California’s school governance system needs to be overhauled to make it more accountable, clear up confusing lines of authority and address uneven assistance, according to a new report released Monday. These and other systemic weaknesses are undermining the potential success of the state’s landmark programs like universal kindergarten and the support for school districts to tackle the achievement gap, chronic absenteeism and other challenges under local control, the report from the research center PACE asserts. The expected cuts in federal education funding and transfer to states of oversight responsibilities by the Trump administration adds urgency to reorganize a complex and flawed multi-agency system, starting with the California Department of Education, the 94-page report titled TK-12 Governance in California: Past, Present and Future argues. The state must now “meet the demands and opportunities of this moment,” the report said. “Given shifting federal responsibilities, declining enrollment, and widening achievement gaps, California can no longer postpone reforms that have been overdue for a century,” Julie Marsh, professor of education policy at USC and one of the report’s three co-authors, stated in a press release. “We must take on the challenge of modernizing our governance system now.”  PACE, which stands for Policy Analysis for California Education, is a research center led by faculty at Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA and USC.