State officials withhold charter school data
The Los Angeles Unified School District has been forced to file a California Public Records Act request with the California Department of Education to get test scores of students at about 150 charter schools authorized to operate within the district's borders.
But State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, citing the state Education Code, rebuffed the request LA schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines submitted just a day earlier. Cortines made it clear that he was seeking "depersonalized" scores – scores with students' names removed.
Overall test scores of charter schools are already available through the state's STAR (Standardized Testing and
Hip-hop UC professor battles chemical company
Allies of Syngenta, a company that produces a ubiquitous but controversial herbicide, have continued attacks on UC Berkeley Professor Tyrone Hayes, a leading critic of the chemical who has fought the company through outrageous e-mails laced with rap lyrics, original rhymes and raunchy put-downs.
Critiques of Hayes' research on the herbicide atrazine have shown up in recent months in the Center for Global Food Issues [PDF], a project of the conservative Hudson Institute, Hoosier Ag Today, and debunkosaurus.
Meanwhile, UC Berkeley has defended the professor's free speech rights. Hayes is preparing to submit a new
Small but costly juvenile prison program awaits fate
The drastic decline in the population of the California Youth Authority is one of the great success stories in the state's mostly abortive attempts to reform its criminal justice system.
"The radical decline in the CYA population is one of the state's and nation's best kept secrets," according to a new report [PDF] from the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Yet the future of what remains of this venerable state institution will be a key issue faced by whoever is elected governor next week, mainly because of its escalating costs.
Last week, the state announced that it will close the Preston Correctional Facility, the state's oldest and one