School is about kids in classrooms and the teachers who educate them.

But the typical school around the corner in California operates within a larger system of public education that affects what students do every day, who teaches them, and how their progress is evaluated.

In order to understand what is happening in California’s public schools, why it’s happening, and what changes could help schools do a better job, you need a sense of what that larger system looks like.

Vital Statistics

May 2010

This section of the EdSource website provides some basic background and facts. It also directs you to more detailed explanations and data located elsewhere on our website.

The students

• California is by far the largest state and educates about one in eight public school students in the United States.

• About half of all California students are Latino, and a quarter are white.

• California’s students face particular academic challenges given that more than half of them are from low-income families and about a quarter are identified as English learners.

The system

• The state contributes about $6 out of every $10 that goes to public education, and state leaders largely control how much funding each school district in California receives.

• The state has nearly 1,000 school districts that range in size from a few students more than 650,000.

• Each district has an elected school board that determines how to spend the money allocated by the state, but the board does so within the constraints of state and federal law and (with very few exceptions) collective bargaining commitments.

• The number of charter schools in California has been growing steadily, totaling about 912 schools in 2010–11, serving 5.9% of the state’s K–12 student population.

The resources available

• California’s expenditures per pupil began losing ground compared with the national average in the late 1970s and have remained below the national average since 1982.

• More than 80% of school expenditures are for salaries and benefits for certificated staff—including teachers, administrators, and other professionals—and classified staff, such as bus drivers, clerks, and cafeteria workers.

• California public schools have only about three-quarters as many staff members as do schools on average in the United States.

• Since 1998, California has invested more than $101 billion ($35.4 billion in state bonds plus approximately $66 billion in local bond measures) in improving and expanding its school facilities.

The expectations for students

• The academic content standards California adopted in the late 1990's—and upon which the state bases its curriculum guidelines and assessments—have rated high marks in national comparisons.

• In August 2010, California adopted a new set of academic content standards in English language arts and math based on the Common Core Standards Initiative, a project intended to develop specific, clear, rigorous standards that states can share. But California has not yet adopted curriculum guidelines, textbooks, or assessments that reflect those standards.
  

The achievement of California's students

• The academic progress of African American and Latino students lags far behind that of white and Asian students.

• Although improving slightly, California students’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) remains below the national average.

• Based on the most comparable estimates, California’s graduation rates are similar to the United States as a whole.