The number and intensity of internal and external stress factors on California schools and school districts are on the rise as a result of state budget deficits and the nation's struggling economy. Schools and the children they serve are experiencing these stresses at the same time that they are coming under increasing pressure to meet ever higher accountability standards as measured by student performance on standardized tests. The overview presented in this report is intended to provide California voters with a portrait of how the state's largest school districts are doing, by focusing on stress factors that some or all districts are coping with. [Additional support for this work was provided by Reed Hastings.]