In this seminar Martin Carnoy will present data on achievement gains across U.S. states and persistent variation among states in student performance. He will also discuss various hypotheses that could explain these phenomena with a focus on the particular case of California, which currently is among the lower scoring U.S. states even when social class differences are accounted for. Carnoy’s presentation will assess what we know about the factors that could explain why California’s students are not doing as well as students in other states and may be making less progress.

CA policymakers have begun to look beyond the API and ask how to hold schools accountable. One strategy is via a system of school inspections, a common accountability policy in other countries. This seminar will discuss the benefits of school inspections and explore the main policy decisions for designing such a system, with a focus on England’s approach. How might CA evaluate school performance on a broader range of evidence; leverage expert judgment rather than relying solely on mathematical formulas; and provide schools with better diagnostic feedback to support continuous improvement?

Recent news headlines have drawn attention to budget cuts that districts pursue in response to the state’s revenue shortfalls. But policymakers and state agencies need to consider more than episodic revenue declines or relative rankings of districts. This seminar reviews evidence from a 2010-11 survey that provides a snapshot of district responses to unpredictable state aid. The speaker suggests ways that policymakers can account for the revenue instability a district has faced when evaluating district fiscal and academic performance.

In this seminar Robert Linquanti discusses how next-generation state assessment and accountability systems can be made more responsive to the needs and strengths of ELs. Linquanti argues that innovation must be grounded in a clear understanding of the EL population, as well as of English language proficiency and its relationship to academic subject matter learning and assessment. He explains how the common core standards “push the envelope” for ELs and educators, and argues that comprehensive assessment systems can and must strengthen teacher pedagogical practice with ELs.

In this seminar, Patricia Gándara, Gary Orfield, and Kimberly King present research findings on a series of reports designed to analyze the impact of fiscal cutbacks on opportunity for higher education in the CSU system. CSUs educate a greater number of Latino and African American students, enroll a much larger undergraduate student body than the University of California system overall, and many CSU students are first-generation college students struggling to get an education in difficult times.

Recognition of the importance of school leadership has led to increased attention to recruiting and preparing school leaders. Yet, principal preparation and development programs tend to emphasize the role of principals as instructional leaders. In this seminar, Susanna Loeb discusses the findings of her leadership studies that highlight the importance of organizational leadership and the development of organizational structures for improved instruction.

Despite rising awareness of educators about the importance of addressing the needs of English Language Learners, there has been almost no systematic attention to supporting school and district leaders. Instructional strategies for addressing the language and content needs of ELLs has nevertheless been working itself into the mainstream. In this seminar, Kenji Hakuta and Rich Smith discuss their work on how districts and school leaders can play an active role in structuring and supporting appropriate programs for ELLs, and the policies necessary to improve the educational achievement of ELLs.

The RAND Corporation, in collaboration with the University of California and San Diego State University, is conducting a study that explores district and school leader responses to the Tier 3 initiative and federal stimulus dollars. In this seminar, the study team discussed qualitative data collected at 10 districts during the spring of 2010. Initial findings suggest that after one year, the Tier 3 flexibility is playing a critical role in helping districts to backfill budget gaps as the state crisis continues.

The history of LAUSD over the past five decades, reveals an organization pulled up from its early 20th Century Progressive Era roots. Decades of reform efforts have provided a lively audition for what a new institution of public education could look like. In this seminar Charles Kerchner shows how successive reform efforts have outlined the design of a more effective educational system, and identifies some policy levers that can help to create a new institutional structure for public education, in L.A. and for all of California and beyond.

Since 2009, AIR and Pivot Learning have successfully formed partnerships with the Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Twin Rivers Unified School Districts. This team has made a great deal of progress in initiating the activities necessary to implement the basic policy elements of Strategic School Funding for Results at the local level. At this briefing, representatives from each district will discuss the partnership’s progress and the challenges, and offered recommendations for state policy and other districts.

Since 2008, Fresno and Long Beach Unified School Districts have been engaged in a formal district partnership designed to help the districts achieve a common a set of goals. With the generous support of the Hewlett Foundation and Stuart Foundation, the American Institutes for Research, in collaboration with Pivot Learning Partners, has been documenting the districts’ work together. This panel featured the leaders of these two districts who discussed their Partnership and its implications for policy and practice.

Bringing the Common Core to California: A Discussion Morning Presentations. Welcome and Overview by David N. Plank, Executive Director, PACE and Scott Hill, Compliance, Programs and Policy An Introduction to Common Core by Keith Gayler, Program Director, Council of Chief State School Officers The Common Core Standards English/Language Arts by Sue Pimentel, Co-Founder, StandardsWork The Common Core Standards Mathematics by Hung-Hsi Wu, Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley Afternoon Panel Discussion. Implementing the Common Core in CA: Reflections on Standards

This conference cosponsored by PACE and Pivot Learning examines the reform efforts of the Los Angeles Unified School District amidst one of the largest budget crisis known to the district. The panels featured multiple perspectives discussing how resources are allocated to afford greater autonomy for schools, greater budget transparency for the community and greater equity of results for students.