More than 6.2 million students attend a public school in California. California has 2 million more students than Texas, the next largest state. About half of the state’s students are enrolled in schools in four of its 58 counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, and San Bernardino.

In the 1980s and 1990s, California was also the nation’s fastest-growing state. However, the state's school population began to decline in 2005–06. Almost 60% of all counties are facing declining enrollment, including almost all in the northernmost part of the state where the student population is sparse. Declining enrollments often create fiscal problems for districts because funding is based on student attendance regardless of the district’s ability to reduce expenses. For example, fixed expenses, such as facilities maintenance or utilities, do not necessarily go down just because there are fewer students in a school.

California students come from diverse backgrounds

Besides being the nation’s most populous state, California is also one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse. In addition, about half of the state’s students come from low-income families, a quarter of them are learning English, and about one in 10 requires Special Education services. 

California has a number of ethnic subgroups, but they are not spread evenly throughout the state

California has four ethnic subgroups of significant size: Hispanic/Latino, white, Asian/Pacific Islander, and African American. Latinos make up almost half of the school population and white students almost a third.

Individual schools and districts often do not reflect this diversity because specific ethnic groups are more concentrated in different parts of the state. For example, Imperial, Los Angeles, Monterey, Merced, Madera, and Colusa counties have a higher density of Latino students. And two-thirds of the state’s African American students live in five counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Alameda, and San Diego.

How well Latino and African American students are being served in the state’s schools has been an issue in California. A disproportionate number of school dropouts are from these two subgroups. Based on state achievement measures, schools with higher percentages of Latino and African American students are also more likely to be low performing and have fewer qualified teachers, though the number of qualified teachers has increased substantially over the past few years.

About half of the state’s students live in low-income families

When students walk through the classroom door, they bring with them the strengths and weaknesses of their families. Poverty and lower levels of parent education correlate strongly with the breakdown of the family unit and with lower student performance. One measure of poverty is the number of children who participate in the federal National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced-price meals based on parent or guardian income. About half of California’s students participate in this program.

Parent education also plays a role in a student’s readiness to do well in school. A quarter of California’s children are living with a head of household who did not complete high school. That percentage was the highest in the nation in 2006.

About a quarter of the state’s students are English learners

Almost half of public school students in California face another challenge to academic success. They live in homes where the most frequently spoken language is not English. Of those, about half (or a quarter of all California students) are designated as “English learners” by their school districts based on their home language, state test scores, and other criteria. Although California’s English learners (ELs) speak more than 50 different languages, the vast majority of ELs speak Spanish. The percentage of English learners in California classrooms decreases as students move through school from about 40% of kindergarteners to about 10% of 12th graders.

Ensuring that all students become fluent in English is a formidable task. In California, the overwhelming majority of ELs are taught in regular classroom settings under “structured” or “sheltered” immersion, which means that the curriculum and presentation is in English but designed for children who are learning the language. Proposition 227, passed by California voters in 1998, limited non-English instruction in the state’s classrooms. However, parents can petition a school to allow their child to participate in a bilingual program.

About one in 10 California students receives Special Education services

In 1975, Congress passed a law—recently renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—that required states to provide special services to children with exceptional needs. About 11% of California students qualify for Special Education services because of physical, emotional, or educational disabilities. Almost half of those enrolled in Special Education have a specific learning disability, and more than a quarter have a speech or language impairment. Altogether, there are 13 categories of disabilities.

School districts must provide free, appropriate education to all qualifying individuals, ages infancy through 21, who live within their boundaries. In addition, an assessment (with parental permission) and a program plan (IEP or Individualized Education Program) are required for each special-needs child. The goal is to place students in the “least restrictive environment” in regular classrooms as much as possible (called “mainstreaming” or “inclusion” if for a full day).

Since 1998–99, Special Education funding in California has been based on the total number of students in K–12 public schools rather than on the number of Special Education students and the services they receive.