Child advocates and school officials fear the enrollment drop and educational disruptions for the young children could widen existing racial achievement gaps, and endanger school financing in the future.
California’s long-awaited roadmap to reshape early childhood care and education in the state took a critical first step on Tuesday with the release of a first-ever 10-year master plan, but some advocates say more specifics are needed to ensure progress.
The 2020 Breaking Barriers Interagency Symposium took take place exclusively online over four consecutive Thursday mornings. Each of these Thursday sessions focused on one of the four pillars: Shared Leadership, Shared Data, Shared Community, and Shared Finance.
As the pandemic rages mostly unchecked in much of the country, some of these families wonder if they’re being punished for choosing to keep their kids home. Providing an equal education to kids learning in person and to those learning...
Almost midway through the school year, it has become increasingly clear that virtual learning is failing a sizable number of Texas public school students whose parents decided to keep them home as COVID-19 grips the state. The disturbing number of...
As coronavirus cases spike across California, Bay Area school districts continue to weigh when and how to reopen. San Jose Unified School District recently announced plans to open classrooms in January; Oakland Unified has yet to set a date. But...
Teachers across the country are struggling to adapt to hybrid classroom approaches cobbled together in response to the enduring pandemic. Many say they’re having trouble reaching the students who need their help the most.
Policy Analysis for California Education Director of Strategic Partnerships and State Education Policy Expert Dr. Alix Gallagher discusses the biggest challenges facing in K-12 education.
When Sacramento City schools started back up again just before Labor Day this year, parents were scrambling to figure out their kids’ online learning schedule for the fall. The teachers union and the Sacramento City Unified School District still hadn’t...
Headaches, anxiety and exhaustion caused by never-ending video meetings are no longer exclusively for adults trying to work from home during the pandemic. Some schools have started the fall semester with remote-learning setups that mimic what a full day of...
Anticipating that the coronavirus would create a turbulent and financially unstable year, the Legislature agreed in June to fund schools at the same levels of student attendance in 2020-21 as in 2019-20. Most school districts welcomed the predictable funding.
When schools reopen for the 2020–21 school year, they will look dramatically different than before the pandemic. Whether in person, online, or some combination of the two, it will be critical that each student receives rigorous instruction and the academic...
Wanted for the new school year: high-quality remote-learning experiences to engage and benefit all students. In the current pandemic reality, educators can improve learning, we believe, by finding better ways to use and structure students' work time. That's true whether...
There is little that is likely to be regular about the coming school year. Hermosa and most other districts in California are beginning the year exclusively with distance learning.
With Covid-19 cases still on the rise in much of the country, the remote learning experiment that started last spring will continue in most schools across the nation. But even as teachers, students and families prepare to go back to...
Today, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and Results for America released two new EdResearch for Recovery briefs from leading education researchers addressing important COVID-related challenges facing policymakers, educators, and parents: distance learning and supporting immigrant students during COVID-19...
Live online class time is most effective when it is built around small-group peer interactions and direct teacher-to-student feedback, according to a new research brief from Policy Analysis for California Education. The researchers also found that students need reserved time...
As more than 6 million California students head back to school this fall, this year isn’t about fresh notebooks, sharpened pencils and new backpacks. Students, parents and educators are navigating a new world of virtual learning, with the vast majority...
The COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide reckoning about institutional racism have cast a bright light on longstanding inequities in our educational system. On August 17, 2020 we heard from UC Davis experts about the latest research into educational disparities for...
Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) recently published a report (and a corresponding brief, titled: Supporting Learning in the COVID-19 Context) for educators and district leaders in California. The recommendations set forth in the publication are drawn from both evidence...
Addressing equity challenges has been the consistent thread that runs through major California education policies of the last decade. However, educational inequities, already significant prior to COVID-19, have been exacerbated by the pandemic’s education disruptions. How can we make Multi-Tiered...
Many teachers, students and their families can agree on one thing after experiencing the unexpected hurricane that was distance learning this spring: It must improve—especially in the earliest grades, transitional kindergarten through second grade. Our youngest students, from ages 4...
The past few months have not been good ones for the promise of peer-to-peer interaction. Schools, linked with socialization at least as far back as Plato’s “Republic,” have been closed since March. On July 17, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that...
This has been a year like no other for everyone. Students have had their school year abruptly end, their summer plans canceled, and are now facing the realities of the fall semester. Most school districts don’t even know if they...
Frustrated Bay Area families already know classes will be online when school starts in the coming weeks, but many still have no idea when their K-12 students will have to log on for lessons or how many hours of live...