With the economy in decline and millions out of work, funding for education—which is heavily dependent on personal and corporate earnings and spending—is expected to be significantly reduced in 2020-21. California’s per pupil spending is already well below the national average, and this financial impact will come at a time when our schools need more money, not less, to serve our state’s children and youth. The goal of this webinar is to build understanding about the challenges to come and suggest how state and local policy can mitigate the impact on teaching and learning.

Improving education equity is one of the most important goals of CA's education system, and undergirds the state's policy structures. How money is allocated to districts and how districts and schools are held accountable for student outcomes. The state's current measurement approach is insufficient for understanding the extent to which our education systems are providing equitable opportunities for CA's students. This webinar presents findings from a landmark report by the National Academies, which provides the architecture for a system to help policy makers address educational equity.

In this seminar, we will present a comprehensive overview of California’s college readiness metrics and new statewide data on college persistence and completion. In addition, we describe the efforts of several public school districts to improve postsecondary access and success for all students, and to close persistent gaps by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

This webinar was the third in a three-part webinar series on special education featuring new research on the status of special education in California and paths forward for organizing schools to better support students with disabilities. This webinar will cover Differentiated Assistance, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, Interagency Collaboration, and Lessons from Other States in Support of Students with Disabilities.

This webinar was the second in a three-part webinar series on special education featuring new research on the status of special education in California and paths forward for organizing schools to better support students with disabilities. This webinar covered Universally Designed Teaching, Teacher Preparation, Teacher Shortages, and Teacher Development.

This webinar was the first of a three-part webinar series on special education featuring new research on the status of special education in California and paths forward for organizing schools to better support students with disabilities. This webinar covered issues related to transitions into and out of special education services for students: Early Identification, Transitions into Preschool, Transitions Into and Between Identification Categories in K-12, Post-Secondary Transitions, and Work-Based Learning for students with disabilities.

Dual enrollment enables students to take college courses while they are still in high school, which makes it more likely that they will graduate from high school and that they will also enroll and succeed in college. Join us for a webinar with several experts including Michal Kurlaender, chair of education policy in the UC Davis School of Education, PACE Faculty Director, and co-author of the report on dual enrollment, to learn more about the potential of this practice in California and what needs to be done to make this opportunity more available to all students in California.

PACE’s annual conference brings together nearly 300 California policymakers, researchers, and education leaders to discuss new research and approaches to improving educational outcomes for California’s students, from early childhood through higher education.

What happens following preschool to sustain learning gains? To what extent do early learning programs align with early elementary grades in areas such as instruction and teacher professional development? What are the challenges in creating alignment? What state policies facilitate or hinder districts from creating stronger connections between preschool and elementary school? To answer these questions, PACE researchers interviewed superintendents or directors of early learning programs in 25 representative California school districts to better understand alignment work and challenges.