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Learning Recovery for Homeless Students Lags behind Other High-Need Groups

By Brett Guinan, Julien Lafortune

In the last in a series on K–12 students who have experienced homelessness, we look at how these youth are faring academically. While learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic affected all student groups, students experiencing homeless are falling behind other high-need learners as California emerges from the pandemic.

blog post

Learning Recovery Is Uneven for Urban and Rural School Districts

By Saayili Budhiraja, Thomas Pearson, Emmanuel Prunty, Niu Gao

Half of California's K–12 students are enrolled in urban or rural districts. Compared to the rest of the state, these districts have seen a slower pace of recovery from pandemic learning loss.

Fact Sheet

College Readiness in California

By Iwunze Ugo, Laura Hill

More Californians are graduating from high school, but many graduates are underprepared for higher education and there are racial/ethnic and income disparities. Closing these gaps will require sustained efforts across the state's K–12 system.

Report

Priorities for California’s Water

By Jeffrey Mount, Letitia Grenier, Ellen Hanak, Caitlin Peterson ...

California has made great strides in preparing for a drier, hotter future, but it remains a challenge to harness the bounty of wet years while also reducing flood risk. How did California’s water sector manage the unusually wet 2023 water year—and what lessons can we glean for the future?

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.

Policy Brief

Policy Brief: District Spending of One-Time Funds for Educational Recovery

By Julien Lafortune, Laura Hill, Niu Gao, Joseph Herrera ...

States received billions in one-time stimulus funds to help recover from pandemic disruptions to education. California allocated much of its money to districts based on their shares of low-income students, which largely targeted schools with lower achievement levels rather than greater learning loss.

Report

District Spending of One-Time Funds for Educational Recovery

By Julien Lafortune, Laura Hill, Niu Gao, Joseph Herrera ...

To address COVID-19 disruptions to education, federal and state programs directed billions in stimulus aid to K–12 schools. These programs allocated greater funding to lower-income and high-need districts—and California districts applied their early funds to health, safety, and technology. More recently, spending has prioritized learning recovery.

Fact Sheet

Student Achievement on California’s K–12 Assessments

By Iwunze Ugo, Emmanuel Prunty

The results from California’s 2022 Smarter Balanced Assessments suggest that pandemic disruptions to K–12 education reversed nearly six years of academic progress. Declines in proficiency were widespread, but there was substantial variation across grade levels and demographic groups.

blog post

Implications of Chronic Absenteeism for Student Learning

By Laura Hill, Emmanuel Prunty

Chronic absenteeism among California’s K–12 students increased dramatically during the pandemic. Schools with larger increases in absenteeism saw steeper declines in student performance on state tests, especially in math.

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