With more than 90% of the state’s population in areas now with substantial or high transmission, the California Department of Public Health recommends universal masking in indoor public settings and in schools

An Atlanta judge last week sentenced eight public school teachers, principals and administrators to jail for conspiring to inflate students' state test scores. The sentencing was a tragic end to the Atlanta testing scandals that began in 2009.

Similar to SpaceX, the state's new Smarter Balanced Assessment System (SBAC) will eventually yield results that are worth the trial and error.

I have been so preoccupied with writing columns on the local war between charter and traditional public schools that I have unwittingly neglected another contentious public battle. The standards for testing in California’s public schools are changing, and the looming fight could be as partisan and ugly as the roll out of the Affordable Care Act.

Last month, public education in this country continued to slip into the abyss. New York City became the epicenter of school reform and the second major U.S. city—Los Angeles Times published individual teacher scores last school year—to implement a public dissemination of individual teacher value-added scores. Value-added scores are a teacher’s rating predicated on the progress each of their elementary or middle school students makes on standardized tests in one school year.