Education

Update:  Assembly Bill 19 was signed into law in 2017, paving the way to free community college for full-time, first-year students.  California’s economy is one of the world’s largest, and according to a new report, the state needs 1 million more workers with bachelor’s degrees by 2030 to keep up with economic demand. The Public […]

Researchers studying California’s new school funding system wish they could track the huge sums of money the state has sent to struggling students, and analyze what districts spent it on. They can’t because the financial data needed to do so isn’t available. Given that limitation, they’ve tried to figure out whether the four-year-old Local Control […]

California’s new system for funding public education has pumped tens of billions of extra dollars into struggling schools, but there’s little evidence yet that the investment is helping the most disadvantaged students. A CALmatters analysis of the biggest districts with the greatest clusters of needy children found limited success with the policy’s goal: to close the […]

California's K-12 public schools currently receive more than $7 billion annually from the federal government. The budget plan President Donald Trump released last week would cut at least 6 percent of those funds. Here's what you need to know.

Across ethnicities and economic status, girls outperform boys on English in standardized tests.

Sandra Lowe reminisced about the good old days as she addressed a roomful of Democratic activists at the California party’s annual convention last week in Sacramento. It used to be, the teachers union leader told the crowd, that it didn’t take much to win a school board race: a short statement in the election handbook, […]

The Trump administration unveiled its fully fleshed out budget proposal today, a fiscal vision for America characterized by significant cuts to discretionary spending programs and, among other things, a dramatic shift in education policy that could have a significant impact on California schooling.

Californians have overwhelmingly rejected private school voucher initiatives twice in the last 25 years, but a new poll shows this deep blue state has renewed interest in a policy championed by the Trump administration.

Vowing to fight public school profiteering, Democratic state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would either block or seriously limit for-profit companies’ ability to operate charter schools in California. The two proposals seek to address a growing concern among legislators that Wall Street-traded companies managing some of the state’s charters are raking in mountains of state […]

Every person has a right to inspect any public record during a public agency’s normal business hours. That’s what the California’s Public Records Act promises, with a few exceptions, but it’s not what I got in January when I visited two Los Angeles County school districts and asked to review their budgets.