Editorial Team

By Antonio Villaraigosa and John Deasy Over the course of the pandemic and two years of prolonged school closures, public school students experienced historic ​setbacks in math and reading progress. California’s Smarter Balanced test showed that less than half of California students met the standard for English language arts, and fourth- and eighth-graders suffered the sharpest decline in […]

By Arne Duncan  March 2, 2022 A generation ago, leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall advocated for quality education as a civil right for all children. A decade ago, President Barack Obama declared education “the civil rights issue of our time.” And yet, the tragic reality today for millions of children is that

Public-school education has gone from bad to worse. In theChicago Public Schools, only 26% of 11th-graders were at grade level in reading and math in 2019. Remarkably, the school system had a record-high graduation rate of nearly 84% in 2021. Those students must have had strong senior years!This is why over half of first-year community-college

Many schools across the United States are grappling with ways to close the achievement gap between white students and students of color. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on those efforts in Minnesota, which has some of the worst disparities. This report is part of our ongoing “Race Matters” coverage, and the “Agents for

Californians could vote next year on whether students should have a constitutional right to a high-quality education, potentially opening the door to litigation from parents dissatisfied with their children’s schools. The effort to get the measure on the November 2022 ballot is just getting started, but such a statute would give parents “legal standing” before a judge

Californians next year could vote on a proposed initiative that promises something almost everyone wants: A “high-quality” public education for every student. But the initiative, backed by longtime education reform advocates, could set up legal battles with the state’s teachers unions and school districts. It would give parents more power to challenge policies they regard

Backers hope language will make it easier to challenge teacher tenure, other laws The Silicon Valley entrepreneur who unsuccessfully took on teacher tenure in court is now supporting a constitutional amendment aimed at requiring California to provide “high-quality” public education for all students. The effort expressly takes aim at state laws, policies and regulations that

Education-reform advocates propose constitutional right to a quality education in what may become a costly fight with teachers unions Education reform advocates have proposed a ballot initiative in California that could allow them to use the courts to challenge teacher-tenure laws and other policies they believe are harming public school students. Similar ballot measures were