Education

As he eyes a run for governor, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is spotlighting the lagging academic performance of Latino and African-American students and saying the state should do more to hold schools accountable. The 63-year-old Democrat says parents have a right to know how their schools are doing and he doesn’t see a […]

Finding the right school for your child can be a daunting task. One family may want small class sizes and strong test scores while another places a high priority on arts and science programs. Others may prefer bilingual — or even trilingual — schools to gain a linguistic advantage or simply so their kids can […]

Having witnessed teaching “fads” since the 1950s and running charter schools as Oakland mayor, Gov. Jerry Brown doesn’t expect his own key education policy — called the Local Control Funding Formula — to close the academic performance gap between African Americans and Latinos and other student groups. Brown hopes the formula will help some students improve […]

This week, a state appellate court will be asked to overturn a closely watched legal decision that said poor and minority school students in California have been denied their right to a proper education because of laws that prevent the dismissal of bad teachers. The case, Vergara v. California, was filed on behalf of nine […]

The searchable database below shows how teacher and staff salaries have grown since the Great Recession in more than 650 of California’s 1,022 school districts. As it illustrates, California education funding is finally booming. The $71.6 billion budget that Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in January would be the fifth consecutive year of growth since the […]

When former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell was termed out five years ago, the popular politician could only watch as a state budget deficit eroded his signature priorities to reduce class size and improve the performance of Latino and African-American students. These days, O’Connell, 64, spends his time hopscotching the state advising school […]

VALLEJO, Calif. — Vallejo High School teacher Lewis Brown starts his morning government class with a question of the day that takes advantage of newly assigned iPads. Teacher Salary Database “Today is the one year anniversary of the French magazine terrorist assassination,” Brown says. “What was the name of the magazine?” The seniors type on […]

Gov. Jerry Brown campaigned up and down the state in 2012 to pass a temp orary measure known as Proposition 30, which raised the sales tax for four years and income taxes on high earners for seven years. It generated $8 billion a year to educate California’s 6.2 million elementary and secondary school students. This […]

Gov. Jerry Brown will propose another healthy budget on Thursday that will be vetted and adopted by the Legislature in June. That’s good news for K-12 public education, which accounts for more than 40 percent of state funds. So why aren’t school district officials jumping up and down? One reason is the growing pension contributions […]