Education

Child Care Funding Rates and Transition to an Alternative Methodology

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April 3, 2025 - Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 3 On Health and Human Services

Overview of K-12 Career Technical Education

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March 25, 2025 - This brief is intended to give policymakers a high-level overview of the state’s role in supporting K-12 career technical education programs. We also raise key issues for the Legislature as it considers policy and budget decisions related to career technical education.

The 2025-26 Budget: Educator Workforce

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March 7, 2025 - In this brief, we assess the Governor’s 2025-26 educator workforce proposals and provide associated recommendations.

The 2025-26 Budget: Department of Developmental Services

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March 5, 2025 - This brief provides a short summary of the Governor’s proposed budget for the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) before addressing four issues that warrant legislative oversight: (1) quality incentives as part of service provider rate reform, (2) the Master Plan for Developmental Services, (3) DDS’s ongoing information technology project, and (4) the phaseout of subminimum wage employment.

The 2025-26 Budget: Proposition 98 Guarantee and K-12 Spending Plan

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March 5, 2025 - Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance

The 2025-26 Budget: School Nutrition

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March 4, 2025 - This brief provides an overview and analysis of the Governor’s proposals for school nutrition.

The 2025-26 Budget: Proposition 98 Guarantee and K-12 Spending Plan

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February 27, 2025 - Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education

The 2025-26 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten Multilingual Learner Screeners

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February 26, 2025 - In this post, we provide background on the state’s English learner identification process, describe and assess the Governor’s proposal to provide $10 million for a multilingual learner screener in transitional kindergarten, and provide our recommendations to the Legislature.

The 2025-26 Budget: California State University

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February 25, 2025 - This brief analyzes the state’s budget plan relating to CSU’s core operations and enrollment, as well as the Governor’s proposal to increase salaries for the Capital Fellows program.

The 2025-26 Budget: Expanded Learning Opportunities Program

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February 20, 2025 - In this brief, we assess the Governor’s 2025-26 proposal for the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program and provide associated recommendations.

Child Care Funding Rates and Transition to an Alternative Methodology

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February 19, 2025 - Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 On Human Services and Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 On Education Finance

The 2025-26 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten

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February 18, 2025 - This brief provides an overview and analysis of the Governor’s proposals for transitional kindergarten.

The 2025-26 Budget: Proposition 98 Guarantee and K-12 Spending Plan

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February 13, 2025 - This brief examines the estimates of the Proposition 98 guarantee in the Governor’s budget and assesses the overall structure of the Governor’s plan for K-12 funding. It also examines a few of the larger spending proposals and the proposal to delay a $1.6 billion settle-up payment.

Update (2/21/25): This brief has been updated to reflect our office’s estimate of the K-12 COLA (2.26 percent).

The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

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January 13, 2025 - Update (1/16/25): A set of tables detailing various solutions and proposals has been appended to the online version of this report. They are available using the HTML link above.

On January 10, 2025, Governor Newsom’s administration presented its proposed state budget to the California Legislature. In this report, we provide a brief summary of the Governor’s budget based on our initial review as of January 12. In the coming weeks, we will analyze the plan in more detail and release many additional issue-specific budget analyses. For those additional analyses, please see our budget page.

CalFacts 2024

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December 2, 2024 - CalFacts presents a wide range of facts and trends about the state's economy, finances, and programs.