The most inexperienced and least qualified teachers continue to teach in schools with the highest-needs students in California ­— even though those students require the most expert teachers, and research has shown that the effectiveness of classroom teachers is the...

By most accounts, California is thriving. Industries including entertainment, technology, real estate, and agriculture are flourishing, and state coffers are growing thanks to a booming economy and additional revenues raised by voters at the ballot box. At the same time...

Sacramento’s school system has emerged as an example of mismanagement that shows no indication of changing. Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a prestigious think tank created by California’s major universities, has chosen Sacramento City as a starkly negative example...

Imagine Worldwide and the Airbel Impact Lab at the International Rescue Committee are excited to announce a groundbreaking new partnership to fill a huge gap in learning for children globally. More than 600 million children in developing countries fall short...

The elephant in the Marin taxpayers’ living room — burgeoning teacher pension costs at local public schools — is the subject of a new report by a Stanford-based policy group. The 20-page report, “The Canary in the Gold Mine: The...

The unexpected defeat in 2016 of a school parcel tax in wealthy Marin County and the near-defeat of another in the county that same year prompted a trio of authors to look into what had turned many voters against them.

Policy Analysis for California Education, in a new report, found that other school districts in California that may have similar budgetary problems should heed Sacramento City Unified’s ongoing fight as a warning.

Sacramento City Unified's ongoing labor fight serves as a cautionary tale for other school districts in California that may have similar problems lurking in their finances, an education think tank says in a new report issued today. A strained relationship...

Los Angeles Unified leaders were right to abandon plans for a single rating system for schools, which would have been a giant step backwards for school performance transparency. Those same decision makers should double down by making Los Angeles school...

The University of California came under new pressure Tuesday to eliminate the SAT and ACT as an admission requirement, when several groups threatened a lawsuit alleging that the tests violate state civil rights laws by unlawfully discriminating against disabled, low-income...

Each spring, California public school children in grades 3-8 and 11 take a set of tests known as the CAASPP (the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress). In summer, families receive the results electronically. In autumn, schools and districts...

Strategizing around how best to address policy makers on issues of access, student success and the impact of higher education, four prominent scholars gathered at New York University (NYU) on Friday to share their research. Dr. Stella Flores began Friday’s...

The California School Boards Association and its partners last week took the next step toward putting a $15 billion tax initiative for K-12 schools and community colleges on the ballot, setting up the possibility that two competing tax measures will...

Educational accountability is attracting a lot of political attention—or perhaps lip service—these days in California. Governor Gavin Newsom has signed two bills touted as bringing more accountability to education. Better tracking of how individual students are faring could, and perhaps...

Districts and high school counselors throughout the county spend time and resources supporting students as they explore their college and career interests. In December 2018, Policy Analysis for California Education released a report entitled, “Where California High School Students Attend...

As local educational agencies throughout California strive to boost student outcomes by way of continuous improvement strategies, a new research analysis of the state’s eight CORE districts explores which conditions best support that continuous improvement in districts and schools. The...

Advocates, leaders and researchers have been waiting for a long time to have an early childhood champion in the governor’s office. Now we finally have one. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the new California Legislature have a historic opportunity to put...

It is not enough to put a new technology in front of the student and hope for the best. The mindset toward change—and the resources leveraged to support the people who enact change—mark the difference between technology that empowers and...

This brief applies value-added models to student surveys in the CORE Districts to explore whether social-emotional learning (SEL) surveys can be used to measure effective classroom-level supports for SEL. The authors find that classrooms differ in their effect on students’...

Half a century ago, the University of California helped catapult the SAT to a place of national prominence in the college admissions process when it began requiring all applicants to take the test and report their score. Now the UC...

Racial segregation leads to growing achievement gaps – but it does so entirely through differences in school poverty, according to new research from education Professor Sean Reardon, who is launching a new tool to help educators, parents and policymakers examine...

California school districts need to significantly increase their education spending to ensure that students have adequate resources and support to provide the state’s content standards and meet its academic goals. Based on 2016-17 numbers, funding schools adequately to meet these...

Revisions to California’s charter school law. A ban on suspensions for disruptive behavior through middle school. A crackdown on medical exemptions from vaccinations. These were among the more contentious – and momentous – bills that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into...

As a followup to a report last spring, Learning Policy Institute researchers visited and studied seven California districts in which African American, Latino, and white students achieve at high levels on math and English language arts to learn strategies behind their success. Among the commonalities, the authors found instructionally engaged leaders; strategies for hiring and retaining a strong, stable educator workforce; collaborative professional learning; a deliberate, developmental approach to instructional change; systemic supports for students’ academic, social, and emotional needs; and an engagement of families and communities. The districts were Chula Vista Elementary School District, Clovis Unified, Gridley Unified (Butte County), Hawthorne School District, Long Beach Unified, San Diego Unified and Sanger Unified.