How Did The State Board of Education Vote on Controversial Charter School Petitions?

[Originally posted 10:56am September 7th, 2018; Updates provided at the end of post] The appointed State Board of Education in California has been critiqued in recent years as a rubber-stamp of the charter school movement, approving highly problematic petitions for new charter schools, a large proportion of which end up either closing or never even…

Red Flags Known and Overlooked With State Board Votes On San José Charter Schools

Update [October 1st, 2019): The California State Department of Education has issued a letter revoking authorization for the opening of the Promise Academy Charter School. The red flags indicated below were known at the time of the granting of the charter. For news coverage of the charter school’s failure to open, see here.  The school’s…

California Health Officials Release Guidance For Limiting Exposure to Cellphone Radiation

The California Department of Public Health has recently issued guidance for reducing exposure to radiation emitted from cell phones. An emphasis within the document includes children’s heightened vulnerabilities to cumulative hazards of long term exposure. The document was originally drafted in 2009 by the Department of Public Health’s Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control…

Lack of Protections in #PersonalizedLearning Software Programs Puts Privacy of Students and Families at Risk

[Press release re-shared from the National Education Policy Center // NEPC Publication] “Digital technologies used in schools are increasingly being harnessed to amplify corporate marketing and profit-making and extend the reach of commercializing activities into every aspect of students’ school lives. In addition to the long-standing goal of providing brand exposure, marketing through education technology now…