Some of Clovis Unified School District's most needy students will return to school starting Monday, spokeswoman Kelly Avants says. About 300 severely disabled students of all ages and preschoolers and kindergartners enrolled in the Program for the Acquisition of Language and Social Skills will come individually to campus no more...
ACLU Complaint Says Fresno Unified Fails English Learner Families
The ACLU of Northern California says Fresno Unified School District violated the civil rights of English learners and failed to follow California Department of Education and district requirements when it failed to remove language barriers that limit parent participation, including helping the district decide how to allocate its resources. The...
Walters: California’s Stubborn ‘Achievement Gap’
Sooner or later, reality rears its ugly head and that seems to be happening with the state’s very expensive — but apparently failing — efforts to close a yawning “achievement gap” among the state’s nearly 6 million elementary and secondary school students. Early in the decade, as Jerry Brown began his second...
County Tops State Average in English, Math — if Fresno Unified Isn't Counted
Nearly three-fourths of Fresno County students scored above the state average on both English language arts and mathematics standardized tests last year. In fact, the same contingent of Fresno County students tested above the state average in English language arts for the past three years. Listen to this article: But...
Walters: Achievement Gap Question Still Unanswered
As a species, politicians tend to like inputs more than outcomes. It’s more fun, in political terms, to appropriate money for a new program or cut the ribbon of a new public works project than it is to delve into whether they actually performed as promised, and take responsibility for...
Fresno Trustees Want Students Learning English Faster
Several Fresno Unified trustees made it clear at their meeting Wednesday that they want to see the district's English Learner program raise its game. Among the improvements the trustees seek: Accelerating English proficiency, operating more dual language programs, and holding Saturday and after-school tutoring sessions for struggling students. The 27,000-plus...
Nelson is ‘Militantly Positive’ About Fresno Unified's Future
Fresno Unified is widely known as the fourth-largest school district in the state, but many may not know that its students come from the poorest families in California. In fact, Fresno Unified is not only the most impoverished, large, urban school district in California, it is second overall in the...
California Schools That Need Help Aren't Getting It: Walters
In his Jan. 21 CALmatters column, Dan Walters zeroes in on a troubling statistic uncovered via the dogged effort of his colleague Jessica Calefati, who covers education. Writing about the state's stumbling attempts to close the achievement and educational attainment gaps, Walters quotes this paragraph from Celefati's Jan. 18 story "Dozens of...
California Schools That Need Help Aren't Getting It: Walters
In his Jan. 21 CALmatters column, Dan Walters zeroes in on a troubling statistic uncovered via the dogged effort of his colleague Jessica Calefati, who covers education. Writing about the state's stumbling attempts to close the achievement and educational attainment gaps, Walters quotes this paragraph from Celefati's Jan. 18 story "Dozens of...