A tax on oil companies would supply California's schools with up to $3 billion more a year if a Southern California college professor gets his way.  Peter Mathews got the go-ahead from the California secretary of state late Tuesday to begin gathering signatures to place a measure on the ballot that would impose a 15 percent tax on each barrel of oil extracted in California. The state's K-12 schools would get 30 ......

Roughly two dozen education programs will lose millions of dollars under a budget deal struck by the White House and congressional leaders, according to new details released early Tuesday. The bipartisan deal, which narrowly averted a government shutdown, calls for federal spending cuts of nearly $40 billion for the last six months of this fiscal year. The plan will be voted on later this week. Details released by the House ......

California has been selected as one of 19 finalists vying for a slice of federal education stimulus dollars, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Tuesday. The state was axed in March from the first round of the program, known as Race to the Top, which is designed to encourage states to raise standards and implement education reforms, including making student test scores a factor in teachers' evaluations. In October, the California ......