Schools: January 2008 Archives

Los Angeles schools could lose up to $20 million - and be forced to close many of the region's school-based health clinics - under a plan by the Bush administration to stop reimbursing districts for certain Medicaid costs. Lisa Friedman in the Daily News.

And Los Angeles Unified School District officials, in Washington this week protesting the new Medicaid rule, are taking the lead in what is shaping up as a national fight.

Local officials said about 150 organizations, including schools, hospitals and disability-rights groups across the country, have already met to protest the changes costing more than $635 million nationally.

Even in the middle of a fiscal crisis, California can still improve its school system by boosting support for minority students and expanding preschool programs, state Superintendent for Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Tuesday.Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.

O'Connell delivered his fifth annual State of Education address to educators and administrators in Sacramento who were painfully aware that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for cutting $4.4 billion from schools in the next 18 months as part of an effort to close a $14.5 billion budget deficit.

"We have a serious budget shortfall, but improving our education system is the key to ensuring that California has a well-qualified work force to secure a healthy economy in the future," O'Connell said.

San Fernando Valley schools are continuing to improve and generally outperform others in Los Angeles Unified, county and statewide on key student achievement tests, according to a new report released Monday.

The LAUSD's Valley schools and the Burbank, Glendale and Las Virgenes school districts all scored better than the LAUSD's average Academic Performance Index score of 655 in 2006-07, according to the report by researchers at Cal State Northridge. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

All but east San Fernando Valley schools also scored higher than county and state averages, said Daniel Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center, which issued the report.

"Education is very important to the Valley and the consequences of that is that particularly in the smaller districts, they can really move and produce great results," Blake said.

A new report card on child well-being gives California near-failing grades because of its high rates of pediatric obesity and violence against children. Sara Steffens in the Daily News.

One child in every three in the state is either overweight or obese, according to a report released Thursday by the Oakland-based advocacy group Children Now, and just 28percent meet state standards for physical fitness.

Meanwhile, the homicide rate for teens 15-19 jumped 20percent in California from 2001 to 2004 - the most recent year for which information is available.

Forty percent of state students in middle and high schools say their classmates sometimes bring weapons to school.