The report accuses Calbright’s former leadership of laying the groundwork for a host of problems: inflated salaries, unethical hiring practices, too few supports for students. The report also flagged a lack of strategic planning by current leaders for approximately $175 million in state funding the college is slated to receive through June 2025.
“Because of these missteps, Calbright has struggled to adequately enroll the students it was intended to serve, took longer than it should have to develop a student support system, and did not adequately partner with employers in the development of its educational programs, thereby hindering its ability to assist its students in obtaining jobs,” Elaine Howle, the California state auditor, said in her report.
When Eli Broad died recently, Los Angeles lost a civic leader and California lost a passionate advocate for charter schools, columnist Dan Walters says.
Podcast: Episode 171: A Tale of Two Bills
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, and in Sacramento that means killing a bill that would help teachers exercise their Constitutional right to leave the California Teachers Association. In the same week, teachers union loyalists in the statehouse moved a bill that makes it easier to shut down public charter schools the only public option for kids trapped in failing union-run schools. In other news, David and Will discuss serious gubernatorial alternatives to Gavin Newsom in the upcoming recall, the Silicon Valley firm that declared an end to politics in the workplace, your upcoming state-tax refund, and author Steven Greenhut’s new book,
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The California Teachers Association filed an unfair labor practice charge Tuesday against the High Tech High charter school network for firing a San Diego-area teacher who has been helping to organize a union throughout the network.
Jared Hutchins, who taught government at the High Tech High North County campus, was fired Thursday, about a week after he and other teachers announced they were forming a union and hours after Hutchins was quoted in an sdnews.com article about the new union, called the High Tech High Educators Collective.
High Tech High is one of San Diego County’s largest charter school networks, with 16 elementary and secondary schools and about 6,300 students. It is known for its nontraditional approaches, including its emphasis on real-world, project-based learning and its graduate school for educators.
CALmatters Commentary: Eli Broad a passionate school reformer
Dan Walters: CALmatters Commentary
Los Angeles’ most prominent civic leader, billionaire businessman Eli Broad, died last Friday, sparking an outpouring of praise for his many philanthropies.
Broad had come to Los Angeles as a young entrepreneur in 1963 and made his fortune in homebuilding (KP Homes) and in finance. He saw it, he told one interviewer, as “a meritocracy (and) one of the few cities you can move to without the right family background, the right religious background, the right political background, and if you work hard and have good ideas, you’re accepted.”