With more teachers entering the profession as interns, California has reduced the number of under-prepared teachers by half. However, the vast majority of intern teachers are assigned to low achieving schools serving poor and minority students, according to a new...
This annual report provides an update on California’s teacher development and teacher quality policies; discusses trends in the supply of and demand for teachers; examines data on novice, underprepared, out of field teachers; and investigates the local policies and decisions...
As teachers and principals throughout California and the country struggle to satisfy the increasing demands of the federal No Child Left Behind law, education experts and school officials say they are paying increasing attention to the middle-of-the-road students who have...
Students, parents, and K–12 educators are not receiving clear messages about the skills that high school students need to enter and succeed in college. U.S. high school students now have higher aspirations for college than ever before. During the last...
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, signed into law by President Bush on Jan. 8, 2002, was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the central federal law in pre-collegiate education. The ESEA, first enacted in...
For children and teachers across America, it's rather bad news. Education is now the No. 2 preoccupation of voters, running just behind worries over jobs, according to recent polls. So a political catfight has suddenly broken out between President Bush...
President Bush likes to say diversity is America’s greatest strength. But when it comes to schools seeking a passing grade under the landmark education law he championed, a diverse student body can be a school district’s greatest liability, according to...
This report, produced by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd, provides the latest available data and analysis of California’s teaching workforce and examines the preparation, induction, and professional development of teachers. The report also examines...
A growing body of literature suggests that high school curriculum, especially during the senior year, is greatly lacking in academic intensity. A recent report from the National Commission on the High School Senior Year indicates that students find the last...
High school seniors have slacked off for as long as anyone can remember. "Senior slump" isn't news, but education Professor Michael W. Kirst's explanation and proposed solutions for it are. It's where he lays the blame for students who goof...
Authored by Stanford education professor Michael W. Kirst, this 24-page report is the latest in the "Perspectives in Public Policy: Connecting High Education and the Public School" series, published by The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) and The National Center...
Halfway through the school year, money from California's new $66 7 million test-based awards program hasn't yet made it into either school budgets or educators' bank accounts. The effort to implement the high-profile rewards program-believed to be the largest of...
A state lawmaker said Tuesday that she will ask for an investigation into a statistical anomaly that allows school scores on the Academic Performance Index to go down even if all the groups of students within the school improved their...
By linking schooling with a specific field or occupation, the thinking goes, students will be able to see more direct connections between education and their own futures. The idea differs from traditional vocational schools in that the schools remain essentially...
Student mobility is the practice of students changing schools other than when they are promoted from one school level to the other, such as when students are promoted from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school...
Nearly a fourth of K-12 students nationwide are not attending their neighborhood public schools, opting instead for an array of public and private school options, according to a recent report. In 1993, the proportion of students eschewing their neighborhood public...
One in four children across the nation has left the neighborhood school in favor of a magnet or charter school, voucher program or private school, despite lax oversight and scant evidence of academic success, according to a two-year study released...
The notion that schools should be held directly responsible for improving student achievement—and should be rewarded or sanctioned for their ability or lack of ability to do so—is taking both California and the nation by storm. Much of the recent statewide...
School districts are not responding to charter schools with swift, dramatic changes, according to a study released by Policy Analysis for California Education, a university-based research consortium. A majority of districts in which the independent public schools have been established...
Asian immigrant students, representing a striking range of languages, cultures and socioeconomic levels, are streaming into schools in the San Gabriel Valley, forcing districts that were largely Anglo or Latino to grapple with profound ethnic changes that seemed to develop...
Those were among the findings of a new poll of California voters conducted last month for Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a 13-year-old research center focusing on issues of state education policy and practice. Michael Kirst, Stanford professor of...
The financial impact of Proposition 174 has been debated by both sides in the contest, each trumpeting multimillion-dollar figures. Two independent think tanks -- the Rand Corp. is one -- have disputed those predictions, saying the price tag is unknown...
They were the splintered children of America. There were Ceasar, Dasha, Jesse, Jamilett, Ali and Alex. Only two had lived their entire lives with the same two parents. The lives of those two had been anything but stable. Their families...
Nearly two-thirds of Californians believe the way to improve their public schools is through wiser--not more--spending, but a bare majority is willing to pay higher taxes to restore state cuts in education funding, a Los Angeles Times Poll has found...
In the aftermath of a particularly rancorous Los Angeles school-board session last week, a fair number of parents expressed anger at the decision to put city schools on a year-round calendar starting in July, 1991. But while some may find...