Mayor London Breed is pushing an ambitious school board oversight plan that threatens to withhold city funding from classrooms if Board of Education members don’t change their behavior. San Francisco classrooms, under a proposed change to city law, could lose...

Some of California’s largest school districts are dropping D and F grades for high school students. While the hope is to help students reengage in school after distance learning and to boost their chances of acceptance into the state’s public...

This episode of School’s In features Ted Lempert, a former California State Assembly member and longtime champion for education reform who currently serves as PACE advisory board member and president of Children Now, a national research and advocacy organization.  He joins...

When it comes to early childhood education, child’s play may well be serious business. Fun and games bring more than just joy. They may be the key to helping children thrive in tough times, experts say. Since young children don’t...

The University of California’s historic move to abandon standardized exams may not be the last of changes coming to the admissions process for the public university system. That’s the expectation of college access advocates and admissions experts who say ditching...

Over the summer, public schools in California gave students a chance to change their letter graders to a "pass" or "no pass." This, after schools acknowledged that some students had a hard time adjusting to online learning. Now some school...

Many California voters consider college affordability to be a top priority and also support increasing resources for California’s community college students,  according to “Californians’ Attitudes About College Access, Affordability, and Equity in the Time of COVID-19,”a new research brief published...

In 2013 students of color at the University of California at Los Angeles Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, known as UCLA SEIS, wrote a letter to the school’s leadership, reporting a “hostile racial climate” on campus. The students...

Bad report cards could soon be a thing of the past in California, because some of the state’s largest school districts are dropping “D” and “F” grades. The move is called competency-based learning. Supporters say it will help kids re-engage...

How can policymakers design evidence-based policy that improves student outcomes and access to educational opportunity? How can researchers and practitioners collaborate effectively to implement evidence-based, data-driven interventions, close achievement gaps, and address disparities in school discipline? Researchers, policymakers, and educators...

A new poll provides insight into the issues that a new Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent may face. Lower-income and Black families of students attending L.A. Unified schools feel less supported by the state’s largest school district, according to the poll, while a majority of the families, regardless of income or race, support a public annual evaluation of the new superintendent. The poll data also shows significant disparities in how families feel about the mental support offered to their children.

Some of California’s largest school districts are trying an unconventional tactic to help students re-engage in school after distance learning and boost their chances of acceptance into the state’s public colleges: by dropping D and F grades. Los Angeles Unified...

Jacobs Foundation welcomes Benjamin W. Domingue as new Jacobs  Research Fellow.  Domingue is interested in how student outcomes such as test scores are leveraged to inform our understanding of student learning and the efficacy of educational interventions. He has a particular interest...

It’s been eight years since then-Gov. Jerry Brown restructured California’s school funding formulas to direct billions of dollars to the state’s neediest students. But, in 2019, state Auditor Elaine Howle confirmed what critics had been saying for years: State and...

California’s landmark funding reform law needs to be fixed to help meet its promise of raising the achievement of underperforming student groups, conclude two recently published research studies. The co-authors of a third report, after examining recent research and interviewing...

While literacy is often seen as a cornerstone to scholastic achievement, and many parents devote a lot of time and energy into nurturing their small child’s love of reading, studies show that mathematical reasoning ability may be even more crucial...

In the broadest sense, LCFF embraced the conventional wisdom that altering the flow of money would profoundly affect educational outcomes. However, from its inception, LCFF has been awash in controversy—not over its concept, but rather its implementation. The latest attempt...

The Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, ushered in a new era of school funding in California when it was adopted in 2013. It’s regarded by many as the most significant resource equity reform the state has ever enacted. But...

As Los Angeles Unified begins interviewing candidates for yet another superintendent, it must face a tough question: Has its unusual board governing structure blurred the lines between board member and superintendent and contributed to the steady churn in district leadership...

Our 6-year-old grandson, who lives in Texas, recently discovered how much fun it is to read. My wife Diane has been sending him packets of early reader books since he loves getting mail that is addressed to him. He likes...

Teachers across the country are seeing more and more students struggle with reading this school year. Pandemic school closures and remote instruction made learning to read much harder, especially for young, low-income students who didn’t have adequate technology at home...

The bottom line is: Spanish is just one of the many languages spoken by members of the Latino community. This problem has bled into schools, where administrators and teachers don’t know that their students speak an indigenous language, and don’t...

While the recognition of indigenous languages is layered in a complex and politically fraught history, there are concrete steps that schools can take to ensure that they account for and support all students. First, schools must create inclusive home surveys...

We all know the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a change to every aspect of life. We’ve seen how work and school looked drastically different than usual — and so did health care, transportation, nutrition and more. In many cases, inequities...

The impact of dual enrollment at the state’s community colleges is growing: more than 112,000 high school students graduating in the 2019–20 school year enrolled in college courses and earned college credit, representing an increase of 56% from 2015–16. This...