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.

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.

In today’s data-rich, technology-enhanced world, math learning opportunities are central to the path to higher education and 21st-century careers. Math classes must serve as stepping stones rather than stopping points on students’ journeys. Ensuring that happens means policies, practices, and perceptions must change to lower the systemic barriers that block some students’ paths forward, especially by race and gender. To learn more about and support new strategies that enhance deeper learning and equitable outcomes.

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.

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.