Revisiting California’s Battle of Hastings

The 2005 Sacking of the Netflix CEO as State Education Board Chief Looks Different Now

After long days supervising my children in their struggles with the miseries of distance learning and hybrid school, I try to relax by watching Netflix. As I do, I often find myself thinking about a state legislative hearing from 2005, and how different California education might be if it had gone differently.

The hearing, in a committee of the State Senate, was supposed to be routine. I, an L.A. Times reporter at the time, didn’t even bother to cover it. The subject was reappointment of the president of the State …

South L.A. Doesn’t Need Saving

Instead, the Area Could Be a Savior to a California That’s Pushing out Its Working Class

“How can we save South Los Angeles?” is a tired question. It’s an artifact of previous decades when the region formerly called South Central was known by its reputation for …

For College Prep Charter Schools Serving Underprivileged Communities, High School Graduation Is Just the Beginning

With a Majority of Students From South L.A., USC Hybrid High School Rejected Teaching to the Test to Focus on Getting 90 Percent of Graduates Through College

In 2012, USC’s Rossier School of Education, where I am the dean, began working in South L.A. to improve high school education. Our goals were to help disadvantaged students find …

Why California Keeps Failing to Grade Its Schools

The State Is Inexcusably Late in Delivering a Revamped Public School Index

It’s a California educational reality worthy of Kafka. Our state’s leaders keep asking parents and communities to take bigger roles in making local schools better—even as those same leaders keep …

Schools Aren’t Teaching Kids to Argue Truth to Power

State Education Standards Are Failing Students by Ignoring Why History Matters

Why can’t history classes show students why history matters?

That’s what I thought as I read through a new framework for teaching K-12 history in the U.S.—California’s History-Social Science Framework.

This is …

Why Starting a Preschool Is Harder Than You Think

How A Reluctant Community Activist Took Matters Into Her Own Hands

I was a reluctant community activist. I didn’t plan on creating a movement for a new preschool in our community. I just wanted to find better care for my son. …