Schools are shaping up as a key battleground in the upcoming California recall election, and the coterie of Republicans running to replace Governor Gavin Newsom is offering voters an alternative vision of public education: school choice.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools, the grades and mental health of millions of students declined. Several of the leading Republican challengers in the upcoming California recall election of Governor Gavin Newsom see this crisis as an opportunity. Turning parents...

As school districts around the country begin to announce a wide range of plans for the fall, COVID-19 infection rates are on the rise and the economy remains in recession.Senate Republicans and the White House are considering conditioning at least...

A recent poll by Policy Analysis for California Education and USC Rossier confirmed what many educators, parents and students likely already know: The public has become increasingly polarized about issues in education. The poll found that the majority of voters...

With the delta variant of COVID-19 circulating, parents are left with fresh reasons to be worried about the new school year. Logistical wizardry has pushed out enough vaccinations to improve public health dramatically, yet children under 12 still are not...

As critical race theory—the examination of institutions through a lens of racism and inequality—becomes a nationwide political flashpoint, ongoing efforts by schools to promote inclusivity, in part, by offering ethnic studies courses have come under fire. Now, county education officials...

When schools across the country closed their doors and began remote instruction last spring, most of us in education braced for the worst. We weren’t wrong. The academic, social and health challenges that besieged K-12 students during the pandemic are...

Inevitably, the lives of many students returning to campus will look dramatically different from their lives in March of 2020. Some of them might have acquired a new sense of hopelessness and anxiety triggered by losing a loved one during...

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley will join the Biden administration in a temporary role to provide advice on higher education policy, and Deputy Chancellor Daisy Gonzales will serve as acting chancellor until his return in the late fall.

Any effort to reach students disproportionately affected by the pandemic must address the needs of English learners (ELs). These students have always been underserved and underfunded by the U.S. education system. And now, data suggests that these students have been...

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley will join the Biden administration in a temporary role advising U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on higher education policy, the system announced Monday. Deputy Chancellor Daisy Gonzales will serve in Oakley’s stead after...

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a series of budget bills worth more than $100 billion, giving the most detailed glimpse yet into how the state’s huge budget surplus will be distributed over the coming months, and how California’s experiment with...

With the 2020-21 school year in the rearview mirror, now is the opportunity to take a breath and turn our attention to how we want to approach the upcoming school year to maximize recovery. To expand our understanding of the...

Nationally, public schools lost 1.5 million students last school year—roughly a 3 percent drop and the largest since the beginning of the century, according to federal data. Much of that enrollment decline was driven by parents holding their kindergartners out...

With the 2020–21 school year in the rearview mirror, now is the opportunity to take a breath and turn our attention to how we want to approach the upcoming school year to maximize recovery. As data experts, we believe that...

Policy Analysis for California Education and the USC Rossier School of Education released their ninth annual poll on education on July 8. Findings show record-high support for schools and teachers after more than a year of learning during a pandemic...

News headlines about the three federal stimulus packages totaling $192 billion for public schools since the beginning of the pandemic have emphasized their potential to lead to significant academic and other improvements—expanded mental health resources, broader summer school offerings, cleaner...

Despite perceptions of the public's widespread unhappiness with the slow reopening of California's schools last spring, most voters surveyed, including parents, gave the highest marks in a decade of polling to the state's public schools in general and their schools...

Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature have seized a once-in-a-generation deluge of state and federal funding to set in motion a sweeping and ambitious set of education programs that seemed implausible six months ago. The 2021-22 state budget, which...

With coronavirus numbers creeping up, online learning in flux and public health departments revising their return-to-campus guidelines almost week by week, parents, educators and experts are increasingly turning to summer school to try to figure out fall.

In the wake of the pandemic, which shined a spotlight on the essential nature of early childhood education and care, universal transitional kindergarten is poised to become a reality in California. Although some of the state’s largest districts already offer...

Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) Assistant Professor Benjamin W. Domingue has been named to a key role on the leadership team of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), joining as faculty director representing the GSE. 

Californians are concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the state’s students and strongly support specific efforts to address their learning needs as the pandemic eases, according to new public opinion research from the 2021 PACE/USC Rossier poll released...

Education Commission of the States is pleased to honor Michael Kirst, former president of the California State Board of Education, with the 2021 James Bryant Conant Award, in recognition of his unwavering commitment to improving school finance systems to serve...

Although California parents strongly favor full campus reopenings in the fall, they want school districts to offer online learning options, according to a statewide survey that indicates uncertainties ahead for in-person attendance. More than two-thirds of parents agree that eligible...