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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
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Q&A with Ryan Smith on what it will take to close the achievement gap in California’s schools

Closing the achievement gap has become one of the most critical educational challenges in California. As part of state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond’s new initiative to close that gap, he has created a working group to look closely at schools throughout the state that have shown success in improving outcomes for African-Americans, Latinos...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | June 10, 2019
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Mónica García: New ‘Everyone Counts’ resolution will break down data for L.A.’s diverse Asian student body & battle the model-minority myth
I know what it is like for a whole community to feel invisible. Before I began my service on the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education in 2006 as just the third Latina elected in 155 years, questions about whether Latino/a students could succeed academically were answered only by assumptions due to our lack...
By Mónica García | June 10, 2019
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Research shows that charter schools do best for California’s low-income and minority students. Now state officials are considering slowing their expansion

Updated California’s years-long debate over school choice has taken a decisive turn over the first few months of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s tenure — and the shift has come at the expense of charter schools. In February, Newsom convened a panel of experts to investigate whether charters siphon funding from school districts. The next month, he...
By Kevin Mahnken | June 9, 2019
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After parcel tax defeat, Los Angeles city and school leaders vow to keep fighting for funding for kids

One day after voters overwhelmingly rejected a $500 million-a-year parcel tax, Los Angeles city and school leaders sent a message to voters: We’ve heard your concerns. And we’re going to keep fighting to fund our schools. “This is just the beginning of our fight,” Superintendent Austin Beutner said as he launched into Wednesday’s news conference....
By Taylor Swaak | June 5, 2019
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Los Angeles voters roundly defeat parcel tax, leaving LAUSD on shaky financial footing

*Updated June 5 Los Angeles voters decisively defeated a parcel tax that would have sent $500 million a year to schools, according to unofficial results by the county registrar. Measure EE, which would have charged residents within L.A. Unified boundaries 16 cents per square foot of developed property for 12 years, fell more than 20...
By Taylor Swaak | June 5, 2019
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Antonucci: California Teachers Association’s strategic plan — how’s it doing?
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Back in 2014, the California Teachers Association generated a long-term strategic plan. Titled “Our Union, Our Future,” it described eight broad goals, including community engagement and coalition building, organizing unrepresented education workers and “transforming our profession.” In April, CTA assembled a working group of union officers, representatives...
By Mike Antonucci | June 4, 2019