The latest test statewide results will disappoint others who had hoped to appreciably reclaim some of the lost academic ground. That has not happened in California or in neighboring states that also give the Smarter Balanced assessment. In Oregon, English...
After California invested billions to help students rebound from the pandemic, K-12 math and English language arts scores remained mostly stagnant last year and still well below pre-COVID levels. The annual Smarter Balanced scores, released today, showed that English language...
Does your district have a dedicated point person on the role of artificial intelligence in K-12 education? Are you requiring vendors that use AI algorithms in their products to ensure they are free from bias? Do you have employees with...
A bill signed over the weekend by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Bill 714, will begin to provide much-needed guidance and data for teachers like King, who often don’t have training or experience in how to teach newcomer students — defined...
This one-day conference built on on the conversation started in a recent Special Issue of Educational Assessment centered on fairness in testing and assessment. The event is cosponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA CRESST, and Policy Analysis...
Public school enrollment is declining across the country, and it won’t bounce back anytime soon. The steep drops in K-12 enrollment in the aftermath of COVID-19 exacerbated a much longer-term trend rooted in falling birth rates and slowing immigration. These...
Absenteeism has grown in recent years and hit a new high in 2021-22 when a staggering one-third of students in California’s public schools were chronically absent – missing 18 or more days of school a year. This is three times...
Thanks to TikTok videos, billboards and other creative marketing techniques, enrollment in transitional kindergarten in California appears to be climbing. But advocates are keeping an eye on how those 4-year-olds are spending their class time — which they say will...
Every day a student is absent is a lost opportunity for learning. Too many absences not only can affect achievement for the absent student but also can disrupt learning for the entire class. While no absence is beneficial to student...
More and more of California’s 116 community colleges — struggling to remake themselves under pressure from declining enrollment — are venturing into higher education territory traditionally reserved for four-year institutions, offering bachelor’s degrees that lead to careers in high-demand fields...
With technology at the palm of your hand, you typically don’t hesitate to look up the answer to a question — and it’s often just a click away. For students, is there anything stopping them from doing the same? How...
If the organization you’re running suddenly finds itself with 30% of its nominal clients chronically no longer engaging with your services, you’ve got a problem.An existential one, as even the non-philosophers among us now term anissue that could lead to...
In a unanimous 4-0 vote, the Orange Unified School District passed a policy Thursday evening that would require school officials to notify parents and guardians if their child asks to use a name or pronoun different than what was assigned...
COVID-19 cases are on the rise throughout Los Angeles Unified and the county. Public health experts are urging caution while school officials are looking to keep children in the classroom for their academic progress and emotional well-being. Despite the surge...
A trio of resources recently published by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) — a policy brief “Addressing Inequities in College Preparatory Course-Taking,” a report Inequality in Academic Preparation for College and a resource guide Insights and Strategies from Exemplar...
Nearly a third of K-12 students statewide were chronically absent in 2020-21, more than three times the pre-pandemic rate. Some school officials fear that pattern will become the new normal. As a new school year gets underway in California, districts...
As hundreds of thousands of migrant students enroll in U.S. schools annually, districts are responding in a variety of ways to help welcome students to schools, as well as support their academic and social needs once they are enrolled. The...
Some liken the use of ChatGPT to generate answers from prompts to using a calculator to solve a knotty math problem. Both, proponents argue, are a time saving tool that expands what is possible. Adoption of the technology has been...
Many school districts spent the last academic year trying to seal students off from artificial intelligence. Now, they’re racing to establish AI-friendly classrooms as a new school year kicks off. They’ve crafted rules for AI use among students and trained...
As nearly half a million Los Angeles Unified School District students head back to school today, they’re joined by a younger cohort than in the past: 4-year-olds. The district is offering universal transitional kindergarten at every public elementary school this...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is fashioning himself as the Democratic counterweight to Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who has staked his presidential campaign on his war on “wokeness” and railed against what he and other conservatives describe as left-wing indoctrination...
Two Whittier Union high schools have been recognized for their success in guiding students toward completing rigorous coursework required to attend a California four-year university, significantly narrowing the achievement and equity gap, and providing these students an opportunity to have...
Educators, policymakers, and researchers find themselves now, more than ever, at a moment of inflection. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated health and wellness disparities, food insecurity, housing challenges, and the digital divide. Our country is poised to confront its history...
As the new school year begins, parents, researchers, advocates, and educators are still trying to untangle the academic, mental and social-emotional consequences of the pandemic. There is no one answer to the question: Are the kids OK? Academics with a...
Artificial intelligence (AI) encompasses a broad set of tools developed to perform tasks that have historically required human intelligence. The new generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are not programmed with a specific set of instructions; rather, they are trained on sets of data and algorithms that guide how they respond to prompts. We are increasingly using a range of AI tools—such as autopopulate suggestions, navigation systems, facial recognition on phones, and ChatGPT—in many aspects of our lives. Because of the prevalence and power of these tools, their rapid development, and their potential to be truly disruptive—in positive and negative ways—it is critical that school districts develop policies, guidelines, and supports for the productive use of AI in schools. Later in this commentary, we discuss many of the short-term positives and negatives of using AI in schools. The greatest impact of AI, however, is how it can transform teachers’ roles and student learning.