"On the Cusp in California: How PreK-3rd strategies could improve education in the golden state"
California is a state teeming with problems: Facing a 35 percent budget gap earlier this year, the state teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. It has a notoriously dysfunctional legislature and the nation's fourth-highest unemployment rate. However, despite these shortfalls, a small but growing number of counties, school districts and charter schools in California are making progress toward building seamless PreK-3rd early education systems -- a promising strategy to narrow achievement gaps and raise student achievement.
According to this report by the New America Foundation's Early Education Initiative, California’s public school system can be used as a model of how education can be strengthened amid the current recession. The report seeks to help policymakers and advocates in California understand PreK-3rd strategies -- the promise of leading reform efforts, the obstacles and the steps the states can take to overcome them. It recommends 13 steps to this end, many of which are relatively low cost and may even help California compete for federal education grants, such as the Race to the Top program and the proposed Early Learning Challenge fund.
