Schools

It's inevitable that California public schools soon will be whacked with hefty program cuts. And that's a shame because students recently have been making significant gains. A decade of academic advancement due to class-size reduction, tougher curriculum, higher standards, testing, accountability and other reforms could be stalled -- even reversed -- by the necessity to cut spending. But there's no way around it.

President Obama and his two young daughters have a message for Washington, based on years of Chicago winters: Toughen up. A dusting of snow -- followed by melting temperatures, rain, sleet and then overnight freezing -- packed much of the Washington area in ice Wednesday morning. Schools throughout the region shut down -- including Sidwell Friends, where Sasha and Malia Obama are enrolled. "Can I make a comment that is unrelated to the economy, very quickly?"

The Legislature has a lot on its plate: water, healthcare, state survival. . . . So when the Senate leader identifies his top priority, ears perk up. At least mine do. The Senate president pro tem -- "pro tem" for short -- normally has the power to make things happen. Especially when he's allied with the minority leader, as he seems to be in this case. Freshman Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) called a Capitol news conference last week to declare that his "No.

Ethan Lopez became an instant celebrity at his Los Angeles elementary school Friday, the day after President Obama selected the 8-year-old to ask the final question at a town hall meeting. Media crews filmed the boy and his family while the school principal and teachers gushed over his question about teacher layoffs, and classmates cheered. The moment was not lost on the third-grader. "I felt very excited," he said. "I never talked to the president of the United States before.

As California received billions of dollars Friday to stave off widespread teacher layoffs, the state's highest elected education official pledged to reform schools, aligning academic standards with other states, rewarding teachers who work in the most challenging classrooms and improving student assessments.

Students at more than a dozen Southern California schools temporarily closed because of the swine flu outbreak will be allowed to return to class this week, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that the new flu strain does not appear to be unusually severe.

A freckle-faced Malloy Sparling wraps her dirt-dusted fingers around a three-pronged cultivator and looks up with a big-toothed smile. "We're making a garden," she says, plucking a weed out of the ground, then wiping her little hands on her tomato red T-shirt. Sparling and other young volunteers, plus parents and politicians, are taking part in a community work day at Farragut Elementary School in Culver City.

Educators should be conservative when they consider shutting schools because of outbreaks of swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, federal officials said Friday as they released guidelines for school districts. While emphasizing that such matters are local decisions, the officials said a desire to prevent the virus' spread must be balanced with the fallout from school closures -- parents struggling to find child care, children left unsupervised, and disruption to education. "Once you close a school, as we saw last spring, that causes a very significant ripple effect because children need to stay home," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a morning news conference with education and health officials in Washington.

The classroom swelters in 102-degree heat. The students, all boys in first and second grade, wipe the sweat off their faces as they bark out a spelling exercise in unison. " A-P-P-L-E, apple! B-O-X, box! M-O-N-K-E-Y, monkey!" School is back in session for the children of Swat, the verdant, mountainous valley that this year became the prime battlefield in the Pakistani military's bid to neutralize local Taliban groups. After more than two months of fighting, soldiers regained control of Swat's major towns, and thousands of refugees who fled the conflict have been returning home.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on legislators Thursday to adopt sweeping education reforms that would dramatically reshape California's public education system and qualify the state for competitive federal school funding. The governor's proposed legislation, to be considered during a special session that ends by Oct. 5, was met almost immediately by criticism from the powerful state teacher unions, which called Schwarzenegger's plans rushed and unnecessary. While Schwarzenegger's goal is to boost California's chances to qualify for $4.35 billion in federal grants, known as "Race to the Top," many of his proposals go far beyond those needed for eligibility, and embrace the Obama administration's key education reform proposals.