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…

California school districts are being expected to "do more with less." They face critical and competing pressures to improve academic achievement while remaining fiscally solvent in a time of increasing budgetary pressures. This report examines the financial circumstances of California's school districts and the actions they have been…

This executive summary of a 28-page EdSource report highlights three powerful levers that state policymakers and local schools can use to strengthen high school curriculum. These levers are: (1) California's Academic Content Standards; (2) Eligibility to Attend the State's Public Universities, and (3) Career and Technical Education. It also…

This EdSource report covers the modifications that California has made in major education policy areas thus far to comply with NCLB and their impact on the state and its schools, with a focus on those provisions that have prompted the greatest upheavals. It also looks at some of the effects NCLB is expected to have on school and district…

Throughout most of the 20th century, vocational programs focused primarily on job skills and served students who were either struggling in an academic program or were not seen as "college material." In the early 1990s that emphasis began to shift. The adoption of more rigorous academic standards for all students, combined with increases…