blog post Making Career Education Affordable in California By Bonnie Brooks Jan 8, 2019 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos plans to roll back federal rules that have been instrumental in steering California students toward community colleges rather than for-profit institutions.
blog post Video: Modernizing California’s Education Data System By Mary Severance Dec 7, 2018 With new state leadership about to take over in Sacramento, the time may be right for an integrated data system that can help policymakers, educators, and students monitor educational progress and outcomes.
Report Financing Higher Education Capital Projects By Patrick Murphy, Radhika Mehlotra, Kevin Cook Dec 5, 2018 Aging infrastructure should be a major priority as California seeks to produce more college-educated workers. Modernizing and maintaining facilities at the state’s community colleges, CSU, and UC could cost billions of dollars, with each system facing its own unique challenges.
blog post Videos: Higher Education Priorities By Mary Severance Nov 21, 2018 Most Californians believe that higher education should be a priority for Governor-elect Newsom, and affordability is a major concern. Two events last week highlighted these and other findings from PPIC's latest survey on Californians' views on higher education.
blog post Improving Special Education in California By Paul Warren, Laura Hill Sep 25, 2018 More accountability could improve inequities in special education funding in California.
Report California’s K–12 Test Scores: What Can the Available Data Tell Us? By Paul Warren Jun 25, 2018 California’s K–12 system relies on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) English and mathematics tests to measure student academic progress and assess school and district performance. This report uses publicly available data to explore trends in student performance during the first three years this test has been in place.
blog post Video: Improving Outcomes for English Learners By Mary Severance Jun 5, 2018 Recent K‒12 reforms change how California funds, assesses, and holds districts accountable for English Learner students, currently about 21% of the public school population.
Report K–12 Reforms and California’s English Learner Achievement Gap By Laura Hill May 30, 2018 English Learner (EL) students have been a key part of California’s K–12 system for decades. They currently make up about 21 percent of the public school population. English Learner status is meant to be temporary, and indeed, reclassified English Learners (those who are deemed English proficient) are among the best-performing students in the state. But students who remain ELs for longer periods generally have poor outcomes.
blog post California’s K–12 Educational Progress: Good News and Bad News By Niu Gao, Courtney Lee Apr 18, 2018 California's K–12 students have made gains in reading scores, but achievement gaps remain for English Learner, low-income, and African American and Latino students.