With local educational agencies facing growing challenges related to issues like chronic absenteeism and student mental health concerns to political tensions around curriculum, funding, staffing shortages and teacher burnout, a new report from ThoughtExchange explores the role of a positive school climate in alleviating the difficulties education systems are facing.
Local educators, school board members and students gathered at Washington Unified School District’s River City High School on May 5 and urged state leaders to reject efforts to shortchange education funding by $5.6 billion in the 2026–27 State Budget. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal would withhold over $900 per student from California’s public schools, forcing difficult cuts in classrooms and communities across the state, creating hardships for students and placing obstacles in the path of academic progress.
A local educational agency’s structures and processes are key components in effectively uplifting and scaling instructional changes in schools, according to Policy Analysis for California Education’s (PACE) practice brief “How Districts Scale Instructional Improvement That Lasts.”
More than 30 percent of California’s approximately 30,000 school-aged youth in foster care regularly experience some of the highest rates of chronic absence and exclusionary discipline. A new brief from Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) details how changes in foster youth classification status impacted attendance and discipline rates in four of California’s CORE school districts — a group of several of the state’s larger school districts that test improvement theories at the school and district levels to provide the infrastructure for multi-district collaborations.
In December 2025, more than 600 Clovis Unified School District high school and middle school students attended the district’s 13th annual Asian American Student Success Conference. The conference, held at Clovis East High, celebrates a different region each year and 2025 spotlighted the Cambodian culture […]
Each year, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing is required to submit a report providing data about the supply of new teachers available in the state to the governor and Legislature. Determining teacher supply is essential for policymakers as they analyze how current statutes and […]
Clarified the applicable standard for determining when the 2-year statute of limitations in special education matters begins.
The California Department of Education, as part of its universal prekindergarten (UPK) initiative, recently published a toolkit that local educational agencies can use to find tips on communicating early learning options to families.
The report Aligned by Design: How cross-system math alignment can improve students’ pathways from high school to college offers recommendations that states can consider to improve the effectiveness of math pathways for learners.
Student use of artificial intelligence (AI) for homework increased in 2025 according to a new RAND report. At the same time, more students are expressing concern that the technology may be harming their ability to think critically.
