Background: The University of California system has a novel tenure-track education-focused faculty position called Lecturer with Security of Employment (working titles: Teaching Professor or Professor of Teaching). We focus on the potential difference in implementation of active-learning strategies by faculty type, including tenure-track…

American students are failing to demonstrate expected competency on basic skills taught in schools. The educational system needs a major overhaul to address declines in scholarly engagement. The State Board of Education (SBE) designed the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) to give some merit to the high school diploma. Minorities and…

One of the greatest differences in resources across schools in California comes from an inequitable distribution of teachers. This study identifies reasons for this sorting of teachers by surveying 531 teachers in a California elementary school district. The surveys ask the teachers to make choices between various workplace characteristics. With…

The California class size reduction program provided schools with cash rewards for K-3 classes of 20 or fewer students. I show how program rules made it possible for schools to save money by using mixed-grade classes to meet class size reduction obligations while maintaining larger average class sizes. I also show that this smoothing of students…

Early evidence on California's Class Size Reduction (CSR) Program suggests that teacher applicant pools have been depleted and that many teachers who lack experience and credentials were hired. To examine the impact of CSR, a study analyzed whether the experience and qualifications of teachers in reduced-size classes vary across schools and, if…

In this article, the author discusses the experiences of Marian Sauer as one of the teachers during World War II. Marian Sauer, began teaching at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Richmond, California, in 1942. During World War II, Richmond's population skyrocketed, as a direct result of homefront mobilization and school enrollments grew six…

Reducing K-3 class size is highly recommended and broadly supported, though there are challenges with finding enough qualified teachers and providing enough classroom space. Research indicates that K-3 students in smaller classes do better academically, with minority and low-income students showing the greatest gains. The paper examines…

This research brief summarizes a report by Christopher Jepsen and Steven Rivkin, "Class Size Reduction, Teacher Quality, and Academic Achievement in California Public Elementary Schools" (2002) [ED497298]. Intuitively, class size reduction is a good idea. Parents support it because it means that their children will receive more…