When then-Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature created the Local Control Funding Formula a decade ago, their professed goal was to close the achievement gap separating poor and English-learner K-12 students from their more privileged contemporaries by providing more targeted...
Between 2007 and 2022, California saw its K–12 public school enrollment decrease by more than 390,000 students, or more than 6 percent statewide, according to data from the state’s Department of Education. The baby bust is a large contributor to...
The pandemic had a devastating impact on learning, experts say, with lasting ramifications for the world of education at large. During the chaotic period when California families were running scared, public schools were shuttered and playgrounds off-limits, an estimated 152,000...
In the first glimpse of California’s K-12 schools’ year-over-year progress since the pandemic, graduation rates hit some of their highest levels ever, absenteeism dropped significantly, and hundreds of districts showed academic improvements. But despite a few bright spots, most of...
The California School Dashboard is back in full color for the first time in four years. The dashboard, which the California Department of Education will release on Friday, is the state’s academic accountability and improvement tool designed for parents and...
As California continues to expand access to transitional kindergarten (TK), new research from the Public Policy Institute of California finds benefits and potential pitfalls should burgeoning trends go unaddressed. For instance, TK leads to earlier identification of multilingual students in...
Truancy rates for students in the state of California and across the country are again an area of concern. Since the earliest days of the Corona pandemic educators, parents, government and community organizations have monitored the effects of chronic absenteeism...
In its ongoing commitment to foster development of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) identities in girls and nonbinary youth, the Fleet Science Center proudly showcases three key programs that San Diegans can engage with now. Expanded learning initiatives allow...
In a 2022 study of 10 CCB-authorizing states, researchers Ivy Love and Iris Palmer found that half required CCB institutions to keep upper-division tuition level with lower-division tuition. Even in the states that don’t place this requirement on community colleges...
Two years after schools returned to in-person learning, students are struggling to meet math and English standards on statewide tests. Their mental health is also suffering and they’re missing lots of days of school. EdSource brought together a panel of...
While moderate and liberal candidates did well in recent school board elections nationwide, experts say it's too soon to call these results a permanent change to extreme partisanship in school board politics. Schools and school boards have been cultural battlegrounds...
As districts consider closures to cope with budgetary declines, new research adds to concerns that schools with higher enrollments of Black students are more likely than other schools to be shut down. “The big picture is that race plays a...
California’s Transitional Kindergarten (TK) program provides an extra year of schooling within the K–12 system. Launched a decade ago with limited eligibility, TK will soon be open to all four-year-olds. Taking stock of the program’s impact so far—especially among multilingual...
Roughly four dozen Fort Worth ISD campuses are less than 70% occupied, making them likely targets for future closings.Fort Worth ISD officials have discussed the need to make some hard decisions due to challenges driven by dwindling enrollments and underutilized...
Two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed off on an ambitious plan to make a pre-kindergarten program available to California’s 4-year-olds for free. That effort, already underway, is an attempt to reduce learning disparities and improve outcomes for the state’s...
Diversity and inclusion programs, book bans, censorship and debates over school curricula are all signs that America’s culture wars have moved into a new combat zone: school boards. School board races have become increasingly partisan and polarized, despite boards’ statuses...
Ventura County public school students continued to miss school at historic rates during the 2022-23 school year, further crystallizing a post-pandemic trend. Across the county, 22% of students were chronically absent last school year, a small improvement from 2021-22, but...
The surge in chronic absenteeism among California students during the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years was initially attributed, quite reasonably, to the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic. There was optimism that these rates would eventually begin to decline as schools returned to normal. When new chronic absenteeism numbers came out in October—along with California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASSP) data for 2022–23—the findings indicated that rates are down from the soaring absenteeism of 2021–22; 25 percent of K–12 students in California schools were chronically absent in 2022–23, down from 30 percent the year before. However, more than three years after the initial onset of the pandemic, chronic absenteeism among California students is still double the rate of prepandemic levels, and there are no signs of this trend abating.
Two years after California schools reopened their classrooms to in-person instruction following the Covid-19 pandemic, students continue to struggle—both academically and emotionally. Both of these factors are deeply connected and recovery requires a team effort, according to panelists at the...
Two years after schools returned to in-person learning, the state’s Smarter Balanced scores show disappointingly little improvement. Nearly two-thirds of California students failed to meet math standards for their grade level, and more than half fell short of the standards...
One of the only two states to provide schools with official guidance on artificial intelligence so far, Oregon published an explainer on its website with tips, definitions, references and links to helpful resources. The good news is that policy related...
Today's guest is Hayin Kimner. Hayin is a practitioner, a researcher and a policy advocate with a focus on the whole child, community school systems and partnerships that support the healthy development and youth in their communities. And she currently...
This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at Capitol Weekly’s Conference on Education Policy which was held in Sacramento on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Panelists included Heather J. Hough, Policy Analysis for California Education, Stanford University...
Liberal and moderate school board candidates claimed victory across the country this week, wresting majority control from Republicans in some swing suburban districts, fending off challenges in liberal communities, and defeating some conservatives who had sparked intense backlash in right-leaning...
The showdown over book bans and how students are exposed to information about racism and gender identity moved from school board meetings to the ballot box, where voters on Tuesday delivered a sizable blow to far-right agendas. From Iowa to...
