The PACE Annual Conference in January 2024 will bring together California policymakers, researchers, and education leaders to address critical questions about the state's public education system and explore transformative actions for improvement at all levels, from early childhood through higher education.

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, Carrie Hahnel (Bellwether) and Francis A. Pearman (Stanford Graduate School of Education) will discuss new research exploring the racial dimensions of school closures and how to address them.

Newcomer students have long been an underserved group in California’s school systems. Newcomers require specialized curricula and instruction to succeed in school as well as access to social services to meet even their basic needs. Unfortunately, most newcomers have not experienced schooling that adequately addresses their unique needs and drop out at a disproportionately high rate. There are thus significant opportunities to improve education for newcomers in California through policies, data systems, curricula, programs development, and collaborations.

PACE’s 2023 conference marks many important milestones: our first in-person annual conference since the start of the pandemic, the 10-year anniversary of the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula, and the 40-year anniversary of PACE’s founding.

Efforts being made around the country to encourage educational reform in the areas of equity, access, diversity, and inclusion may be viewed as only for show. How can we shift away from performative demonstrations of support and “blame the victim” theories, such as deficit thinking, that suggest people are responsible for their predicaments, rather than the biased systems that surround them? Cecilia Rios-Aguilar explores how students’ cultural experiences can be used to develop strategies to overcome disparities and enact long-term normative change.

The pandemic has introduced a great deal of hardship into many students’ lives, which may make it difficult for them to learn. Disruptions to students’ mental and emotional health, social systems of support, and learning environments require a new focus on social and emotional well-being. At the same time, pandemic-related school disruptions have put a heightened focus on the need to understand student learning. Measurement now is more critical than ever but requires new methods of assessing students and new approaches for analyzing and acting upon the data.

Districts across California are working on three discrete but related challenges as they address the impacts of COVID-19 on teaching on learning: 1) What do we do now to support student learning before school year ends; 2) What can we do in the Summer to mitigate the disparate impact of distance learning; and 3) What should we be designing for the Fall to best meet the needs of students, teachers and families. Expanded learning providers are critical partners for all three challenges.

This webinar will present findings from two forthcoming publications on community schools: the PACE brief “Community Schools: A Coronavirus Recovery Strategy;” and “Creating Strong Community Schools: The Role of California Counties in Providing Technical Assistance” by the Learning Policy Institute. The webinar will also feature perspectives from leaders at the school and county levels who will speak to what it takes to launch and sustain community schools.

Join us for a conversation about education during COVID-19 including the challenges and opportunities ahead as schools and families prepare for a new academic year. What policies and practices can help ensure equitable and effective re-opening? What might learning and classrooms look like in the future?

Even before COVID-19 dramatically changed the context of teaching and learning in California and across the country, there was a growing consensus in education that schools can and should attend to students’ social-emotional development. In this webinar, researchers will share new evidence showing that improvements in students’ social-emotional skills can be an effective strategy for improving academic and behavioral outcomes, and that teachers and schools can play an important role in helping students develop these skills. This research is based on data from the CORE districts.

Since 2014-15, the CORE districts have surveyed students in grades 4-12 on their social-emotional learning (SEL). School and district leaders use these measures in the context of CORE’s multiple measures data system to understand and improve student and school outcomes. In this webinar, researchers will discuss: How student reports of their self-management, growth mindset, and self-efficacy change over time, vary by subgroup, and are related to other outcomes; student response patterns; and the impact of classrooms and teachers on students’ social-emotional development.

In this webinar, PACE will highlight two of CORE’s innovative data approaches: their school impact model and student surveys of social-emotional learning. Researchers, representatives from the CORE Districts, and two district leaders will discuss the importance of using a school growth model to understand school performance, share new research on applying a growth model to social-emotional learning surveys, and discuss how to think about the reporting of academic and social-emotional measures for different purposes and users.

Education experts from PACE, LPI, and Opportunity Institute present a Plenary Session introducing CA’s education system to education scholars and leaders from countries around the world. They will discuss the historical roots of the many challenges facing CA’s schools and teachers, promising changes in the state’s education policy framework, and ongoing concerns about whether new policies will lead to meaningful improvements in the education policy framework, and ongoing concerns about whether new policies will lead to meaningful improvements in the education provided to CA students.

Policy Analysis for California Education and the Learning Policy Institute invite you to an event on how schools can be organized to support the whole child, featuring a series of panels with leading researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.

In this webinar, researchers and practitioners in the CORE districts will discuss both SEL measurement and practice, based on this just-released report and new quantitative work coming soon on the validity of the SEL measures used within CORE.

Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) is excited to invite you to The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) Implementation and Impact Conference. Panels will address three key sets of issues: Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement California’s Infrastructure of Support for Schools and School Districts What Have We Learned After Four Years of LCFF Implementation?

Being able to manage your emotions and behavior, interact effectively with other people, and persevere through challenges are decidedly common skills we draw on in multiple settings. Given this reality, it’s important to understand the “how” of SEL, including conditions for successful implementation, the importance of continuous quality improvement, and the opportunity to leverage after school and summer resources for full day, full year learning. This seminar will explore SEL in both the school-day and expanded learning settings and include real-world examples from the SCUSD.

The forum will explore the role that social-emotional learning plays in supporting young people's academic achievement and well-being. Experts will present the latest research on measuring social-emotional outcomes. School district leaders will talk about emerging practices at the district, school, and instructional levels, including perspectives from the CORE initiative, the charter school movement, and the expanded learning field. The forum will close with opportunities for the audience to discuss policy implications and hear reactions from policymakers and researchers.