Author

John Festerwalk, for EdSource

John Fensterwald, staff writer, joined EdSource in 2012. Before that, he was editor and co-writer for The Educated Guess website, a leading source of California education policy reporting and opinion, which he founded in 2009. For 11 years before then, John wrote editorials for the Mercury News in San Jose, with a focus on education. He worked as a reporter, news editor and opinion editor for three newspapers in New Hampshire before receiving a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University in 1997. His wife is a retired elementary school teacher, and their daughter is a neurologist who received her training at UC Davis Medical School and her residency at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

John's Latest Articles

Trump attacks a key strategy for California schools: Flagging racial disparities in discipline
By &
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State News
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April 28, 2025

Experts say the executive order threatening to withhold funding from schools doesn’t have much bearing on California schools — for now.

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