March 29, 2012, 12:05 AM
Legislation aimed at overhauling the state's school construction law sailed through the Senate Education Committee yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, introduced the bill, SB 1271, following a California Watch investigation and...
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March 28, 2012, 12:05 AM
At the Blue Oak School in Chico, where 60 percent of the charter school's student body comes from low-income households, it’s a source of school pride that the soft tacos and chicken pot pies served at lunch are made from organic and locally sourced ingredients. The meals are...
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March 22, 2012, 12:05 AM
Three former executives of TurnKey Schools of America, a construction firm that manufactured and installed prefabricated school buildings across the state, have pleaded no contest to charges of siphoning millions in construction funds from a Santa Barbara County school district. Four years ago...
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March 20, 2012, 12:05 AM
California enrolls the most Hispanics in K-12 schools in the country: nearly 3.4 million in 2010, according to an analysis of census data released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center. Hispanics made up 51 percent of all K-12 students in the state – the second-highest proportion of...
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March 15, 2012, 7:33 AM
Kern County has exceptionally high rates of suspensions and expulsions for minority students, a newly released pool of federal data reveals. The new information dovetails with the findings of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity in December, which showed that showed...
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March 13, 2012, 12:05 AM
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote as early as today on continuing a decade-old program that compensates rural counties and schools for declining timber revenue. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act has been a safety net for more than 700 counties nationwide that have...
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March 5, 2012, 12:05 AM
Obesity is still on the rise among California students, but after years of prevention measures in schools, the rate is slowing, new research shows. More than 35 percent of students were overweight or obese in 2008, up from one-third in 2003. That's an average annual increase of 0.33...
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March 1, 2012, 12:05 AM
The chairwoman of the state Senate disaster preparedness committee is calling for new building standards and an overhaul of California's seismic safety law in the wake of a California Watch investigation and a scathing audit that found significant flaws in the state's oversight of...
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February 29, 2012, 12:05 AM
Proposed federal legislation would require increased timber sales in national forests to generate revenue for rural counties and schools – a plan that's at odds with other Congressional efforts to extend a decade-old program that compensates forest communities that have cut back...
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February 14, 2012, 12:05 AM
California schools will no longer lose $248 million in transportation funding under legislation Gov. Jerry Brown signed Friday – a move applauded by many education officials and school districts that had decried the loss as a disproportionate burden on rural schools. But for some,...
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February 10, 2012, 3:20 AM
LOS ANGELES – Fifteen-year-old Juan Carlos Amezcua was just five minutes late for school and already at the corner by Theodore Roosevelt High School when a police cruiser’s siren went off last Nov. 16. The consequences of what happened next – handcuffing, allegations of...
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February 10, 2012, 12:05 AM
It’s been more than 30 years since Kermith Walters hauled logs of pine and fir through the mountains of Siskiyou County. He says he left it behind when the habitat of a dark brown, white-speckled bird became a matter of federal law. Since 1990, when the northern spotted owl was...
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February 6, 2012, 12:05 AM
Bolstered by a recent court ruling, a Southern California assemblyman filed legislation last week that seeks to crack down on school districts that charge parents and students fees that violate state law. AB 1575, sponsored by Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-South Gate, would require school...
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January 26, 2012, 12:05 AM
With an eye toward revolutionizing how defense systems and vehicles are made, the Pentagon has tapped a team of Bay Area-based scientists, engineers and hackers to create a program that will enlist California high school students to build robots, drones and other low- and medium-tech gadgets. ...
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January 25, 2012, 12:05 AM
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the California State Board of Education, the state Department of Education and the attorney general's office all want a judge to drop a lawsuit that seeks to hold the state accountable for school districts that illegally charge students...
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