January 30, 2024 | USC Today

People doing jobs once considered non-controversial — public health workers, librarians, election workers, school board officers — are increasingly bullied online, threatened and swept into the vortex of partisan vitriol. Public officials face an alarming rise in “swatting,” a dangerous...

Unlocking the Potential of Transitional Kindergarten Requires Better Data on Early Education

Summary

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.

Why California Should Retire the Free or Reduced-Price Meal Measure—and What the State Should Do Next

Commentary authors
Michelle Spiegel
Thurston Domina
Andrew Penner
Summary

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.

December 20, 2023 | AXIOS

Cobb County's growing Democratic and progressive communities are pushing back against its conservative school board, which was dealt a legal blow last week over its controversial district map. US. District Court Judge Eleanor Ross last week ordered the General Assembly...

December 15, 2023 | CalMatters

In the first glimpse of California’s K-12 schools’ year-over-year progress since the pandemic,  graduation rates hit some of their highest levels ever, absenteeism dropped significantly, and hundreds of districts showed academic improvements. But despite a few bright spots, most of...

December 15, 2023 | EdSource

The California School Dashboard is back in full color for the first time in four years. The dashboard, which the California Department of Education will release on Friday, is the state’s academic accountability and improvement tool designed for parents and...

November 30, 2023 | Governing

While moderate and liberal candidates did well in recent school board elections nationwide, experts say it's too soon to call these results a permanent change to extreme partisanship in school board politics. Schools and school boards have been cultural battlegrounds...

November 20, 2023 | USC Today

Diversity and inclusion programs, book bans, censorship and debates over school curricula are all signs that America’s culture wars have moved into a new combat zone: school boards. School board races have become increasingly partisan and polarized, despite boards’ statuses...

Why Aren’t Students Showing Up for School?

Understanding the Complexity Behind Rising Rates of Chronic Absenteeism
Commentary authors
Summary

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.

November 16, 2023 | EdSource

Two years after California schools reopened their classrooms to in-person instruction following the Covid-19 pandemic, students continue to struggle—both academically and emotionally. Both of these factors are deeply connected and recovery requires a team effort, according to panelists at the...