Local officials have begun reevaluating how much their communities are getting for their single biggest expense: the degree-certified competence of public school teachers and administrators. Does every school system really need a credentialed curriculum director, when any good teacher should...

More than 20 years ago, Proposition 227 was passed in California, requiring that all public schools teach curriculum in English and providing only a year of special instruction to English learner students in the hope of quickly producing assimilated and...

Due to statewide teacher shortages, many of California’s approximately 800,000 special education students are being taught by teachers who haven’t completed teacher preparation programs or have received only partial training.

Recent survey results show that while more California county office of education leaders are understanding and accepting of the new roles of COEs in the Statewide System of Support, the state must further build out and enhance the system to...

As he was campaigning for governor, Gavin Newsom made some enormous promises for the youngest Californians and their families — universal preschool, affordable, high-quality child care, six months of paid family leave. And he’s delivered — on the first few...

California has earmarked nearly $200 million over the last four years to address the state’s persistent teacher shortage, but it is not enough, according to new studies that are part of “Getting Down to Facts II,” a research project focused...

Like their state counterparts, state boards must both respond to crises and plan ahead. A focus on creating the best possible learning for all will help educators, students, and families emerge from this crisis on a stronger footing. This issue of...

The Policy Analysis for California Education Policy Research Panel on Special Education has released a series of policy briefs summarizing key findings from the project Organizing Schools to Serve Students with Disabilities.Distinguished Professor George Farkas's article - "Achievement Gaps and...

This is one of the most exciting, daunting and critically important moments in California’s education policy history. We are all in uncharted territory. Policymakers and educators at all levels of the system are wrestling with the virtually simultaneous implementation of...

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...

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...

Development of the State's plan for the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 (Perkins III) got underway in August when members of the Field Review Committee met in Sacramento for an orientation to key issues. The...

Nearly a fourth of K-12 students nationwide are not attending their neighborhood public schools, opting instead for an array of public and private school options, according to a recent report. In 1993, the proportion of students eschewing their neighborhood public...

One in four children across the nation has left the neighborhood school in favor of a magnet or charter school, voucher program or private school, despite lax oversight and scant evidence of academic success, according to a two-year study released...

Ask instructor Donald Misumi what challenges will confront the new chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, and his response is typical: He laughs. “Got an hour?” he asks. The district’s reputation for excessive bureaucracy and under-funding has achieved...

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...

In 1985 the Board of Governors of California Community Colleges, in honor of the former state Chancellor, Gerald C. Hayward, created awards for outstanding community college faculty. The Gerald C. Hayward Award for "Excellence in Education" has been awarded since...

Nearly a year after convening a panel of experts on accountability, Los Angeles school officials have distilled their recommendations into a set of principles to guide a new system that would make every district employee, from custodian to superintendent, responsible...

Governor-elect Gray Davis of California appears poised to reshape what many see as the state's piecemeal and inefficient system of developing policies to govern its 8,000 K–12 public schools. His new education secretary, a prominent former state senator, is expected...