California’s new online community college officially starts in eight weeks but it has yet to have a formal application for students or identify employers that will host its three new industry-certified programs. But Calbright College’s new president, Heather Hiles, said the institution is on track to meet those goals by its Oct. 1 start date. […]
Former Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature law, the Local Control Funding Formula, has frustrated researchers and advocacy groups that have wanted to verify how much of the extra money intended for targeted students has actually gone to the schools they attend — and how the funding was used. Consistent with his view of local control, Brown […]
When a preschool teacher at a San Mateo center began to struggle to interact with children, supervisors became concerned. The reason for the teacher’s drop in performance? She was hungry. “Our teachers are having to make choices between rent and food and getting to work,” said Heather Cleary, CEO at Peninsula Family Service, which runs […]
It’s been almost two years since Bill Gates announced a major shift to locally driven solutions in the education funding strategy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the nation’s largest charitable foundation. Gates said he remains “driven by the same guiding principle we started with: all students — but especially low-income students and students […]
California lawmakers are considering whether to place an $8 billion general obligation bond measure on the March 2020 ballot. If approved by voters, the measure would let the University of California and the California State University system improve the seismic safety of their buildings and expand their physical capacity to serve thousands more California students. […]
School is out for summer. But in Tracy, Calif., teachers have been hard at work. Inside the staff development training room at the Tracy Unified School District, a group of about 25 teachers and curriculum specialists gathered this summer to overhaul the district’s approach to teaching science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. The plan […]
With $10 million in funding, an ambitious timeline and a champion in Gov. Gavin Newsom behind it, the Legislature this week passed legislation for a statewide education data system that will follow children from infancy through the workplace. The marching order for what Newsom is calling a Cradle to Career Data System is included in […]
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to generously bolster state financial aid to California college students who are parents of dependent children – one of the most important pieces of his higher education plan – is facing strong opposition in the state Legislature. The governor’s plan would have cost an estimated $96.7 million a year and provided […]
Is a student loan bill of rights coming to California? Here’s what you need to know. Student Borrower Bill of Rights On Tuesday, the California Assembly passed a first-in-the-nation “Student Borrower Bill of Rights,” which aims to protect borrowers with student loans. Sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Stone, the bill, AB 376, primarily targets student loan […]
It’s not your grandparents’—or even your parents’—higher-ed system. A young Californian of the Baby Boomer generation, bolstered by the post-war economic boom and the state’s investment in public higher education, could often emerge from college with little to no debt and a clear path to a living wage and homeownership. Today’s California students, by contrast, […]
The California Community Colleges Board of Governors intends to extend the contract of the system’s chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley through 2023, the board said Tuesday. Oakley’s four-year contract was due to end in December 2020, but the board has decided to give him another four-year contract beginning in December of this year. “Chancellor Oakley has […]
Governor Gavin Newsom proposed adding $10 million to help college students with emergency housing costs but stopped short of expanding the state’s Cal Grant program to cover full expenses of rent and food of all needy students. Newsom did not embrace the massive financial aid increase that some legislators and advocates want to cover students’ […]
U.S. officials no longer think the government will make money off the federal student-loan program and now project it will cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in coming years, according to a new congressional estimate. The program is losing money after a surge of borrowers defaulting on loans or enrolling in plans that ultimately […]
San Francisco hands out millions of syringes a year to drug users but has little control over how they are discarded and that’s contributing to thousands of complaints. The city distributes an estimated 400,000 syringes each month through various programs aimed at reducing HIV and other health risks for drug users. About 246,000 syringes are […]
The San Francisco Bay Area is an economic powerhouse. The region’s innovation industries, from high tech to biotech, helped lead California out of the Great Recession. We are near full employment in some areas, and are responsible for 53.5 percent of the state’s net job growth since 2007. And while we are home to just 17 percent of the state’s population, we pay 36 percent of total state personal income taxes at a level per capital more than double the statewide average.