The community college baccalaureate program is on the precipice of expanding in California. Program proponents say the more advanced bachelor’s degree offerings by colleges that typically offer associate degrees are key to training California’s workforce and expanding degrees among the...

Two California school districts in the process of shifting district structures, policies and culture are beginning to see a measurable effect on student outcomes, according to a recent report from the Policy Analysis for California Education. Led by California Education...

In March 2020, school districts across California closed their doors, rapidly adjusting to remote instruction in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges associated with the adjustment are unprecedented and their impacts continue to be felt, even as students have mostly...

One of the important lessons of the pandemic is that virtual learning is here to stay, but it has a lot of room for improvement. And teachers, principals, and district leaders should be thinking hard about how to make remote...

California public school enrollment has dropped for the fifth year in a row—decline of more than110,000 students—as K–12 campuses struggle against pandemic disruptions and a shrinking population of school-age kids amid wide concerns that the decrease is so large that...

Last week, I wrote about the ongoing debate over whether the SAT and ACT exacerbate the larger inequality in colleges. After the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reinstated its SAT/ACT requirement, I looked at the argument that standardized test haters might...

For more than 100 years, California has funded schools based on the average number of students who attend each day. But as attendance has plummeted during the pandemic, some policymakers and education leaders have proposed to change that. Instead, they...

Community schools emerged in the Greater Salt Lake City region of Utah in the mid-2000s beginning with the Salt Lake School District. Today, there are approximately 30 community schools throughout the Greater Salt Lake City region. Along the way, organizations...

In a Community School Policy Brief by Hayin Kimner, Policy Analysis for California Education, Kimner says, “An effective community school recognizes that student success does not rely solely on the expertise of instructional professionals but is also the result of...

California is estimating a 9 percent drop in K-12 enrollment, with some counties experiencing double that amount, by 2030. To complicate the picture, other counties are expecting to see enrollment increase as much as 10 percent. While the COVID-19 pandemic...

The Learning Policy Institute, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, Children’s Aid National Center for Community Schools, the Coalition for Community Schools and the below members of the Community Schools Forward task force provide this policy memo to the...

Measures like the private college proposal could be a step toward making those schools as affordable for low-income students as the state’s public universities, said Michal Kurlaender, an education professor at UC Davis. That’s especially relevant given the pressing concern...

As Sacramento City Unified School District teachers and staff complete the second day of an open-ended strike, union concerns about ineffective leadership, staff shortages and COVID-19 protocols continue. And it’s also highlighting the pay rate of educators in the district...

In San Ysidro School District, more than a quarter of the district’s nearly 4,400 students are unhoused, according to Superintendent Gina Potter. It highlights the question of how school funding should be determined, she said, while weighing the pros and...

For most schools, the catch up strategy is asking teachers to run a few review sessions and to generally pick up the pace of instruction. Researchers say that is not going to work well and they found kids who were...

A new analysis by the research nonprofit PACE (Policy Analysis for  California Education) examines the tradeoffs and various options for one of the key decisions awaiting the Legislature this spring: how to fund TK-12 schools following two years of steep...

According to the Community Schools Playbook, a project of the Partnership for the Future of Learning, “Many community schools stay open year-round, from dawn to dusk, and on weekends. The most comprehensive community schools are academic and social centers where...

Young students are having difficulty learning to read as schools have returned to in-person learning after two years of pandemic disruptions. Studies of literacy in young children have shown that some young students are still suffering from learning loss, even...

In President Biden’s State of the Union speech last week, he highlighted the importance of addressing the lasting impact of COVID-19 on our nation’s children in part through the elevation of the community schools strategy. The long-standing community schools movement...

The state has significantly enhanced the potential for school and community leadership to act together to support student learning and development through the California Community Schools Partnership Program. The program—particularly the planning grants, just released on March 1—holds the potential...

Confidence in California public schools has declined as voters and parents overwhelmingly have concluded that the quality of education worsened during the pandemic, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Pollsters...

Since COVID-19 shut down classrooms in March 2020, education advocates, teachers and parents have repeatedly sounded the alarm, saying extended closures and distance learning would stymie students’ achievements. During the pandemic, students across ethnic groups saw an increase in Ds and...

Schools across San Francisco embody elements of community schools, which aim to assess students’ needs and bring in outside services ranging from dental care to Medi–Cal assistance to arts and music programming while building deeper connections to students and families...

In America, the demographic circumstances of a child’s birth substantially shape academic success. Sociologists have spent decades studying how factors beyond students’ control—including the race, wealth and ZIP code of their parents—affect their educational opportunities and achievement. But one often...

The pandemic has given us all a taste of forced isolation. We’ve seen how it can leave individuals feeling lonely, scared and depressed. Imagine if that was your permanent experience. For many students with disabilities, isolation is the standard practice...