Big institutions, like public education, change slowly but often dramatically. The history of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) over the past five decades reveals an organization pulled up from its early 20th Century Progressive Era roots. Decades of reform efforts have provided a lively audition for what a new institution of public…

In this edition of "Conditions of Education" six of the leading academic authorities on education policy in California address the key issues facing the state's education system, focusing their attention on critical indicators of current performance and on specific policy changes that would lead to sustained improvement. They identify…

There are significant signs of progress in California's schools, in spite of the tremendous challenges they face. Trends across multiple measures of student performance are fairly consistent: all students are doing better, or at least holding steady, during a time when the system is serving a larger and more diverse population of children. For…

California policymakers have pursued various strategies for raising student achievement over the past half-century. The state's schools now advance demanding curricular standards which are among the most rigorous in the nation. These are in the form of "content" and "performance" standards. This paper, stemming from a Policy…