California Schools

A proposition on the May special election ballot would provide $9.3 billion for California schools if voters also agree to extend recent tax increases for up to two additional years. The ballot measures are among several that were hatched when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders brokered a state budget deal in February to close a $42-billion gap. Educators say Proposition 1B is crucial for the state's schools, which have weathered years of funding cuts.

No skill is more crucial to the future of a child--or to a democratic and prosperous society--than literacy. Yet too often our California schools fail in the basic task of teaching our children to read. The Times has long made education a major part of its coverage.

The L.A. Times has provided a valuable service by presenting rich examples of the complexities and heartbreaks confronting our public schools. The grim reality The Times paints should serve as a call to action for educators and policymakers on critical issues. Having said that, I want to note that the series felt unduly bleak to me. My concern is that no conscientious parent would want to enroll a child in any public high school in the state.

Now that the State Board of Education is foolishly requiring every eighth-grader to take algebra, starting in three years, all that remains to be figured out is, how on Earth is this going to happen when so few kids are on track to get there? The solution, according to state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, is to spend $3.

THIS IS HARDLY what California has been waiting for. After spending more than a year trying to find a definitive answer to how much it would cost to educate the state's children properly, and how the money should be spent, the state now has yet another white paper. This one is from the governor's Committee on Educational Excellence, and it says what pretty much everybody already knows: Spending at least 50% more for education would enable the schools to do a darn nice job.

California schools could receive hundreds of millions of dollars in school technology funds made available through an antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp., the state Department of Education announced Wednesday. More than $400 million will be poured into the education department's coffers, said Jack O'Connell, State Supt. of Public Instruction.

Just over half of California's schools met their state testing improvement targets -- far fewer than last year -- a disappointing result that was fueled by schools' inability to keep pace with rising expectations. This leveling off was especially worrisome in the data for poor students and African Americans. The trend in Los Angeles mirrored that of the state, with 50% of schools hitting their growth target on the state Academic Performance Index, according to a Times analysis.

Four of the six schools left in the Department of Energy's National Science Bowl are California schools. These include North Hollywood High, Santa Monica High, Sacramento's Mira Loma High and Cupertino's Homestead High. The Washington, D.C., competition began Saturday with 67 teams that were regional championship winners from 41 states and U.S. territories. Ten were from California. North Hollywood High represented the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water region, which included the city of L.A. and the L.A. Unified School District.

California schools have enrolled 745 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, with Orange County taking in the greatest number of schoolchildren in the state, figures released Friday by the state Department of Education show. "There's no question -- it has been impressive the way California schools have opened their arms to these kids," said Rick Miller, spokesman for the department.

The landmark No Child Left Behind Act was born of rare bipartisan frustration over poor and minority children stuck in subpar schools. Legislators' ire was focused on the billions of federal dollars that had flowed to low- income students since passage of the 1965 Title I Education Act, without any apparent effect.