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How to Keep Buildings Cool in California’s Warming Climate

By Sarah Bardeen

California is getting warmer—and that’s putting strain on residents who are struggling to stay cool. Could better architectural design help? This week, we speak with an expert in passive cooling and carbon-neutral design to learn more.

Policy Brief

Policy Brief: Assessing Transitional Kindergarten’s Impact on Elementary School Trajectories

By Julien Lafortune, Laura Hill, Mary Severance

Transitional Kindergarten (TK) program provides an early year of schooling within California’s K–12 system. Now that the program is being expanded to all four-year-olds, it is important to take stock of its impact so far—especially among multilingual students and students with disabilities, who might benefit from additional support early on.

Report

Assessing Transitional Kindergarten’s Impact on Elementary School Trajectories

By Julien Lafortune, Laura Hill

California’s Transitional Kindergarten (TK) program provides an early year of schooling within the K–12 system. Launched a decade ago with limited eligibility, TK will soon be open to all four-year-olds. Taking stock of the program’s impact so far—especially among multilingual and special education students—can help TK expansion succeed.

Fact Sheet

Poverty in California

By Sarah Bohn, Caroline Danielson, Sara Kimberlin, Patricia Malagon

With the end of many pandemic relief programs, poverty rates—especially for children—have gone up in the last two years.

blog post

School Vaccination Rates Vary across California

By Shalini Mustala, Shannon McConville

Maintaining adequate school vaccination rates is essential for public health and community well-being, but many schools across the state could be vulnerable to disease outbreaks due to lower vaccination rates.

Report

Are Younger Generations Committing Less Crime?

By Magnus Lofstrom, Brandon Martin, Deepak Premkumar

Among Californians born in 1993 and later, criminal offending has fallen 20 to 25 percent compared to previous generations. This shift in longstanding trends is a driving factor behind the overall decline in crime over the last decades and has several broader implications for the criminal justice system.

Report

Managing Water and Farmland Transitions in the San Joaquin Valley

By Ellen Hanak, Andrew Ayres, Caitlin Peterson, Alvar Escriva-Bou ...

How can the San Joaquin Valley adapt to a future with less water? We’ve been researching this issue for the past seven years, and our new report presents highlights from we’ve learned, including a robust list of policy suggestions to help the valley weather—and make the most of—the coming changes.

blog post

Private Schooling Played a Small Role in Declining Public School Enrollment

By Emmanuel Prunty, Julien Lafortune

Private schooling in California increased substantially during the pandemic. Still, it accounts for a small share of total K–12 enrollment and is not a major factor in public school declines, which are driven largely by broader demographic shifts.

Report

Examining the Reach of Targeted School Funding

By Julien Lafortune, Joseph Herrera, Niu Gao

Under California’s ten-year-old funding formula, districts with higher shares of high-need students receive additional dollars on top of base funding. Districts have flexibility around spending these funds, but when money is not fully directed to the intended students and schools, the impact on achievement gaps is diluted.

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