With more than 13,000 local educational agencies across the nation, school board members make up the largest group of elected leaders. The report Who’s on Board? School Boards and Political Representation in an Age of Conflict, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, explores who trustees are and what they believe compared to the communities they serve.
The California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) board convened Feb. 26 for its first meeting of 2026 to discuss challenges and successes in providing direct technical assistance (DTA) and ongoing projects.
A federal grant will help rural Inyo County students upgrade classrooms to elevate student learning. The $700,000 Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture will support Inyo COE in advancing educational access and equity in local rural and frontier communities by funding the initiative, Inyo LinkEd: Empowering Rural Education Opportunities.
Because of its growth potential and consistent impact across local educational agencies, a recent NWEA brief, “School’s in for summer: A scalable and effective post-pandemic academic intervention,” concluded that summer school is “a reliable intervention for supporting district-wide math recovery.”
A December report summarizes the findings of a working group convened last year by the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence to determine how effectively the Statewide System of Support’s current structure — including the layers of technical assistance embedded in it, such as differentiated assistance and direct technical assistance — is supporting local educational agencies.
Eighty-five percent of California schools considered in a recent study experienced tree canopy loss between 2018 and 2022.
In recognition of Black History Month, observed in February, CSBA Principal Research Manager Jeremy Anderson highlighted how the initiative, with proper implementation, will allow local educational agencies to better support African American students.
A recent report and accompanying brief from the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) considers the experiences of teachers of color as the workforce’s diversity was stagnant at about 20 percent between 2018 to 2021. It also examines strategies to encourage more diversity in the field.
Anxiety continues to be a common struggle for adolescents, according to the report Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
In 2023–24, the most recent year considered, California students had an average of 10.7 days of lost instruction per 100 students enrolled due to out-of-school suspensions. For those in the foster care system, it was 76.7 days lost per 100 enrolled, for students experiencing homelessness it was 29.1 days lost and for students with disabilities, it was 23.4 days lost.
