California

Sold as a way to “empower” parents to improve the education attainment of their children, school choice initiatives take on many forms, including vouchers, “scholarships,” and tax credits. The most radical form of school choice is the so-called “parent trigger.” But rather then uniting parents in doing what’s best for children, the parent trigger bring deception, division and disruption to the community and leaves parents overwhelmed and powerless.

On February 27th, the Opportunity to Learn Campaign will be hosting a webinar on racial justice with the Applied Research Center, an OTL ally. The webinar will provide advocates and organizers with valuable tools for framing and combating racial disparities in our nation's education system. Sign up here!

Need a blueprint for recruiting, developing and retaining high quality teachers in your state? Look no further than this report from CA State Superintendent Tom Torlakson's Task Force on Educator Excellence. Drawing on the expertise of educators and thought leaders like Linda Darling-Hammond, the report lays out precisely how states should invest in their teachers and their schools to ensure that every student has access to well-prepared and effective teachers.

Education organizers and advocates from 18 cities across the country made a "Journey for Justice" to the nation's capitol this week to make their case in person against school closures. They testified at a hearing before the US Department of Education and even met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan! They protested that the DOE's policies that favor closing underperforming schools rather than investing in them is doing irreparable harm to students by disrupting their communities and discriminating against schools serving primarily Black and Latino students.

Our grassroots allies from Journey for Justice are taking their fight to end school closures to the US Department of Education! Representatives from 18 cities across the country will testify at a hearing before the US DOE in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, January 28th, 2013. See this press release for more details. And follow Journey for Justice on Twitter @J4J_USA!

California Governor Jerry Brown has made education equity a priority this year, what with his budget increase for education and a proposed weighted funding formal that sends more money to low-income districts. In his State of the State address Brown made a strong case for fair funding and equitable access to opportunity (what the OTL Campaign calls supports-based reform) and criticized the high-stakes testing and accountability that are hallmarks of today's standards-based reform movement.

Hats off to California's chief deputy superintendent Richard Zeiger for standing up to the likes of StudentsFirst and calling his state's F rating from the organization a "badge of honor." We thought that was such a good idea, we've created a badge that every education advocate can display to show that students deserve better than what privatizers like Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst have to offer.

As other states have made cuts in education budgets that have had disastrous impacts on children and schools, California's governor is emerging as a champion of public education – and of equitable funding for the state's poorest districts.