School of Education researchers Michal Kurlaender, Sherrie Reed and Paco Martorell, alongside researchers from the UC Davis Department of Economics, recently authored “Where California High School Students Attend College,” a new report published through Policy Analysis for California Education. The...

The alliance intended the website to serve as a guide for parents and the public that may be unaware of the significant shifts in policy under Gov. Jerry Brown and the State Board of Education that he appointed. To support...

The state of California, a long-time leader in college access, has turned its attention to improving college persistence and degree completion. In particular, recent changes to remediation policies in the California State University (CSU) system, the largest four-year system in...

California’s new accountability and continuous improvement system relies on partners using several different measures of performance to identify where changes are needed throughout a student’s learning life. Carefully monitoring the development, testing, and evaluation of improvement strategies requires partners having...

California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) allows districts to better meet local needs and improve services for low-income students, children in foster care and English learners. But three-fourths of the superintendents responding to a new survey say the basic level...

California’s superintendents overwhelmingly support the state’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and its underlying goal of promoting more equitable allocation of resources for high-needs students, according to the first comprehensive survey of how district superintendents view the five-year-old law. In...

If you said racism or gender identity is the hottest topic at colleges today, you’d be wrong. One of the most disputed issues in college isn’t about equality. It’s about whether the schools should make intermediate level algebra a requirement...

On February 21, the University of California (UC) announced that it would make online courses free for high school students to help them better compete for college spots. UC’s online program, widely known as UC Scout, is an attempt to...

The University of California today announced a major expansion of UC Scout, its online learning program to provide California high school students with free access to the courses they need to be eligible and competitive for admission into college. The...

Last month, during a hearing before California lawmakers on the need to reform remedial education—the system that aims to ready underprepared students for college-level work—a student testified that because his test scores required him to take one year’s worth of...

A tax bill passed by the United States House of Representatives would eliminate a deduction for interest paid on student loans, a move that could have an impact on undergraduate and graduate students alike.

Sierra was recently featured in a PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education) brief as a leader in helping students place into higher math classes.

How necessary is intermediate algebra, a high school-level course on factoring trinomials, graphing exponential functions and memorizing formulas that most non-math or science students will rarely use in everyday life or for the rest of college? A growing number of...

High school seniors around the country are feeling apathetic toward their classes during their final semester, which often carries over and negatively affects their freshman year of college. The epidemic, commonly known as “senioritis,” is the topic of a recent...

California is quickly becoming a national battleground over the franchise for testing high school juniors. The College Board, producer of the SAT college admissions test, wants in, while state officials, defenders of the state’s current test provider, the Smarter Balanced...

Three out of 10 of California’s 2016 high school graduates earned a score of 3 or higher in Advanced Placement tests, allowing them to earn college credit, according to new figures from the test’s publisher, the College Board. The state’s...

It has been 20 years since California State University took aim at remedial courses, seeking to eliminate (or drastically reduce) the system’s reliance on these courses to ensure that students are prepared for college. Through a range of measures, the...

Sac State and its sister campuses are free to determine how to serve students who are not performing at a proficient level on the Entry Level Mathematics test, and also to set additional prerequisites for higher-level math. But, as highlighted...

Some low-income students in California could face a steep fee increase for Advanced Placement exams this spring following the elimination of a federal subsidy. The cost for each AP exam for these students could climb from $5 or $15 to...

Next year the California Community Colleges System will pilot a common assessment system that tests all students for the same skills. Currently, community colleges use different tests to place students in classes, but Assembly Bill 743 required the community college...

The nation has an increasingly cumbersome problem with developmental education, a system that is intended to give students a better shot at succeeding in college but which, according to mounting evidence, is costing students time and money and actually preventing...

Many of the causes for the unequal participation in higher education are very difficult to address. But we do know what to do about one big part of the divide: the information disconnect. Students who are new to America or...

To the casual observer, the SAT looks the same—questions on math and English, an essay, a set amount of time to finish each question. But the college entrance exam has gotten a makeover. High school students are taking a new...