So what’s the alternative? If narrow, test-based evaluation of teachers is unfair, unreliable, and has negative effects on kids, classrooms, and curricula, what’s a better approach? By demonizing teachers and unions, and sharply polarizing the education debate, the corporate reform...

On the football field, a talented quarterback often calls the option play, holding off on the decision to run or pass to the last possible moment. This gives him time to survey the field and choose the best option for...

To help lay the groundwork for reforming California's faltering school system, more than 30 researchers nationwide have launched the largest independent investigation ever of how the state governs and finances education. Stanford Associate Professor of Education Susanna Loeb, an economist...

Citing the thousands of California students who were shut out of community colleges last year because of budget-forced course and staffing cuts, a report issued Tuesday predicted worse times ahead for the state’s two-year colleges without significant funding and policy...

California faces a huge increase in demand for higher education over the next few years, and it urgently needs a broad plan to meet its statutory guarantee of access to college, state business and labor leaders said on Tuesday during...

Too Much Demand: California faces a huge increase in demand for higher education over the next few years, and it urgently needs a broad plan to meet its statutory guarantee of access to college, according to “Ensuring Access With Quality...

In the debate on improving California's educational system needs to include the issue of students who transfer schools, say University of California, Santa Barbara researchers in a just-completed study published by California Analysis for California Education (PACE).  It backs this...

Thousands of Bay Area children who used to play after school are spending their afternoons at pricey tutoring centers that are springing up like fast-food franchises. Parents are spending $2,000 to $4,000 a year to buy their children extra academic...

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...

The state's schools need about 8,000 new classrooms just for first grade. Portable classrooms seem an obvious solution, but manufacturers normally make 2,500 a year, and orders are expected to exceed 15,000. Another issue is affordability: The state initially provided...

en years ago this spring, a federal commission released a report that shocked the nation with its grim assessment of public education. With ringing martial metaphors and a dire warning of a “rising tide of mediocrity,” A Nation at Risk...

An experiment in six California school districts aimed at finding common ground between teachers’ unions and administrators achieved moderate success last year and will be expanded to at least five more districts, project participants reported last week. Under the “Trust...

But most people who work with problem kids say there are more relevant statistics. According to the child advocacy group Children Now, more kids than ever are growing up in poverty in California—1 in 5; 1 out of 3 kids...

California policymakers have not responded to the changing needs of the state’s children, leaving many at risk of slipping through gaps in a fragmented social-services system, according to a new report by a group of independent researchers.

Although most California...

What is it like to be a child in California? Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), an independent, university-based research center, has undertaken the first comprehensive overview of that question in “The Conditions of Children in California,” to be released...

San Francisco may bill itself as “Everybody’s Favorite City,” but city school officials say they’re having trouble finding minority teachers who want to work here. The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most ethnically diverse spots in the...

California schools are suffering from a severe shortage of bilingual teachers, leaving many districts unable to find enough qualified teachers to keep up with the sharply rising number of pupils who know little or no English. Educators and state officials...

Countering a blistering study last fall that attacked the performance of minority high schools in four Southern California counties, including Los Angeles, a group of California education professors said Wednesday that minority pupils have made academic gains, particularly since a...

Countering a blistering study last fall that attacked the performance of minority high schools in four Southern California counties, including Orange County, a group of California education professors said Wednesday that minority pupils have made academic gains, particularly since a...

schools will do little more than ensure continued educational mediocrity, according to an analysis released Tuesday by an independent group of education professors from the state’s top universities. With enrollment statewide growing 42% above what had been projected for this year...

A recent report by USC education professors Allan Odden and David D. Marsh for Policy Analysis for California Education indicates that when schools put together all the critical reforms, they show improvement. All our estimates indicate that about 30% of...

Tougher school standards enacted by the state four years ago appear to be contributing to better learning conditions and academic gains, according to a study of 17 California junior and senior high schools released Thursday. The report, authored by two USC...

The majority of inner-city high schools in Los Angeles are doing a worse job of educating low-income black and Latino youths than they were 10 years ago, according to a study of standardized test scores released today by the University...

Four years after a torrent of school ''reforms'' began to sweep across the country amid fears that American public education was lagging, schoolchildren in almost every state are facing tougher academic standards and billions of dollars have been pumped into...

This year, Policy Analysis for California Education—PACE—has undertaken two of its most ambitious projects to date: a study of the impact of education reform at the local level, and an assessment of the condition of children in the state. Known...