The notion that schools should be held directly responsible for improving student achievement—and should be rewarded or sanctioned for their ability or lack of ability to do so—is taking both California and the nation by storm. Much of the recent statewide...

School districts are not responding to charter schools with swift, dramatic changes, according to a study released by Policy Analysis for California Education, a university-based research consortium. A majority of districts in which the independent public schools have been established...

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...

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...

Those were among the findings of a new poll of California voters conducted last month for Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a 13-year-old research center focusing on issues of state education policy and practice. Michael Kirst, Stanford professor of...

How Refreshing to read a report on improving California schools that is comprehensive, practical, specific and demonstrates that its writers have actually set foot in a classroom. The report, "Rebuilding Education in the Golden State: A Plan for California's Schools"...

Local school district surtaxes might be the best way out of the state's current education funding crisis, education Professor Michael Kirst told the annual California Education Summit in San Francisco Wednesday, Feb. 16. Without it or a similar measure, Kirst...

Desperate about a decline in the quality of public education, California voters on Tuesday will be faced with a proposal for a dramatic change that would plunge them into the unknown and offer them little chance of retreat. The proposal...

The financial impact of Proposition 174 has been debated by both sides in the contest, each trumpeting multimillion-dollar figures. Two independent think tanks -- the Rand Corp. is one -- have disputed those predictions, saying the price tag is unknown...

Californians like the idea of school vouchers - but not if they mean less money for public schools, and only if the government has a greater say on how private schools are run. The issue is important to Californians, who...

How will Proposition 174, California's school voucher initiative, affect local school districts, should it pass? How about the state's budget—will the proposed measure save money or cost a bundle? Despite what the measure's proponents and foes argue, nobody knows what...

They were the splintered children of America. There were Ceasar, Dasha, Jesse, Jamilett, Ali and Alex. Only two had lived their entire lives with the same two parents. The lives of those two had been anything but stable. Their families...

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...

Public education in the nation's largest state is facing its toughest multiple-choice test in decades: grow, adapt, change, or bust. Against a backdrop of national and state budget deficits with little relief in sight, dozens of K-12 school districts across...

Nearly two-thirds of Californians believe the way to improve their public schools is through wiser--not more--spending, but a bare majority is willing to pay higher taxes to restore state cuts in education funding, a Los Angeles Times Poll has found...

"California education is in tough shape, and its going to get tougher," says Stanford University Education Professor Michael Kirst, who says the main reasons are a flat economy and a state financing system that hasn't accommodated booming population. Kirst suggests...

Teachers might be willing to have more say in how the schools are run in exchange for little or no salary increase. The Los Angeles district tried such a technique soon after Anton and Bernstein took over their respective organizations...

It has become a political football in recent years, used alternately by union leaders to bolster claims of hidden district assets and school officials pleading poverty in Sacramento. State guidelines require that 55% of a district’s budget be spent in...

Parents are gaining influence in the schools not only through the movement to give them a role in school decisionmaking, but also as a result of the ongoing drive to allow them to choose among schools. Both strategies are predicated...

Much has been written about America's failing schools and how free-market "choice plans" can save them. One school district in California, however, has moved beyond rhetoric and is implementing a reasoned and restructured choice plan that warrants careful scrutiny. 

None of the three major candidates has come up so far with a detailed, comprehensive approach to fixing the state’s struggling system of public schools. Nor has any of them added much to their initial offerings. Yet just their interest...

In the aftermath of a particularly rancorous Los Angeles school-board session last week, a fair number of parents expressed anger at the decision to put city schools on a year-round calendar starting in July, 1991. But while some may find...

Educational reform sweeping the United States can succeed only if teachers are trained as rigorously as are law and medical school students and given equally enticing career ladders to climb, say three educators at the University of California at Berkeley...