The ADP has sought to strengthen alignment between standards and expectations in K-12 schools and post-secondary education and training. In the first year the ADP has worked toward agreement on a common standard of readiness for non-remedial college coursework across the three segments of California’s higher education system. In this seminar, members of the ADP team discuss progress to date and next steps in the effort to ensure that more California students are prepared for success in college and careers.

Increasing the percentage of highly qualified teachers in public schools is a priority for California. In this seminar, Lora Bartlett highlights the role overseas trained teachers have played in addressing this goal. She presents data on the number and distribution of overseas trained K-12 teachers in California public schools, highlighting their concentration in high poverty districts and schools. She also examines the implications of different definitions of teacher qualification, and traces connections between education and immigration policy.

California’s education system continues to struggle to close persistent achievement gaps that often exist at school entry, and the state’s dire fiscal situation certainly doesn’t help. But real progress is possible, even now, as new strategies to build seamless early learning systems are being developed and supported through federal efforts. In this seminar, presenters discussed the critical components of PreK-3rd systems, provided specific examples of how these systems are working locally to improve school readiness in California, and offered up new opportunities for statewide leadership.

Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public school funding, the U.S. now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. In this seminar, Eric Hanushek concludes the principal focus of both courts and legislatures on ever-increasing funding has done little to improve student achievement. Hanushek proposes a performance-based system that directly links funding to success in raising achievement. This system would empower and motivate educators to make better, more cost-effective decisions on running schools, leading to improved student performance.

As CA continues to wrestle with the challenges of providing sufficient funding for schools, understanding the relationships among school funding, effective school resources, and outcomes is essential. In this seminar Norton Grubb addresses four principal questions: (1) What kinds of school resources make a difference to outcomes? (2) Why is the relationship between spending per student and outcomes so weak? (3) Why are outcomes so inequitable? (4) And what should CA do now, in both school finance and other areas of school policy, to avoid further damage to the state’s education system?

As part of the Legislature’s February 2009 budget revisions, school districts were granted more flexibility in the use of some categorical grants. These actions offer an exceptional opportunity to reform California’s confusing system of categorical grants. This seminar provides an overview of the purposes of categorical grants pertaining to local v. state control over the use of educational resources to improve student performance. Lawrence O. Picus offers suggestions for ways California’s myriad of confusing categorical programs can be reformed to focus on student learning.

In this seminar, Sean Reardon and Michal Kurlaender will present student-level data from four large California school districts was used to examine the impact of the California High School Exit Examination exam on student achievement and graduation rates. In particular, they focus of the effects of failing vs. passing the CAHSEE in 10th grade on the subsequent achievement and graduation rate of students with relatively low math and ELA skills.

California’s community colleges serve nearly three-quarters of public postsecondary enrollments in the state and are critical to meet today’s needs for a highly educated workforce and citizenry. State public policies create the conditions under which the colleges operate to serve students’ needs and contribute to the economy. In this seminar, Nancy Shulock makes the case for supplementing ongoing efforts to increase student success with changes to policies in order to provide more favorable conditions under which the colleges can meet the needs of students and the state of California.

Although policy makers have been talking about and drafting policies to address inequities in student higher education experiences and outcomes for decades, problems of racial-ethnic inequities have proven to be intractable under current accountability and assessment policies. Estela Bensimon and Alicia Dowd discuss research findings from college sites in California and Wisconsin that are using their multi-disciplined approach and tools to help policymakers, leaders, and practitioners make sense of accountability data from the perspective of equity for racial and ethnic minority students.

American Institutes For Research presents findings from a recent study of the implementation of a weighted student funding system in two California school districts. Researchers will assess how the distribution of resources changed in these two districts after the move to student-based funding, and identify “lessons learned” for other districts and for state policy-makers who are considering more equitable and effective strategies for allocating scarce resources in California’s education system.

This seminar will feature Isabella Furth, Senior Associate, Viewpoint Learning, and Heidi Gantwerk, Vice President, Viewpoint Learning, discussing a recent project in which they engaged groups of citizens in informed dialogue about the future of California’s K-12 education system and the policy choices that our state faces. Moderated by David N. Plank, Executive Director, PACE.

This seminar will feature Jacob Adams, Professor of Education, Claremont Graduate University, presenting the findings and recommendations of the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning, with comments by Gerry Shelton, Founder and Partner, Capitol Advisors Group. Moderated by David N. Plank, Executive Director, PACE.

This seminar will feature a round-table discussion to assess No Child Left Behind from a variety of perspectives, asking what we have learned since 2001, and can the federal government rethink its historical mission of equalizing education opportunity and results.