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.

Two years after schools returned to in-person learning, the state’s Smarter Balanced scores show disappointingly little improvement. Nearly two-thirds of California students failed to meet math standards for their grade level, and more than half fell short of the standards for English. But while the pandemic was devastating for families, students and schools, test scores were languishing even before Covid. EdSource’s Anne Vasquez and John Fensterwald hosted this webinar along with PACE Heather J. Hough and a panel of educators and policy experts to explore this topic and more.

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.

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.

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.

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.

PACE’s inaugural conference is the premier event for policymakers, researchers, advocates and other leaders working to define and sustain a long-term strategy for comprehensive policy reform and continuous improvement of California’s education system. Our full-day conference will engage with three key education policy issues: school funding adequacy, teacher policies and cross-system-alignment. Registered participants will learn about the key policy debates and research based best-practices through conference plenaries and workshops.

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.

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.

CA is one of many states facing important decisions on how to assess its students. This conference is an opportunity for policymakers, educators, education researchers, administrators, funders, and community partners to discuss the potential and challenges of performance assessments to support deeper and more rigorous student learning. A panel of leading education researchers, administrators, educators, funders, and community partners will discuss assessment policies and practices that support improved student achievement in CA.