SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced he has signed legislation to implement long-standing recommendations to strengthen California’s education governance system to better support its nearly 10,000 schools and approximately six million students. The legislation — Assembly Bill 181 by...

California’s Department of Education will soon be under the control of the governor’s office, drastically changing the role of the next state superintendent, who will be elected in November.  The change, pushed through by Gov. Gavin Newsom as part of...

After decades of steady growth, the country’s K-12 public school enrollment is in sustained decline. Federal projections indicate that 40 states will experience further losses through 2030-31, driven primarily by falling birth rates, with other contributing factors including slowing immigration...

The just-approved state budget strips authority from the elected state superintendent of public instruction, transferring power in January to an appointee of the governor, dramatically changing the oversight and management of a public school system serving more than 6 million...

Legislation for the big shift — moving the California Department of Education from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s control to a new chief executive of education under the governor — passed the Legislature Monday, though barely.  With 15 lawmakers...

A new California law creates an appointed education commissioner, shifting many powers from the elected state superintendent.

School closures—commonly touted as a financially responsible strategy to right-size cash-strapped districts—often do not improve districts’ financial standing, according to a new study out of California.  Even worse: Any money actually saved from closing a school building is largely offset...

It’s not often you see over 900 diverse organizations across California all agree on something. But when a problem affecting our kids’ education has existed for over a century with little progress towards fixing it, it brings people together to...

A local educational agency’s structures and processes are key components in effectively uplifting and scaling instructional changes in schools, according to Policy Analysis for California Education’s (PACE) practice brief “How Districts Scale Instructional Improvement That Lasts.”  “District leaders play a...

This has been a disruptive year for education research. Last February, roughly $1 billion in federal funding was canceled. Amid efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, most staff at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which supports education...

Some teachers say that AI tools, particularly Google Lens, have made it impossible to enforce academic integrity in the classroom—with potentially harmful long-term effects on students’ learning. Google has recently made the visual search tool easier to use on the...

More than two dozen educators from kindergarten through college converged at UC Merced to discuss the challenges they're facing and the opportunities ahead. The Oct. 21 event, hosted by the Center for Educational Partnerships, featured Lupita Cortez Alcalá, the newly...

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the vital role school systems play in daily life, from learning and socialization to nutrition programs, transportation, and mental health. In the absence of in-person instruction, countless new stressors impacted families, teachers, and administrators who were...

Since 2009, nearly every U.S. state has adopted specific standards and teaching frameworks for literacy and math. Yet, despite these efforts, the implementation of these standards in classrooms has often fallen short. As I reflect on my six decades in...

From private school vouchers to threats over “woke” curriculum, the Trump administration has launched a slew of reforms intended to reshape K–12 schools. But it’s still too soon to determine how—or if—those efforts will play out in California...

A new brief by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) outlines the strategies used in partnership with California Education Partners (Ed Partners) aimed at improving student outcomes. Over the past four-years, 48 districts participated in an Ed Partners’ collaboration with...

Using evidence-based approaches, Ed Partners District to District program collaborates with districts and county offices to improve systems to achieve better outcomes for students. In Taking Reform to Scale, researchers at PACE studied our work with districts over four years...

Are California’s stubborn failings in teaching basic subjects such as math and reading, which the educational establishment hopes no one will notice, fixable? Two recent projects to improve academic skills indicate that learning can be improved with sustained effort that...

Students file out of classrooms after the final bell rings. It’s the end of the day and they shuffle to their parents’ cars or the school bus to catch a ride home or to an extracurricular activity or job. Others...

The Los Angeles Unified School District showed strong gains in newly released state metrics and reached a record graduation rate, but overall academic performance fell well short of state learning goals. The latest release of state data indicated positive trends...

Oakland mom Azlinah Tambu vividly remembers the moment that would transform her from the law-abiding, neighborhood school mom into a trespassing activist threatened with jail time. For months, Tambu, whose two children were then in elementary school, and others had...

This month we want to highlight the work in Grass Valley. The Improvement Team is engaged in year two of the P3CC Literacy Collaboration. Grass Valley has focused on Preschool through 3rd grade coherence as foundational to their district-wide initiative...

Sierra House Elementary in the Lake Tahoe Unified School District is working to develop a sustainable math system that focuses on enhancing both teaching and learning experiences. One of their key initiatives includes embedding open tasks in student experiences, which...

San Francisco must do everything it can to avert a state takeover of its schools. That’s the stark message brought by Carl A. Cohn, the only outside educator to be brought in to help the team of city administrators set...