blog post Good Timing for New Federal Education Law By Patrick Murphy, Paul Warren Dec 11, 2015 The new federal law replacing No Child Left Behind gives California a chance to prove that its approach to improving schools can work.
Report California’s Changing K-12 Accountability Program By Paul Warren Jan 17, 2013 California recently joined a number of other states in adopting the Common Core State Standards, which establish new criteria for what students should learn in school. It also joined a consortium of states to develop new tests based on those standards. The new standards are ambitious, and some teachers are concerned they are not prepared to convey the higher-level skills and concepts they contain. The new tests will allow the state to measure gains in each student’s achievement, creating new options for how the state ranks schools. The change will also prompt the state to reassess the value of state tests in high school and its options for holding secondary schools accountable. More changes to the state’s accountability program are likely when Congress reauthorizes the federal education law, and the way the state addresses these current issues will influence the shape of its future accountability program.
Report Full-Day Kindergarten in California: Lessons from Los Angeles By Shannon McConville, Jill Cannon, Alison Jacknowitz, Gary Painter Sep 17, 2009 Almost half of California public school kindergarten students attend full-day classes. To understand how a longer class day might benefits students, the authors examined about 200,000 kindergarten records in the Los Angeles Unified School District and found that full-day kindergarten does seem to help reduce the chances of being retained in early grades. But full-day students do not seem to have better second-grade test scores, nor do English learners improve their English fluency at higher rates. Certain subpopulations might benefit more than others; given current budgetary constraints, policymakers may find it more effective to target full-day classes to schools most likely to benefit, such as those with low API rankings. This report was supported with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
