Math achievement tumbled for American 15-year-olds between 2018 and 2022, according to the latest results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an exam comparing academic performance in the U.S. against that of dozens of other countries. In a pleasant surprise, however, their reading and science skills appear to be undiminished over the last...

Edwin Markham Middle School in the Watts community opened one of LAUSD’s first parent centers last month, part of a larger plan to add over 300 centers in schools across the district.  The center offers services to help parents support children through school, along with  career workshops and financial stipends. As the district introduces more...

As schools continue to recover from the pandemic, there’s one troubling COVID symptom they can’t seem to shake: record-setting absenteeism. In the 2021-22 school year, more than one in four U.S. public school students missed at least 10% of school days. Before the pandemic, it was closer to one in seven, the Associated Press reported, relying...

This essay was originally published as part of the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s 2023 “State of the American Student” report. As part of the effort, CRPE asked 14 experts from various sectors to offer up examples of innovations, solutions or possible paths forward as education leaders navigate the current crisis. (See all the perspectives)  Countless...

Second-grade teacher Nelly Cristales says her LAUSD school has developed a unique way to combat chronic absenteeism — competition. At 32nd Street School near University Park in East Los Angeles, a big, bright trophy goes to the class with the least absences and latenesses — and Cristales’ students are eager to win. “My kids are...

In a new Aspen Economic Strategy Group report, Jonathan Guryan and Jens Ludwig argue schools are bungling the rollout of high-dosage tutoring: “When schools are faced with the possibility of change, they tend to do fewer of the hard things that will help students and more of the easier things.” Schools won’t change the schedule, they...

There is not one American public education system; the U.S. is a collection of 50 states, and those states have chosen to deliver public education using very different approaches. These choices manifest themselves in a variety of ways, including how much money states provide for their public schools, how many people work in those schools...

California always seems to be ahead of the curve. Huge numbers of you are reading this column on Apple devices designed in Cupertino — and you got here by clicking a link on one of the social media companies with headquarters just down the road from there in Silicon Valley. The Golden State: it’s where...

About 2.9 million high school students took at least one Advanced Placement course in the 2020-21 school year, according to the latest federal data measuring access to educational opportunity. But Black and Latino students were significantly underrepresented in those college-level math and science courses. And schools in which at least 75% of students are Black...

College promise programs offering “free college” to local students are increasingly adding a new task to their core mission — connecting young people to internships and apprenticeships. The programs, in which students are promised free college tuition if they graduate high school, have long been considered a silver bullet against the soaring tuition and loan debt...