After ending my fourth term as president of the California State Board of Education in 2019, I have begun to reflect, in my sixth decade of education policy, about what I did right and what I should have done differently...
PACE co-founder Michael W. Kirst, former president of the California Board of Education (1977–1981 and 2011–2019), highlights in a new PACE commentary findings from his Learning Policy Institute report Standards-Based Education Reforms: Looking Back to Looking Forward, which analyzes the evolution of standards-based reforms in the United States. Kirst issues a call to action: California needs a strategic and tactical roadmap to improve instructional capacity in classrooms statewide. The commentary offers four recommendations: return the CDE to its former role of providing technical assistance on how to implement subject matter standards; strengthen COEs for effective capacity building; reorient the district role to focus on instructional capacity; and design the roadmap for targeted district support. Without a unified strategy, California risks more uneven progress. A comprehensive, coordinated approach is essential to equipping educators with the tools they need to deliver equitable, standards-aligned instruction to all students.
Most newcomer students enter school with very low or beginning English language proficiency (ELP), but their language skills can develop rapidly under the right conditions, according to the first in a new series of briefs by Policy Analysis for California...
USC Rossier Professor of Education Policy discusses strategies for engaging local stakeholders, her experience as a researcher and how COVID-19 will impact funding for education.
With a recession imminent and tens of millions of Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the past few weeks, state budgets are taking a beating—and schools could be in serious fiscal jeopardy. In states like Florida, where recently passed budgets...
