For the past decade, California has spent billions of dollars to improve the education of at-risk children, but there’s scant evidence that it had the intended effect. When Jerry Brown returned to the governorship in 2011, a quarter-century after his...

Newcomer is a term typically used to describe students who recently arrived in U.S. schools–but what recently means is not uniformly agreed upon. A new report from PACE, written by Californians Together Director of Newcomer Policy and Practice Sam Finn...

This post presents evidence-based solutions to address the post-Covid persistent absenteeism, which include effectively engaging parents through automated text messages and addressing underlying factors such as the cost-of-living crisis, increasing mental health problems among young people, and a lack of...

As a former educator, I have long been fascinated by the roles and responsibilities of American school boards. School boards have been around longer than America itself. According to Stanford’s Michael Kirst, local school boards are one of America’s earliest...

Wellness centers. Mental health counseling. Youth leadership development. These are examples of community schools initiatives in practice. With passage of a new contract that specifically endorses community schools, the West Contra Costa Unified School District is poised to become a...

In mid-April, two powerful California lawmakers urged the state’s community college leaders in a letter to pause part of a pilot that allows these institutions to offer bachelor’s degrees. Fifteen California community colleges have offered four-year degrees under the pilot...

Michael Kirst, the architect of the Local Control Funding Formula and then its chief implementer as president of the California State Board of Education for the first five years after its passage in 2013, freely acknowledges the law needs some...

In 2013, the Legislature adopted the Local Control Funding Formula, landmark legislation championed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown that overhauled how California finances TK-12 schools. It significantly redistributed money to districts based on student needs, and, in exchange for transferring more...

No issue is more pressing in California than education. In late October, the state released scores for the first post-Covid-shutdown state standardized test, conducted earlier last year. The results were horrendous (https://edsource.org/2022/2022-california-standardized-test-results-wipe-out-years-of-steady-progress/680179). Less than half of all students who took...

Now is the time for California elected leaders to be bold and to build on the historic progress we’ve seen. As a state that is poised to be the fourth largest economy in the world, California has the capacity and...

California’s lowest-performing and most-segregated student group is at risk of being left out of one of the state’s most important education reforms — the unprecedented investment in community schools. At both the February and April 2023 California Advisory Commission on...

From undergraduates to esteemed scholars, representatives of UCLA Ed & IS were everywhere at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association (AERA) earlier this month in Chicago. Bringing their Bruin spirit to the “Windy City,” the UCLA team...

Any absence is concerning because it represents lost learning opportunities, but when an absence is labeled unexcused, it also affects how a student and their family are treated. Our new report, "Disparities in Unexcused Absences Across California Schools," shows how...

The San Francisco Unified School District calls the LCAP its “most important plan.” That’s because the Local Control and Accountability Plan will map out how SFUSD serves its highest-need students: English language learners, foster and homeless youth and socioeconomically disadvantaged...

From kindergarteners to high school seniors, chronic absenteeism persists around the country, fueled in part by disruptions from the spread of COVID-19 in the last three years, government data shows. In some places, repeated absences are getting much worse. The...

Data on unexcused absences can be used to craft a “more preventive, problem-solving, and equitable response to poor attendance,” according to a new Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) report, Disparities in Unexcused Absences Across California Schools. Attending school is...

Marin school enrollment dipped again in 2022-23, the sixth straight year of decline, according to new state data. The county’s public school enrollment dropped by an average total of 8.85% since the baseline year of 2018-19. That was almost in...

As California’s community colleges add more baccalaureate degrees to their offerings, it could help improve racial equity in the state’s higher education systems, according to a new study. The study by UCLA calls for a “strategic expansion” of baccalaureate degrees...

Innovating High School Math Through K–12 and Higher Education Partnerships, a new report published by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), explores six partnerships between high school math specialists and university faculty working to increase equitable access to advanced math...

Researchers say CA Master Plan is obsolete, structural changes to increase degree production and intense focus on racial equity are needed. Calling California Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) degree programs, “potentially the best vehicle to transform who accesses and succeeds in...

New school enrollment numbers in California point to an uncomfortable truth: California may have too many schools for its shrinking student population. As declining enrollment puts pressure on school district budgets, many districts are considering school closures — an option...

Community college baccalaureate programs in California can help more Black and Latino students earn bachelor’s degrees in a state that badly needs a more educated workforce, according to a new report. The Civil Rights Project at the University of California...

New state data Tuesday dashed educators’ hopes for a post-Covid rebound statewide in TK-12 enrollment. Although substantially less severe than the past two years of record declines, the number of students enrolled in California public schools fell 39,696 to 5.85...

Enrollment at California’s public schools continued to drop for the sixth straight year, with a loss of nearly 40,000 students between this year and last. The situation was especially dire in the six-county Bay Area, with declines nearly double that...