School Districts

Eleven years ago, the San Jose school district began requiring all students to pass the classes necessary for admission to the state university systems. Educators elsewhere watched with enthusiasm as early results showed remarkable success. But San Jose Unified has quietly acknowledged that the district overstated its accomplishments. And a Times analysis of the district's record shows that its progress has not, in fact, far outpaced many other school systems' and, more important, that most San Jose students have never qualified to apply to a state college.

Driving along Pacific Coast Highway, you can see the successive layers of earth and rock that have piled up over millions of years to create California's coastal landscape. You can see a similar but less attractive phenomenon if you look at the way California funds its public K-12 schools. Over the last several decades, Sacramento has piled up layer upon layer of funding requirements in education, adding new regulations to the pile while leaving old ones in place. These "categorical" programs send money to school districts to support specific activities, and each comes with its own set of rules and obligations.

Two high-ranking state officials Thursday called on school districts across California to impose a moratorium on costly capital appreciation bonds while changes are considered to limit their use. Bill Lockyer, state treasurer, and Tom Torlakson, state superintendent of public instruction, sent letters to education officials asking them to avoid using the sometimes risky bonds until the governor and Legislature can weigh proposals to restrict the...

Fatty corn dogs and sugary coffee cake may become extinct in thousands of school cafeterias nationwide under a landmark new alliance among Los Angeles Unified and five other major urban school districts to leverage their vast purchasing power for healthier fare and lower prices. School districts in L.A., New York, Chicago, Dallas, Miami and Orlando, Fla., plan to announce Thursday efforts to use their collective clout - 2.5 million daily meals served and $530 million annually spent - to make wholesome food a national standard.

SACRAMENTO--Robbing Peter in the suburbs to pay Paul in the inner city seems politically perilous. Even unjust. Particularly after we just soaked the rich to balance the state budget and keep public schools afloat. I mean, how much income redistribution are Californians in the mood for? In this new scheme of Gov. Jerry Brown's, it isn't only the rich getting robbed. It's the middle class. Brown's budget proposal includes a revolutionary plan to distribute future school funding much differently from the way it has been.

Public schools California's K-12 schools are among the biggest winners in the governor's budget, with a proposed funding increase of $2.7 billion. The money would come with plans to shift some of it away from wealthy suburban districts so it can be spent on schools that serve poor students and non-English speakers. But those receiving less money than in the past would have more flexibility in spending it, because Gov. Jerry Brown's plan would eliminate dozens of program requirements set by Sacramento.

NEW YORK --  A school panel in Staten Island has passed a controversial resolution recommending that armed, retired NYPD officers patrol local schools in the interest of security in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn. Though the panel has the power only to make recommendations to the city's Board of Education, which has vowed not to adopt the plan, it signals that school districts across the East Coast are at least paying some mind to the proposal made by the National Rifle Assn.

Federal officials have rejected California's request for exemption from rules that penalize low-performing schools and school districts, state officials recently announced. The state's failure to win a "waiver" from the No Child Left Behind law was not entirely a surprise, but was still unwelcome news to officials. "It is disappointing that our state's request - which enjoyed such strong support from parents, teachers, administrators and education advocates across California - has apparently been rejected," state Supt.

Rumors about violence after the deadly shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, coupled with doomsday predictions associated with the Mayan calendar, have led officials to close more than 30 schools in Michigan two days early for the holidays. In a posting on the Lapeer school district website, Supt. Matt Wandrie said the false rumors of possible violence, coupled with the end-of-time furor surrounding the completion of the current Mayan calendar cycle, led the district to cancel Thursday and Friday's classes, along with sports events and other extracurricular activities.

NEWTOWN, Conn. - On the outside, Nancy Lanza was the picture of contented motherhood: volunteering at her sons' school, gardening, keeping a picture-perfect home so well-ordered a neighbor described it as pristine. Outside public view, say some who knew her, she had a struggle on her hands, and that was her son Adam: a brilliant but sometimes difficult boy. Lanza battled with the school district over Adam and eventually quit her job, pulled him out of school and educated him at home, said her sister-in-law, Marsha Lanza.