State agencies and school districts nationwide are actively working to address the problem of teacher shortages, often while simultaneously seeking to diversify their educator workforce. As California grapples with the need to improve learning significantly for a student population that is increasingly linguistically and racially diverse, policymakers must focus on opportunities to attract more teachers to the profession, diversify the teacher workforce statewide, and increase teacher retention. We focus on the explicit credential barriers that candidates face when trying to pass state-required basic skills and subject matter exams as well as on how policy improvements could more effectively diversify the teaching profession so that it better reflects the state’s 75 percent students of color. Specifically, we recommend that the state expand how candidates can meet basic skills and subject matter requirements; gather and disaggregate credential exam data by candidate race/ethnicity; reduce teacher education program costs for both individual candidates and programs; and support increased investments in GYO programs.

Technology transforms nearly every aspect of our lives: the economy, the environment, health care, and our social lives. Today, 92 percent of jobs across most industries require some form of digital skills, underscoring the importance of computer science (CS) for career and college preparation. But it’s not just about jobs—it’s about equipping students with critical thinking skills to examine the biased algorithms and the data sets they draw from, which could influence the way students think and make decisions about voting and social justice, as well as their own relationships and well-being. Cultivating these critical skills with technology begins with K–12 education. While there is an urgency to meet this technological moment, it’s essential that we build the systems necessary to sustain CS education that is equitable, accessible, and culturally relevant so that it will engage our most underrepresented students.

The nationwide increase in chronic absenteeism, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, persists in California—affecting approximately 25% of students. Marginalized communities face disproportionate challenges. Structural issues like transportation and teacher shortages, alongside student-level factors such as insecurity and disengagement, contribute to absenteeism. Tailored solutions recognizing the unique developmental needs of adolescents are crucial. Adolescents' curiosity and peer interactions necessitate opportunities for exploration and contribution, while supportive relationships with adults are essential. Addressing chronic absenteeism requires collaborative efforts, ensuring equitable access to these opportunities and relationships. Local expertise and insights from developmental science should guide the creation of inclusive school environments that promote consistent attendance and engagement among adolescents.

Across the country, states are moving to education systems that are more student centered, equitable, and competency based. They are doing so because they understand that the legacy model for educating our young people is not working. Although graduation rates have increased, other markers of progress have not. Standardized test scores remain relatively flat. Achievement and opportunity gaps persist despite decades of increased funding and abundant strategies to reduce them. Chronic absenteeism is near an all-time high. The reality is that too many students do not find school to be interesting, engaging, or relevant for their futures. This is particularly true for youth of color and other marginalized student populations. Rather than continuing to tinker around the edges, we can advance real change! Here’s how.

California is making a significant investment (estimated at $3 billion per year) in early childhood education by requiring school districts to offer transitional kindergarten (TK) to all 4-year-olds by the 2025–26 school year. This investment is crucial—research has shown that there can be many wide-ranging and long-term positive impacts of high-quality early education on student outcomes. Such outcomes, however, depend a great deal on program design. It is thus critical for us to have good data so that we can understand the effects and effectiveness of TK at both the state and district level. Specifically, we need good data on program characteristics and participation as well as on the trajectory of student outcomes post-TK in order to understand how TK programs can have the greatest impact on participating students and fulfill the promise of the state's investment.

In 2013–14, California enacted an ambitious—and essential—reform to improve educational equity by directing state resources to districts and schools that educate large numbers of economically disadvantaged students. The reform is called the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF); it allocates funding to school districts based on student characteristics such as socioeconomic status and provides greater flexibility to use the allocated funds than the previous school funding formula allowed. In addition to the LCFF, which is based on average daily attendance (ADA), districts receive funds based on the proportion of students they serve who are English learners, income eligible for free or reduced-price meals, and foster youth. The equity multiplier, a new policy passed in 2023, is designed to provide even more funding for disadvantaged students.

The surge in chronic absenteeism among California students during the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years was initially attributed, quite reasonably, to the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic. There was optimism that these rates would eventually begin to decline as schools returned to normal. When new chronic absenteeism numbers came out in October—along with California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASSP) data for 2022–23—the findings indicated that rates are down from the soaring absenteeism of 2021–22; 25 percent of K–12 students in California schools were chronically absent in 2022–23, down from 30 percent the year before. However, more than three years after the initial onset of the pandemic, chronic absenteeism among California students is still double the rate of prepandemic levels, and there are no signs of this trend abating.