K-12 Education

A long, deep-pocketed fight over California's public school system appears to have reached a detente, with stricter credentialing for charter school teachers, rules that make it easier for districts to reject new charter campuses and a 2-year moratorium on new online charter schools.

Financially, at least, California's 5-year-old school finance overhaul is working for disadvantaged students. But a PPIC study still finds that high-need schools are still too reliant on novice teachers. And in better-off districts, not enough is being done for poorer kids.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has ambitious plans to improve California's early childhood education, but experts say he's forgetting a key: preschool teacher salaries.

Heather Williams knew as a kid that she wanted to be a piano teacher. She earned her music degree with a piano emphasis from Brigham Young University and spent decades honing her craft. Today she not only runs her own academy near Sacramento, offering private lessons with a special certification in the Suzuki Method of […]

Less tax-and-spendy than expected, California's $215 billion budget delivers more for working and poor families, but avoids most new taxes and stops short of health care for all.

In the past decade, California has adopted more than a half-dozen laws intended to prevent bullying, strengthen suicide prevention and cultivate inclusive learning environments for LGBTQ students in the state’s public schools. But the state’ school districts are implementing these new laws inconsistently, according to a new sweeping report-card style analysis from the Equality California […]

Legislation that would significantly expand California’s subsidized preschool program cleared its first committee hearing Wednesday, leaving early childhood education advocates increasingly optimistic that at least the first phase of their long-sought effort will cross the finish line this year. For years, pressure has mounted at the Capitol to increase access to preschool for the state’s […]

Legislation seeks to expand cannabis permits and medical marijuana access, lawmakers dust off education bills, teachers struggle with housing costs

From later school start times to lower thresholds for parcel taxes, California lawmakers see a second chance with Gov. Gavin Newsom to pass education bills quashed by former Gov. Jerry Brown.

Two months into the new job, Tony Thurmond seems to be exactly the man that his most loyal backers hoped (and his opponents feared) he would be. In a Commonwealth Club discussion with CALmatters' education reporter Ricardo Cano, the state’s public schools superintendent didn’t hold back in a wide-ranging discussion Thursday night: He raised doubts about the value of charter schools, criticized school districts for the state’s wave of teacher strikes, questioned the severity of public pension debt and insisted the state must spend more to educate its students.