California cannot afford to ignore or postpone questions of how to support the academic success of its K-12 English learners. This group represents more than 40 percent of the state’s K-12 public education students, and its share of enrollment is...
Given more control over how they could spend state money, school districts not surprisingly chose survival over experimentation. And if legislators want otherwise—to encourage districts to innovate or target money on low-achieving students—then they should be more explicit about their...
These reports analyze the impact of the fiscal cutbacks on opportunity for higher education in the California State University system, the huge network of 23 universities that provides the bulk of bachelor-level education in the state. The CSU has a...
We continue a special live broadcast from Oakland's Castlemont High School on the dropout crisis in public schools. In this hour, we turn to policymakers and education reformers who have given this issue a lot of thought. Do they think...
Five years ago, Stanford's Institute for Research on Educational Policy and Practice (IREPP) released a landmark report on the state of education in California called "Getting Down to Facts." That project, led by education Professor Susanna Loeb, examined the state's...
Five years after a study by Stanford researchers called for reform and increased investment in California’s public education system, progress has been at best underwhelming and inconsistent, according to a new report from the independent Policy Analysis for California Education...
Five years after a blue-ribbon research report urged an overhaul of California’s school governance and finance systems, a follow-up finds that the organizational ailments highlighted in 2007 remain, and the financial picture has gotten worse. The original “Getting Down to Facts” report...
PACE poll results align with major findings from Stanford's Getting Down to Facts research project on California school finance and governance. Californians strongly believe local school districts should hold more control over how money is spent in public schools, and...
The latest five-year assessment of the state of California’s K-12 public school system — conducted by the Policy Analysis for California Education, an independent research center — reports small progress in the face of persistent as well as unanticipated challenges...
As California implements the Common Core State Standards and discusses ways to better link K-12 and postsecondary education systems, it is critical to understand how well the state’s current postsecondary and career readiness standards relate to each other and to...
Almost all the politics of education concerns rearranging adult power and privilege. Relatively little political energy is spent consciously designing a contemporary system of public education. That should change.
By focusing political energy on how students learn rather than the...
The upcoming implementation of Common Core instructional standards in California is described as a significant transformation for the state's education system. Michael Kirst, President of the California State Board of Education, testified that the Common Core brings about substantial changes by emphasizing deeper learning and moving away from traditional multiple-choice testing. He outlined the extensive work required for successful implementation, emphasizing the need for new policies to align various educational aspects with Common Core standards. California, one of 45 states adopting Common Core, anticipates better alignment with post-secondary study demands, emphasizing a deeper understanding of complex material, particularly in math and nonfiction text analysis. Despite a tighter focus, the standards aim to use fewer, more impactful benchmarks. The current assessment system, reliant on standardized multiple-choice tests, is considered inadequate for measuring Common Core skills. New assessments for English and math are in development, with the state adopting the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. The Common Core provides more curriculum flexibility, abandoning the traditional seven-year textbook adoption cycle in favor of an expedited endorsement process for local districts. Despite the complexity, Kirst expressed confidence in California's ability to navigate this transformative shift, drawing parallels to past successful educational transformations.
The White House issued a press release March 16 announcing that President Barack Obama intends to nominate Susanna Loeb, professor of education and director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis, to the National Board for Education Sciences. The National...
Governor Brian Sandoval today announced he has appointed, for the first time in Nevada history, a state superintendent of public instruction. Based in Las Vegas, James W. Guthrie will become Nevada’s superintendent of public instruction effective April 2. The selection...
Lower transportation costs. Less money spent on facilities and overhead. Increased teacher and student attendance. And higher test scores? New research suggests, perhaps counterintuitively, that the four-day school week not only doesn’t hurt student achievement, but seems to help. The...
Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget has cast a darker shadow over the future of hundreds of model high school programs that help prepare students for college and careers. About half of the nearly 500 California Partnership Academies, essentially “schools within...
California voters will face a stark choice in November when they decide whether to approve Governor Jerry Brown’s new budget proposal, which stipulates either raising income taxes for the wealthy and temporarily increasing sales tax by half a percent, or...
Recent news headlines have drawn attention to budget cuts that districts pursue in response to the state’s revenue shortfalls. But policymakers and state agencies need to consider more than episodic revenue declines or relative rankings of districts. Instead, policymakers need...
Mark Berends, Laura S. Hamilton, Luis A. Huerta, and Ron W. Zimmer have been appointed to a three-year term as coeditors of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA) for the 2013–2015 volume years. Berends, Hamilton, Huerta, and Zimmer were appointed...
Policy Analysis for California Education hosted a seminar on "Expanding College-and-career Pathways for High School Students: What Does it Cost?" During the seminar, UC Berkeley professor David Stern presented findings from two related studies. The first part of the presentation...
Californians express concern about the state's higher education system, as revealed by the latest Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) survey. Respondents acknowledge the importance of a strong higher education system for the state's future and recognize the negative impact of recent budget cuts on colleges and students. However, a significant majority is unwilling to pay higher taxes to support post-secondary education, and a similar majority rejects the idea of students paying more for their education. These findings align with a persistent trend observed in PPIC surveys since 2007, indicating that Californians are reluctant to cut expenditures on favored services but resist tax increases or additional fees for themselves. The survey results reflect a broader sentiment revealed in a recent Gallup poll, indicating that, on average, Americans believe 51 cents of every federal dollar is wasted. This skepticism about government spending hampers efforts to secure increased funding for essential public services, including higher education, despite the recognition of its importance. The challenge lies in overcoming the belief that a substantial portion of government spending is wasteful, which impedes support for increased funding where it is needed most.
Researchers examined teacher evaluation within Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) programs in Poway and San Juan, challenging the widespread belief that those fostering improvement should never assess teachers. Contrary to this idea, the integration of support and evaluation proved effective. Consulting teachers offered intense, tailored support and conducted detailed evaluations, supported by extensive documentation. A comparison between the thorough evaluations by consulting teachers and principals' assessments revealed significant differences in depth and thoroughness. The PAR governance boards played a pivotal role, ensuring rigorous evaluations, addressing operational issues collaboratively, and overseeing assessments conducted by both consulting teachers and principals. The essential fusion of accountability and support in teacher evaluations is spotlighted here—acknowledging the challenge of implementing frequent and comprehensive appraisals. This also underscores the importance of making meticulous employment decisions and advocating for collaborative structures like PAR governance boards to ensure fair and accountable decision-making. Overall, integrated support and evaluation challenge traditional assumptions in teacher assessment and emphasize the crucial role of collaborative structures in fostering fair, accountable, and comprehensive evaluations.
Educational assessment policy must produce measures of performance that are fair and accurate for all students in order to convey clear and helpful information to educators, parents, and the students themselves. Achieving these objectives is especially challenging when it comes...
You can hardly open a newspaper or major magazine today without finding a story about another incarnation or overhaul of teacher evaluation. But underlying nearly all these detailed descriptions of state and local programs is a near-unanimous and long-standing assumption...
Learning to collaborate and to solve ill-defined problems are to the 21st Century what industrial discipline was to the last hundred years, according to those who have studied what employers and society need. They need to be considered basic skills...
