Eighty-six percent of independent charter school graduates in L.A. met college eligibility standards for the state’s public universities last year, according to data from the California Charter Schools Association — 24 percentage points higher than L.A. Unified reported for its traditional schools. About 8,400 independent charter school students graduated with C’s or better in their college prep...

American middle schoolers are performing better on a national assessment of technology and engineering, an improvement driven largely by girls. Overall, students’ average score on the National Assessment of Education Progress in Technology and Engineering Literacy increased two points from 2014, the first time the test was given. Several subgroups showed statistically significant improvements, including...

Charter schools are the object of intense national debate. They shouldn’t be. The data show that public charters are a good investment. In five studies that we’ve conducted during the past several years, we’ve compared traditional schools and charter schools in a diverse roster of U.S. cities where a substantial portion of families are choosing...

Californians are divided in their general views on charter schools, according to a new statewide survey. Most are in support of parents having the option to choose charters, but there’s also a high level of concern that charters divert state funding from traditional schools. Nearly half — 49 percent — of all adults surveyed said...

Rodney Robinson, a history teacher at a Virginia juvenile justice center, plans to use his new platform as 2019 National Teacher of the Year to highlight the school-to-prison pipeline and the need for juvenile justice reform. Much like last year’s selection of Mandy Manning, a teacher of refugee and new immigrant students, Robinson’s win, announced Wednesday,...

*Updated April 23: Board members voted unanimously on Tuesday without debate to pass an amended resolution forming an independent taxpayer oversight committee if the parcel tax passes in June. All board members were co-sponsors. As the L.A. Unified school board on Tuesday considers an independent oversight committee to sway residents to greenlight the district’s first-ever parcel tax, staunch opponents...

*Updated April 23 Parents and community advocates are divided on L.A. Unified’s Measure EE, a parcel tax on the June ballot that would raise about $500 million a year over a 12-year period for schools. However, a common thread connects them: They agree schools need more funding, but there’s also “distrust” over whether the district would...

Michael Danielson gives students in his ninth-grade media literacy class a simple piece of homework each night: Pay attention. The assignment is meant to prod them into thinking critically about the countless messages that bombard them every day. They report back to their teacher and classmates at the start of each class with “media literacy...