California owes the U.S. Department of Education an ESSA plan on Sept. 18, but the current draft doesn’t do enough to identify low-performing students and schools, according to a recent independent review. Out of nine criteria, Bellwether Education Partners gave the state’s plan for complying with the new federal accountability law six low scores. Proposals for...

New school board member Kelly Gonez is introducing an ambitious resolution that calls for making detailed data available to the public to ensure students are supported and able to complete college and “access a rewarding career.” With this resolution, called “Creating Pathways to Lifelong Success for Our Students,” Gonez is fulfilling a key campaign promise to...

With only weeks to go until California’s deadline to submit its Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan to the federal government, parents are wondering if the state will offer any guarantee that the lowest-performing schools will improve. Esther Covarrubias, a mother from South LA, believes the nearly finished draft does not. A stronger option, she...

Teacher advocacy groups are concerned that California’s definition of an ineffective teacher is too loose and won’t be bolstered before the state has to turn in its federal accountability plan in two months. Each state must submit its plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act by Sept. 18, and one accountability measure...

Only eight people showed up at one of the last chances for parents and educators to give input on the state’s overall school plan that they need to submit in order to get about $80 billion from the federal government. Their top concerns for the state as it formulates its Every Student Succeeds Act plan were...

By Seth Litt “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin For more than a year, families from Parent Revolution’s Parent Power Network have voiced their concerns about the direction of California’s school accountability system. They’ve met with legislators, taken multiple overnight bus...

Last October, in perhaps the final triumphant moment of his administration, President Obama announced that America’s soaring high school graduation rate had risen, again, to an all-time high of 83 percent. Before he took office, the percentage of students earning diplomas languished for decades in the low to mid-70s; now the news was made still...

A statewide public school rating system is available today, but some find it difficult to understand. Rather than having a simple one-number score, the new California School Dashboard Report uses a series of colors to rate various aspects of each school. Some community groups say that makes it hard for parents to compare schools. Former school board member...

California’s new school accountability report, or Dashboard, was launched Wednesday morning by the state Board of Education, and it’s supposed to more accurately represent the success and progress of California public schools. But it’s in beta-test mode right now, according to the state officials launching the Dashboard. For now, it’s only available in English and Spanish, with...