After years of painful budget cuts, new revenues will begin to flow to California school districts in 2014. Thanks to the voters' approval of Proposition 30 and the adoption of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), nearly all districts can expect budget increases over the next several years. In this report PACE offers guidance on…

Virtually every school district in the country is dealing with the need to reduce their budget. The process used to make those decisions varies from state to state but almost always includes a combination of short and long-term approaches. In many school districts the emphasis is on reducing individual budget line items and not filling vacant…

When the five-member Board of the Alameda Unified School District selected Kirsten Vital as the new superintendent in 2009, they chose someone from outside their tight-knit community. Board Trustee Margie Sherratt thought Vital was chosen to "get us moving," to be a change agent on closing the achievement gap. Vital, in her initial…

2010 marks the 50th anniversary of California's famed Master Plan for Higher Education, arguably the single most influential effort to plan the future of a system of higher education in the annals of American higher education. This essay builds on the analysis offered in a previous CSHE research paper ("From Chaos to Order and Back") by…

This report lists 11 budgetary principles for higher education institutions, and presents the results of a survey which examined whether the practices of four-year public higher education institutions in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin followed these precepts during the fiscal problems of the early 1990s. The 11…

Beginning with the premise that postsecondary institutions in most states will suffer some sort of fiscal crisis in the 1980's, this paper discusses the strategies a state can use in contending with financial problems and turns to California's experiences after Proposition 13 for specific examples. After describing the two probable types of…

This guidebook presents information to help school district fiscal policy teams develop a long-range financial planning process. Following an introduction on how to use the guide, section 1 provides a rationale and basic guidelines for establishing a financial planning process, with a focus on defining goals and participant roles. Section 2 offers…

This report identifies planned activities to be undertaken through the year 2004 to develop postsecondary education in California. Following an executive summary, section 1 of the report identifies recent changes in the environmental context of California postsecondary education in the following areas: elementary and secondary schools, California…

This report contains six papers prepared for the California State Postsecondary Education Commission as part of the Commission's long-range planning responsibilities during 89-90 and as background for the Commission's January 1990 report, "Higher Education at the Crossroads. Planning for the Twenty-First Century." The first paper…

Developed as part of a statewide pilot test of Comprehensive Planning in California Community Colleges, this long-range plan represents a working document for the Riverside Community College District (RCCD) as well as a report on college planning for the Chancellor's Office of the California Community Colleges. Following introductory material on…

An examination of public policy issues and accountability in education focuses on the current situation in California's system of higher education. It looks first at how the consensus about public financing embodied in the state's 1960 master plan for higher education has come apart since about 1990, and reports on two studies, one on recent…

Chapter 1 of this manual for school district officials, board members, and students of school administration introduces educational programs, expenditures, and revenues as the three basic considerations of budget making. While chapter 2 discusses major aspects of the general fund budget (resources availabale to finance the school district's…

This report from the California State Legislature's Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education presents proposals and recommendations regarding the future of the state's community colleges. Section I introduces the major demographic, social, and economic challenges facing the California community colleges over the next two…

After 2 years of study, California's Commission on Innovation produced a series of recommendations to guide California's community colleges in educating a growing number of students with only modest increases in state support. Subsequently, the California Higher Education Policy Center sponsored a day-long symposium to discuss the report's main…

This document contains eight background papers developed by staff of the California Commission for the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education. Papers have the following titles: "Early Studies of Postsecondary Education in California"; "The Demand for Postsecondary Education in California to the Year 2000";…