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.

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.

The rapid onset of the health and economic crisis accompanying COVID-19 has presented an array of challenges for school districts and county offices across California. To aid in both local and state decision-making, PACE and Pivot Learning have been documenting promising practices at school districts in California. In this webinar, researchers and local superintendents will highlight how two districts initially addressed students’ immediate needs and how they are approaching strategic planning for the months ahead.

This webinar was the third in a three-part webinar series on special education featuring new research on the status of special education in California and paths forward for organizing schools to better support students with disabilities. This webinar will cover Differentiated Assistance, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, Interagency Collaboration, and Lessons from Other States in Support of Students with Disabilities.

The LCFF fosters accountability through districts’ use of LCAPs and District Dashboard metrics aligned to state priorities. The state’s new system of support is designed to assist districts whose Dashboard results have fallen short of expectations and is intended to advance both equity and excellence by helping districts shift from a culture of compliance to one of support and continuous improvement. CEOs play a key role in the system of support. In this seminar, PACE researchers will share new work on the changing role of COEs and lessons from early implementation of new structures.

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.

California supports the learning of 1.3 million English students and has the highest proportion of EL students in the nation. With the adoption of the California English Learner Roadmap by the State Board of Education and the passage of Prop 58, state support has grown for improved services. Consideration of the needs of the diverse EL student population is essential as it evolves at all education levels. In this seminar, PACE researchers present the needs of California's EL students, barriers to their success, and potential tools districts can use to support their EL populations.

Public school funding is a complex but vital area of interest in CA. In this seminar, the challenges of financing public education are highlighted in two areas: funding for facility maintenance and modernization, and special education for students with disabilities. CA’s vast inventory of school facilities vary widely in age and condition, and estimates for CA school facility maintenance and modernization over the next 10 years top $100 billion. With the advent of the LCFF, there has been increased focus on helping students with disabilities succeed in school but many districts lack funding.

In this seminar, PACE researchers will present findings from a study of the second-year of LCFF implementation, focusing on how local leaders are adapting to California’s new finance and accountability systems, identifying some promising approaches to LCFF implementation, and providing implications of the findings for adjustments to the LCFF. The report is based on case studies of LCFF implementation in 7 to 9 California school districts, along with LCAP reviews of over 50 districts and interviews with over 25 County Office of Education leaders.

In this seminar, Margaret (Macke) Raymond investigates operator supply in the charter sector in the United States. She examines the performance of individual schools as they opened and grew over their early years. Her analysis expands to consider the likelihood of quality among new schools and networks of schools, called Charter Management Organizations. Using a new method to ensure rigorous comparisons, she compares the performance of charter schools to the traditional public schools with which they compete.

School districts across California have begun working to implement the Common Core State Standards and to prepare for California’s new assessments. Policy Analysis for California Education and California County Superintendents Educational Services Association are pleased to sponsor six regional leadership sessions on CCSS Systems Implementation. These meetings will introduce you to a variety of strategies, tools and resources that your district can use to support successful implementation of the CCSS.

CA policymakers have begun to look beyond the API and ask how to hold schools accountable. One strategy is via a system of school inspections, a common accountability policy in other countries. This seminar will discuss the benefits of school inspections and explore the main policy decisions for designing such a system, with a focus on England’s approach. How might CA evaluate school performance on a broader range of evidence; leverage expert judgment rather than relying solely on mathematical formulas; and provide schools with better diagnostic feedback to support continuous improvement?

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.

Since 2009, AIR and Pivot Learning have successfully formed partnerships with the Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Twin Rivers Unified School Districts. This team has made a great deal of progress in initiating the activities necessary to implement the basic policy elements of Strategic School Funding for Results at the local level. At this briefing, representatives from each district will discuss the partnership’s progress and the challenges, and offered recommendations for state policy and other districts.