The Sangre del Dragon project started in August 2016 when Sac High seniors Leo Lopez, Angel Roque, Benny Perez and Jordan Salvador were given an assignment to create a business plan for hot sauce.

Should a school district struggling to fill vacant teaching positions recruit from overseas? With that question looming overhead, Sacramento City Unified School District develops a new credential program with Sacramento State to address its teacher shortage over the long-term.

The Maker Movement is, simply put, an initiative that engages students through projects they like — sewing for fashion, using a 3-D printer — before subsequently integrating traditional academic learning. But Maker Movement is more than a return to the old. 

Back in 1998, two family businesses —Holt Bros. and Tenco Tractors — merged into one, for a total of three families now under one business roof at Holt of California. Twenty years later, they rely on a long history of leadership transitions to select the next in line for succession.

Outside the Whitney High School library, a group of seniors sit in chairs, each clutching a resume and cover letter. The girls wear dresses or skirts. The boys are in slacks, a dress shirt and tie.

At the beginning of the fall semester, about 450 seniors at Whitney High School in Rocklin participated in mock interviews to learn the valuable skills needed to enter the workforce. They learned how to prepare a resume and cover letter, participated in an interview class and completed a 20-minute mock interview.

Is there something weird about California’s standardized test scores?

Last year, 49 percent of California students who took the test scored as meeting the state’s reading and writing standards. This year, that number flatlined at 49 percent. So despite most teachers and students having an additional year to get familiar with the exam, and an additional year of instruction conceivably tailored to improve on student weaknesses identified in the test, California public schools were no better at getting students to master state English standards.

New UC Davis Chancellor Dr. Gary May arrived at the university with a stellar reputation for innovation, leadership and academic equality for all students. We sat down with him recently to discuss his plans and goals for one of the region’s landmark institutions.

Getting into college is only half the challenge; paying for it is quite another. According to research conducted by two assistant professors of economics, in a paper titled “Accounting for the Rising in College Tuition,” the cost of college tuition more than doubled from 1987 to 2010, and outpaced inflation by 2-4 percent.

The sun was already sinking below the horizon on the final night of the lawmaking year as nearly two dozen lobbyists stalked the Capitol’s brightly lit hallways, making sure lawmakers didn’t approve a new math and science school for disadvantaged students.