In this seminar Morgan Polikoff reports findings from his research on school and district textbook adoptions in math, English language arts, and science. He presents quantitative evidence from SARCs and statewide longitudinal achievement data on the spread of new materials, timing of implementation, distribution across districts and schools, and impact on student outcomes. This with insights via interviews of district leaders on policies, practices guiding local curriculum adoption decisions in CA, alongside the utility of SARC data, and challenges scholars face using them for research.

ESSA makes sweeping changes to the way school performance is measured, and shifts decisions about how to define school quality and how to support struggling schools back to states and districts. The CORE Districts’ innovative accountability system is aligned with both LCFF and ESSA requirements, and includes many measures that the State Board of Education is considering for inclusion in CA's emerging accountability system. In this seminar Heather Hough, Rick Miller, and Noah Bookman provide an overview of what has been learned in the first year of the CORE-PACE Research Partnership.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) makes sweeping changes to the way school performance is measured. Using the innovative measurement system developed by the CORE Districts in California, our CORE-PACE Research Partnership will present the research findings from, "Identity Crisis: Multiple Measures and the Identification of Schools under ESSA."

With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, California state policymakers are tasked with determining the subgroup threshold for school-level reporting. To inform this decision, this policy brief explores the implications of utilizing various subgroup sizes using data from the CORE Districts. In this seminar, PACE authors present findings that the 20+ subgroup size presents clear advantages in terms of the number of students represented, particularly in making historically underserved student populations visible.

To address the issues of truancy and chronic absenteeism, Michael Gottfried has partnered with Attorney General Kamala Harris to develop strategies to reduce truancy among elementary school students in public schools throughout California. These “Truancy Reduction Pilot Projects” include a two-phase study on elementary school early intervention and prevention practices in a handful of model school districts throughout the state. In this seminar, Gottfried will present findings from the first, pre-implementation phase of the study.

In this seminar, Ilana Umansky and her colleagues present policy recommendations for improving the educational outcomes of English learner students in California, based on research from the educational opportunities, experiences, and outcomes of EL students conducted in a set of California school districts over the last five years. Their research sheds light on critical issues including EL classification and reclassification policies, the effects of English immersion and bilingual education, and EL students’ access to learning opportunities.

Parents play an important role in their children’s education, but there are substantial differences in the home learning experiences of children by socioeconomic status. In this seminar, Susanna Loeb and Ben York discuss the results of a randomized control trial of READY4K!, a text messaging program for parents of preschoolers designed to help them support their children’s literacy development. Given the extremely low cost and widespread use of text messaging, texting proves to be an attractive alternative for supporting parents.

Summer learning loss disproportionately affects low-income students and likely contributes to the achievement gap between students and their higher-income peers. Until now, research has not demonstrated whether voluntary school district summer learning programs offered to large numbers of urban, low-income students can actually make a difference. In this seminar, Catherine Augustine presents early findings from a study that seeks to answer one key question: Can such programs in urban districts improve student achievement and social-emotional outcomes for low-income, low-achieving students?

The instructional transformation that Common Core promises depends on teachers to incorporate formative assessment into classroom practice to elicit and interpret evidence, provide feedback and continuously adapt their teaching to foster students’ learning. This seminar offers an overview of what formative assessment is and why it matters. Educators and researchers will explore the challenges and opportunities in building teachers’ capacity to engage effectively in formative assessment, and identify policy and practice strategies to encourage the use of formative assessment in CA schools.

CA adopted Common Core State Standards and state and local leaders are now engaged in the implementation process. PACE has organized this conference to review the current state of CCSS implementation in California, what we have learned, and what challenges we will have to face going forward. The conference will feature presentations from state officials who are guiding the implementation effort from Sacramento, local leaders who are wrestling with the challenge of implementing CCSS in their schools and classrooms, and researchers who are monitoring the progress of CCSS in districts across CA.

School districts throughout the country are facing mounting accountability pressures to improve student achievement and turn around failing schools. In response to these pressures more than 20 major cities have adopted the portfolio management model of school governance. In this seminar, Katharine Strunk and Julie Marsh will explore how portfolio management is working in the Los Angeles Unified School District's Public School Choice Initiative (PSCI).

SFUSD provides English Learner students with a variety of instructional program options. The district partnered with researchers at Stanford University to investigate the effectiveness of different instructional programs for EL students, and to examine whether they are equally effective for Latina/o and Chinese EL students. In this seminar, Sean Reardon and Ritu Khanna present the findings from this study, including the effects of different EL instructional programs on English language acquisition (CELDT scores), academic skills (CST scores), and reclassification rates.

The QEIA, one of California’s most ambitious intervention programs for low-performing schools, is now in its sixth year of full implementation in nearly 400 schools across the state. In this seminar, Jane Robb and Courtney Malloy will share findings that examine the extent of QEIA program implementation, explain why QEIA works in some schools while other schools continue to struggle, investigate the various impacts of QEIA and uncover promising practices that can be shared with all schools.

In this seminar Tom Dee presents findings from his study of the effects of SIG-funded whole-school reforms in California. He finds that there were significant improvements in the test-based performance of schools receiving SIG grants. His findings suggest that these improvements were largely concentrated among schools that adopted the Turnaround model, which requires the replacement of the principal and at least half of the current teaching staff. Results were also positive by the second year in schools that adopted the Transformation model.

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.

In this seminar Daniel Solorzano and Amanda Datnow present findings from a study focusing on young adults in poverty, many of whom are enrolled in community colleges. Their study is guided by the premise that it is important to take an asset-based approach to understanding youth in poverty and their communities. They argue to truly expand opportunities for success educational institutions must find a way to build on current strengths in families and communities. The project seeks to understand what knowledge and tools are needed to maximize postsecondary opportunities for low-income youth.

In this seminar, USC Assistant Professor Morgan Polikoff reviews the problems with the Academic Performance Index and offers a series of straightforward, concrete suggestions designed to improve the API and the identification of low performing schools in California. The suggestions, which include tracking the achievement of individual students, using multiple years of achievement data, measuring growth and level of student achievement, and accounting for school level and size, are drawn from his research on the design of accountability systems in the state and nationwide.

In this seminar Russell Rumberger from UC-Santa Barbara will present findings from his research on the causes and consequences of dropping out in California as part of the California Dropout Research Project, and from his recent book, Dropping Out, from a national perspective. He will address four facets of California’s dropout crisis: the severity of the problem and whether it’s getting better or worse; the individual and social consequences of dropping out; the reasons why students drop out of school; and changes in policy and educational practice that can help to address the problem.

Income inequality among the families of school-aged children in the US has grown sharply over 40 years. How has rising income inequality affected patterns of educational outcomes? In this seminar Sean Reardon will addresses this question. He will describe trends in the “income-achievement gap.” Evidence shows the association between income and achievement has grown much in recent decades, while the association between race and achievement has held steady or declined. He will then describe trends in the relationship between family income and the quality of colleges in which students enroll.

Demanding more rigorous and complex learning, the 'Common Core' presents special challenges for English learners, who now experience lots of didactic, simple instruction under current accountability systems. This conference, cosponsored by PACE and the Education Writers Association, brings together 30 journalists with four district superintendents and other experts who vividly detailed new classroom practices, early efforts to acquaint teachers, and how Common Core may drive comprehensive efforts to improve California's accountability regime.

Learn about how promising digital tools and resources are now available to help you strengthen teaching and learning in middle grades mathematics, and the policy changes that California must make to take advantage of these new opportunities. In this seminar, policy leaders and experts in education technology will share and discuss what’s becoming possible with the proliferation of digital technologies in California schools.

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.

A panel of education researchers and policy experts convened in Washington DC to explore the findings of a new report that makes the case for bold new student testing models that are fairer and more valid than their predecessors. The report, The Road Ahead for State Assessments, was released by the PACE and the Rennie Center for Education Research. Student assessment is a timely topic since most states are currently in the process of adopting the new Common Core State and are considering how to gauge students’ progress toward those standards.

In this seminar Trish Williams and Matt Rosin present new findings from an analysis of longitudinal data on the 7th and 8th grade math and Algebra I CST scores of 70,000 California students. Jennifer O’Day shares lessons and perspectives from CCDR districts on student access and success in algebra and higher level mathematics. The session touches upon the state’s recent adoption of Common Core state standards, and what their implications are especially for 8th grade math.