As California prepares to elect a new governor and superintendent of public instruction in November, a study released last month has drawn attention to major challenges the state faces when it comes to education.
The study — coordinated by Stanford and conducted by the independent nonpartisan research center Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), located at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) — is one of the most comprehensive studies on California K-12 public education conducted in the past 10 years. Among the findings were evidence of an achievement gap prior to kindergarten and an estimate that an additional $25.6 billion, marking a 38 percent increase in spending, would be required to meet state education goals.