With the Brown Administration and the State Legislature returning from the holiday break and looking at options for new K-12 school construction and modernization funding, the word “need” is frequently used…but little understood. They ask, “How do we fund based on ‘need’”? It appears Governor Brown is also interested in this question. His new 2016-17 … Continue reading »
public education
Which University?
As I start this post, I hear voices on bullhorns in Sproul Plaza (ground zero for the Free Speech demonstrations 50 years ago) calling Berkeley students to walk out of classes today (Nov. 24) to protest the tuition increases approved last week by the University of California Regents for the entire ten-campus system. Many details … Continue reading »
Bible readings
A recent story noted that president of the Hobby Lobby company, the company that took its religious objections to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) all the way to the Supreme Court, is a leader in a campaign to put Bibles and Bible classes into American public schools. As you would expect, this move is getting push back … Continue reading »
How California’s K-12 schools can teach us about energy efficiency
California has long been a leading indicator of national energy-efficiency trends. The state passed minimum efficiency standards for refrigerators in 1976, 11 years before the federal government adopted similar standards. And, the recent Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards are based on legislation passed in California several years earlier. The state is about to blaze another energy … Continue reading »
How to reduce violence after school closures
Chicago is moving ahead with plans to close 50 schools in the city’s school district, the third largest in the nation; similar closings are currently on the table in other major U.S. cities, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. These plans have been met with angry protests from teachers and parents who argue that the closures … Continue reading »
Better to work with the schools we have
School board elections are usually placid affairs, but that wasn’t the case in the recent Los Angeles election. Would-be kingmakers, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and media magnate Rupert Murdoch, spent nearly $4 million to defeat incumbent Steve Zimmer. Zimmer’s sin was to question the untrammeled growth of charter schools and the over-reliance … Continue reading »