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Continuous school improvement & support

Continuous School Improvement and Support

California and the nation are at the crossroads of a major shift in school accountability policy. At the state level, California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) process encourage the use of multiple measures of school performance used locally to support continuous improvement and strategic resource allocation. Similarly, the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reinforces this local control, requiring more comprehensive assessment of school performance and a less prescriptive, local approach to school support.

Calls for “continuous improvement” in California’s K-12 education system are central to current discussions about school improvement in the state. Yet, definitions of continuous improvement vary, and knowledge of what continuous improvement looks like in practice is limited.

PACE research addresses the challenges of those working in this changing accountability landscape by providing descriptions of continuous improvement in diverse educational organizations and by identifying the supports and challenges necessary to take new improvement approaches to scale.

Recent Topic Publications
AI Policy Guidance for Schools Cover
A TeachAI Toolkit
TeachAI—in collaboration with Code.org, CoSN, Digital Promise, the European EdTech Alliance, James Larimore, and PACE—has launched an AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit to help…
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Declining student enrollment is leading to a loss of revenue in many California school districts. To address ongoing budget shortfalls, many districts have consolidated or shuttered schools, and others are contemplating doing so. In this session,…
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Enrollment in California public schools has been declining and is projected to fall even more steeply during the next decade. Because funding for school districts is largely based on average daily attendance rates, a decline in enrollment results in…
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This study investigates racial disparities in school closures both within California and nationally. Findings highlight an alarming pattern: Schools enrolling higher proportions of Black students are at significantly increased risk of closure…