSchool, founded in 2013 by two Silicon Valley alumni, has announced that it’s breaking from the chain of four private microschools it operates in the Bay Area and New York City. The schools are known for their tiny class sizes and emphasis on “student-centered learning,” which tailors curriculum to each individual student’s...
By Noble Ingram | July 9, 2019
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Antonucci: NEA rejects many California delegation proposals for its national agenda
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. The National Education Association held its annual Representative Assembly in Houston last week. Six thousand delegates, representing teachers and education support workers in every state, met to debate and vote on the national union’s budget and agenda for the 2019-20 school year. The delegation from the California...
By Mike Antonucci | July 9, 2019
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Lawmakers are trying to end a weird quirk of California’s charter school sector. Here’s why the state is so unusual

California legislators are considering a change to education law that would address a peculiar and controversial feature of the state’s charter school sector. The proposed fix is dredging up long-standing issues around how the state permits and oversees schools of choice. At present, California school districts have the option to authorize charter schools that don’t...
By Kevin Mahnken | July 8, 2019
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Controversial bill that would make local districts sole authorizers of charter schools moves to a public hearing in the California Senate

A controversial charter school regulation moving through the California legislature will take its next step Wednesday when the state Senate Education Committee holds a public hearing that’s expected to draw crowds of supporters and opponents of the state’s large charter school sector. Assembly Bill 1505 would grant local districts sole authority to approve or deny...
By Noble Ingram | July 8, 2019
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Commentary: With SB 614, California is in danger of going backward on literacy and teacher qualifications
Children do not just figure out how to read on their own because the human brain is not wired to read. We know that children can learn how to talk naturally by being talked to, by being surrounded by speech. The same is not true of reading. Scientific research has repeatedly shown that the reading...
By Ruth Green | July 2, 2019
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LAUSD Superintendent Beutner relieved as Supreme Court blocks census question on citizenship, says district faced potential loss of $20 million

Education advocates were hopeful but still concerned after the Supreme Court ruled the Trump Administration — for now — cannot add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. “The Supreme Court’s decision to not include the citizenship question in the 2020 census is the right thing for public education,” L.A. Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner said in a...
By Carolyn Phenicie | June 28, 2019
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New teacher survey shows many educators report feeling satisfied in their job — but undervalued by their community

Teachers in the United States work long hours and feel undervalued by the public — but like their jobs anyway. Those findings, from an international education survey released this month, offer fodder for all sides of a debate about teacher pay and working conditions that is mobilizing teachers to protest across the country. The Teaching and Learning...
By Mark Keierleber | June 26, 2019
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Coming soon: School-level spending data, courtesy of ESSA. Here are 5 things states must focus on when creating their new report cards

Plenty of very smart people have written about how, despite policy efforts to funnel resources to the students who need the most support, like English learners and kids who are raised in lower-income households, it doesn’t always work out that way. At times, district leaders may not even be aware that the way they’re spreading...
By Brennan McMahon Parton | June 26, 2019
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Charters, child care and more: 5 ways education could come up at the Democratic debates

Education, an issue that has been pushed to the sidelines in recent presidential cycles, is getting some more attention in the early days of the 2020 contest. Mentions of universal pre-K and college affordability are practically stump-speech mandates. Teachers unions, riding a high of public support after successful strikes last year, have deep pockets and...
By Carolyn Phenicie | June 25, 2019
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Antonucci: One year later, it’s clear — the Janus effect is not yet what either side had hoped for, or feared
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public-sector unions could no longer charge representation fees to nonmembers. The decision in Janus v. AFSCME was expected to have an immediate explosive effect. Unions had argued before the court that the loss of fees would be devastating,...
By Mike Antonucci | June 25, 2019