In 2005-06 almost half of the pupils in California’s public schools were Latinos, but Latinos only received about 15 percent of the BA degrees awarded by public and private colleges in the state. Texas has a comparable Latino population but does significantly better than California in getting Latino students through college. In this seminar, Martin Carnoy explored the reasons why California’s education system falls short in ensuring post-secondary access and success for Latino students and identifies steps that the state could take to increase the number of four-year college graduates.

Community colleges are the first point of access to public higher education for many language-minority students who attended CA high schools. These students face language-related challenges that present potential barriers to completing academic goals. Community colleges struggle to meet the needs of those who do not fit the linguistic profiles of monolingual English-speakers in developmental English courses nor of ESL programs. In this seminar, George Bunch presents his research on language testing and placement policies and practices while discussing implications for policy.

EdSource, in collaboration with faculty from Stanford University, has conducted a large-scale study of middle grades practices in California and their relationship to student outcomes on 6th-8th grade CSTs in English Language Arts, Math, and Algebra. The analysis was designed to identify practices and policies that differentiate higher from lower performing schools after controlling for student background. This study of the middle grades is the largest of its kind ever conducted and will be discussed by Trish Williams and Mike Kirst in this seminar.

Lifting early school achievement depends on the quality of early learning environments—but what do we know about these environments that most effectively stimulate young children’s growth? How can we enrich children’s daily activities? In this seminar, Alison Gropnik and Bruce Fuller discuss key findings on quality, including play, close interactions with caregivers, and exploration—all which have been shown to have lasting effects on children’s development.

The Early Assessment Program is an academic preparation program developed by the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and CSU. The stated purpose of the program, now in its fifth year, is to bridge the gap between K-12 educational standards in English and mathematics and the requirements and expectations of postsecondary education at the California State University. In this seminar Michal Kurlaender and Jessica Howell discuss how participation in the Early Assessment Program affects college going behavior and the need for remediation in college.

The CAHSEE has been criticized as being unfair to English Learners, special education students and some racial groups, as well as being ineffective in raising student achievement. Some have called for eliminating passage of the CAHSEE as a graduation requirement for CA students. In this seminar, Julian Betts discusses whether the requirement and funding for intervention is helping or hurting students academically, with a focus on who has been failing the exam, how early we can identify students at risk of failing, and when school districts might intervene to help students at risk of failure.