Thanks to the tireless work of local advocates and organizers, officials in the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to put an end to suspensions for "willful defiance" with the adoption of a new school discipline policy that focuses on positive alternatives that keep students in the classroom.

National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) has tracked preschool enrollment and funding data in the country for over a decade. Its latest annual "State of Preschool" report presents an alarming set of "firsts" in the 2011-2012 school year: Enrollment in state-funded pre-K programs has stagnated after a decade of growth, and average funding per child has decreased below $4,000 for the first time since NIEER began collecting the data.

It’s time we recognize that students fall behind not because of inherent character flaws, but because our education policies for the past two decades have focused on implementing tough standards while failing to build support systems that address the societal factors that create barriers to academic success.

Standards-based reform creates an inherent system of winners and losers by raising the bar and assessing who makes the cut. Supports-based reforms provide and strategically align the needed resources so each student has the opportunity to reach that bar—and surpass it.

The National Center for Education Policy (NEPC), an OTL ally, has a new, must-read book about the change our nation needs to make from thinking about the achievement gap to trying to fix the opportunity gap that underlies it.

Sold as a way to “empower” parents to improve the education attainment of their children, school choice initiatives take on many forms, including vouchers, “scholarships,” and tax credits. The most radical form of school choice is the so-called “parent trigger.” But rather then uniting parents in doing what’s best for children, the parent trigger bring deception, division and disruption to the community and leaves parents overwhelmed and powerless.

On February 27th, the Opportunity to Learn Campaign will be hosting a webinar on racial justice with the Applied Research Center, an OTL ally. The webinar will provide advocates and organizers with valuable tools for framing and combating racial disparities in our nation's education system. Sign up here!