American students are far more diverse than their teachers. Some 79 percent of U.S. teachers are white compared to 44 percent of students. As a result, students of color are far less likely to have a same-race teacher than are white students, a phenomenon that has attracted the attention of philanthropists and policymakers alike. Foundations have…

Public K-12 education in the United States is distinctively a local affair: school districts are governed by local boards of education, composed of lay members typically elected in non-partisan elections. These boards have decision-making power over hundreds of billions of public dollars and oversee complex agencies that, in addition to preparing…

This article addressed California's proposed math curriculum framework which has ignited a ferocious debate, touching off a revival of the 1990s math wars and attracting national media attention. Early drafts of the new framework faced a firestorm of criticism, with opponents charging that the guidelines sacrificed accelerated learning for high…

The case for ethnic studies is multipronged. It begins with the material itself: history and literature about the struggles and triumphs of people whose voices often have been omitted from traditional texts and classroom readings. A second layer of argument stresses the need for students to understand and discuss how various racial and ethnic…

What do K-12 schools need to do to prepare their students for adult success? This was the question that originally catalyzed the standards-and-accountability movement some 30 years ago, though it seems somehow to have gotten lost. Today the question merits revisiting, because addressing it makes a strong case for taking an integrated approach to…

Bilingual education is on its way back in California. After decisively rejecting bilingual education in 1998, state voters enthusiastically endorsed its return in 2016. Educators are eager to offer more bilingual classes--and not only to recently arrived immigrants. Increasingly, English-speaking parents are also sold on the cognitive benefits of…

In this article, the authors study charter growth in a single region as a case study: the Bay Area, which includes San Francisco and the cities, suburbs, and rural areas that surround it. California is one of the nation's leading charter school states, and charters have boomed in the Bay Area in particular. The area also is in the midst of a…

Public school districts are facing twin challenges: maintaining a labor supply of qualified teachers while shoring up the deteriorating system that compensates them. Keeping public-school teachers' pensions plans flush is expensive, and it accounts for a growing share of education spending. In some states, public charter schools provide an…

Over the past 20 years, both charter schools and pre-kindergarten education have taken on increasingly prominent roles in the schooling of America's children. Charter schools in 43 states now serve more than 2.6 million students--roughly six percent of all students attending public schools. More than two-thirds of four-year-olds attend some form…

The Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Irving Park's middle school is one of 130 schools nationwide piloting the Summit Learning Program (SLP), developed--and offered entirely free--by Summit Public Schools, a high-performing charter network based in California. Summit's eight schools, two of them in Washington State, are known for an…

Community colleges, with their commitment to open access, admit millions of students each year who are unprepared for college-level work, even though they have earned a high-school diploma. For decades the schools had a built-in base of students attracted to their open doors and relative affordability. But enrollment at public two-year college has…

The digital revolution occurring in schools has focused predominantly on online education in its various forms--including fully online courses, learning management systems, games, and mobile applications--to personalize learning and boost the performance of all students. Companies have been experimenting with technologies for years, yet these…

Lauren Seymour recounts her experience as a first year teacher dealing with a senior who could not pass the math California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) through no fault of her own. Math so overwhelmed the student that she shuddered every time her math teacher approached her. Team interventions for this student in both basic operations and…

Ninety-five percent of students at Redwood City's Hoover School, in San Mateo County, California, come from low-income and working-class Latino families, and nearly all start school as English language learners (ELLs). The elementary and middle school piloted the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) program in 2009 in hopes of raising reading…

This article features an interview with Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings. In this interview, Hastings relates that he told the "Wall Street Journal" in 2008 that he started looking at education--trying to figure out why our education is lagging when our technology is increasing at great rates and there's great innovation in so many other areas…