California entered 2010-11 with a longstanding imbalance between ongoing spending and income. To help close that gap, state policymakers suspended Proposition 98, the minimum funding guarantee for K-12 schools and community colleges. In total, revenues for K-12 schools are down nearly 10% this year compared with 2007-08. Yet more cuts loom as the…

Describes how the faculty of the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach, developed an academically rigorous, hands-on teacher credentialing program, with guaranteed results, to meet the demand created in July 1996 when the governor proposed an immediate reduction in class size to a 20-to-1 student/teacher ratio for grades…

California's K-3 Class Size Reduction Initiative (1996) called for a 20:1 student-teacher ratio. Passage of this initiative created an unexpected teacher shortage and presented California teacher-education faculties with several dilemmas having long-term implications. When districts hired uncertified student teachers on an emergency-permit basis,…