L.A. Unified reimagines the 1990s. The effects of immigration crackdowns on Latino student enrollment. Tony Thurmond rallies to take the lead in state schools chief race.
On Saturday Assemblymember Tony Thurmond declared victory in his campaign to become California’s next Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The record-shattering spending on candidate Marshall Tuck mirrors the threat level that a Sacramento without Jerry Brown represents to the charter school lobby.
Profiles of Three Leading Contributors to This Year’s Schools Superintendent Race
Hastings’ preferred school reforms, such as heavy use of streaming technologies and data collection, resemble the way he built Netflix. And his critics say that could be part of the problem.
Bill Bloomfield has become one of the charter movement’s biggest supporters and has also played a pivotal role in the rise of a new breed of California Democrats who frequently align themselves with big business.
Doris Fisher and her family have quietly become among the largest political funders of charter school efforts in the country. Much of her money goes to promoting pro-charter school candidates and organizations.
State superintendent’s race turns angry. Trump says gender is all in the crotch. Math scores dive.
In final weeks of race, pro-charter forces fill the coffers. DeVos fails to kill student debt relief rule. The kids are alright with socialism.
Whoever is elected Superintendent of Public Instruction in November will have a historic opportunity to correct the course of a system in which the public good has increasingly been compromised by the competing demands of private interest.
Good news/bad news for state schools. Charter lobby’s burned bridge problem. Austin Beutner ratchets up tensions with Los Angeles teachers.
Gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa and state superintendent candidate Marshall Tuck are raking in donations from charter school supporters.
An election campaign now being fought almost completely out of public view could radically alter the way California’s school children are taught. If Marshall Tuck unseats incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the state’s public education system could become a laboratory for a movement that prizes privatization and places a high value on student test scores over traditional instruction. The contrasts between the two top contenders in the nonpartisan race could not be more dramatic – nor could the stakes for the country’s largest education system.
The 40-year-old Tuck is a Harvard Business School graduate who has worked as an investment banker for Salomon Brothers and as an executive at Model N, a revenue-management software company. He is a former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operation in Los Angeles, and later served as the first head of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools — former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s controversial education nonprofit that tried to improve 17 low-performing public schools,
» Read more about: A Great Divide: The Election Fight for California’s Schools »
The following additional conversations have been lightly edited for clarity. For full article, see A Great Divide: The Election Fight for California’s Schools.
Doesn’t the academic performance of California students have a lot to do with being near the bottom of the state on money spent per pupils?
Definitely funding has to play a role . . . but it doesn’t play the only role. I can share this from pure experience because I’ve worked in schools where we had limited funding and had better results. Also, at some schools where we actually got more funding the results didn’t necessarily translate into great success.
How do you counter arguments that Mr Torlakson has more classroom experience than you?
I’ve spent the last 12 years working directly in education, working with kids and parents, working with teachers, hiring principals, developing principals,
» Read more about: Q&A Highlights for Marshall Tuck and Tom Torlakson »