July 19, 2011, 12:05 AM
Bright and articulate, Enrique Duarte IV, 11, rode the bus with his parents from Los Angeles to Sacramento with one cause in mind: to tell the state Board of Education that someday, he wants to return to a public school classroom. Enrique told the board that he left his elementary school...
+ read more
July 8, 2011, 12:05 AM
Jerry Brown's term as governor promises big returns for the two Oakland charter schools he founded. So far this year, Brown has raised $2.3 million for the Oakland Military Institute and Oakland School for the Arts. American Indian tribes, foundations and companies that lobby state...
+ read more
May 24, 2011, 12:05 AM
Three California schools appear in the list of the top 25 schools most successful in preparing students for college, according to the Washington Post's controversial "Challenge Index" published yesterday. They are hardly typical California schools. The highest-ranked...
+ read more
March 1, 2011, 12:05 AM
California parents have yet another way to assess how their local schools are doing. The California Charter Schools Association has developed a new metric, called a Similar Student Measure [PDF], to assess how a school's students perform on state tests compared to other schools serving...
+ read more
February 14, 2011, 12:05 AM
The state Board of Education ordered new rules last week to clarify how charter schools are granted statewide operating privileges. The action comes in the wake of a July 2010 Court of Appeals ruling that found the board improperly awarded statewide status to Aspire Public Schools, a charter school...
+ read more
February 9, 2011, 12:05 AM
The State Board of Education will hold a public hearing today to discuss what has become a thorny question: Under what circumstances should a charter school company be allowed to bypass local district control and operate statewide? The board has granted statewide status to three charter school...
+ read more
January 13, 2011, 12:05 AM
Former state Sen. Gloria Romero, the author of a controversial law that allows parents to force major changes in their children's school, said she won't support amending the law to make the process more open, despite a roiling controversy over use of the law in Compton. "If...
+ read more
December 22, 2010, 12:05 AM
The first attempt to use a controversial "parent trigger" law to convert a regular public school into a charter school has raised at least one key question: Just how public should the petition drive to gather the parent signatures needed to trigger the change be? On Dec. 7 a...
+ read more
November 1, 2010, 12:05 AM
The Los Angeles Unified School District has been forced to file a California Public Records Act request with the California Department of Education to get test scores of students at about 150 charter schools authorized to operate within the district's borders. But State...
+ read more
October 25, 2010, 12:05 AM
Is Davis Guggenheim backing off from the largely one-dimensional picture presented in his potent critique of the nation's public schools? In an interview with the new PBS show "Need to Know," Guggenheim takes a far more nuanced, and multifaceted, view that seems at...
+ read more
October 22, 2010, 4:44 AM
A report released yesterday found that the state Department of Education has failed to keep reliable data on the number of charter school students in federal school breakfast and lunch programs. The report from the California State Auditor aimed to find out how many charter schools...
+ read more
September 24, 2010, 12:05 AM
Public charter schools in California are skirting the worst impact of the state’s budget crisis, even as traditional public schools shorten the school year, increase class sizes and lay off teachers and staff by the thousands.
+ read more
September 24, 2010, 12:05 AM
Las escuelas autónomas públicas de California han podido eludir el peor impacto de la crisis presupuestaria del estado, en comparación con las escuelas públicas tradicionales que han debido acortar el año escolar, aumentar el tamaño de las clases y despedir a miles de docentes y miembros del...
+ read more
September 24, 2010, 12:05 AM
California expects to add close to 90 charter schools this year.
+ read more
September 24, 2010, 12:05 AM
Charter schools continue to show strong growth in California.
+ read more
