This report is the result of the participation of hundreds of students, families, school educators, and researchers who dedicated their time and energy to investigating the critical role that families and communities play in ensuring students and schools can flourish. It is a culmination of over two years of collaborative research and hundreds of…

Finding funds to build and renovate facilities is a major hurdle for public charter schools because most state laws do not provide charter schools with the full amount of state and local funding that other public schools receive. Although an increasing number of states are passing laws to address charter school facility funding gaps, inequities…

As schools across the state implement the Next Generation Science Standards, this EdSource primer provides an easy-to-read guide for parents and other community members to understand the rationale for the standards and their potential to affect science instruction in California schools. California adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, or…

It is well-documented that students of color, and other historically underserved students, have had less access to an equitable and supportive learning environment, perpetuating school failure and, too often, a school-to-prison pipeline that is difficult to escape. This report shows how a number of states are taking advantage of opportunities in…

Nationally, there are dozens of established indicators of school performance and thousands of possible combinations of those indicators to create an accountability framework. How do policy makers decide which variables are most important? This relates to measurement modeling -- that is, how to incorporate all pieces of the puzzle into a…

Engaging classes in every subject. Enriching encounters with the arts. Fun physical activities and healthy nutrition. Guided explorations of possible careers. Every young person deserves all of these experiences. At the moment, unfortunately, not all of the nation's children and youth do. This guide is intended to accompany the video…

Educational opportunities and outcomes for California's Latino students have improved over the last half century. Even so, Latino students continue to face barriers in opportunity that make it harder for them to achieve college, career, and future success. The goal of this report is to describe what Latino students currently experience in…

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Statewide Survey provides policymakers, the media, and the public with objective, advocacy-free information on the perceptions, opinions, and public policy preferences of California residents. This is the 141st PPIC Statewide Survey in a series that was inaugurated in April 1998 and has generated a…

This three-volume manual, focusing on California's K-12 public schools, presents guidelines for establishing schools that are healthy, comfortable, energy efficient, resource efficient, water efficient, secure, adaptable, and easy to operate and maintain. The first volume describes why high performance schools are important, what components are…

Two advertisements and two brochures for the California Search and Serve program are presented in this excerpt from the California Search and Serve "Search Guidelines and Resource Manual." The materials are designed to promote community involvement in the identification of handicapped persons, from birth through age 21, so that they may…

This final report constitutes the culmination of findings and recommendations of a series of working papers on a project which conducted a cooperative study of existing student study team (SST) processes in nine California special education local plan areas. The project is thought to be the first in the nation to describe the characteristics of…

The California Department of Education, directed to formalize regulations governing standards for new school design and construction, has prepared a guide to help school districts develop specifications based on the architectural principle that form follows function. This guide discusses the meaning of educational specifications and their…

This publication is part of a series of tools and resources on financing and sustaining youth programming. These tools and resources are intended to help policymakers, program developers, and community leaders develop innovative strategies for implementing, financing, and sustaining effective programs and policies. This strategy brief presents a…

Three surveys assessing 100 California charter schools were conducted in 1997-98. Interviewees included teachers, principals, and parents. Findings include: 7 out of 10 charter-school principals report that their schools boast waiting lists; overall, parents selected the school's curriculum as their primary reason for selecting a charter;…

Spurred by the economic boom of the late 1990s and a decades-old national standards movement that increased both the transparency of assessment results and the awareness of urban public school failure, communities across the country are turning to community organizing as a strategy for improving public education. As organizations confront the…