Nearly every county and legislative district in California has a rural and/or small school district. All school districts face challenges in their efforts to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), but these issues may be exacerbated among school districts located in under-resourced, isolated regions of the state. In this seminar Tom Timar discusses the challenges of rural and/or small districts to overcome the limitations that size and geography have imposed on them, and proposes solutions to overcome these limitations.

The conference will present new evidence on the scale of California’s emerging teacher shortage, with a particular focus on already critical shortages of teachers in specific fields and regions. It will also feature presentations on new approaches to teacher recruitment, preparation, and retention that might help to ameliorate the worst impacts of the shortage on California students. Presenters and panelists will include senior researchers, policy leaders, and local practitioners. This conference is cosponsored by PACE), the Learning Policy Institute, and the Education Policy Center at AIR.

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, Ilana Umansky and her colleagues present policy recommendations for improving the educational outcomes of English learner students in California, based on research from the educational opportunities, experiences, and outcomes of EL students conducted in a set of California school districts over the last five years. Their research sheds light on critical issues including EL classification and reclassification policies, the effects of English immersion and bilingual education, and EL students’ access to learning opportunities.

California educators and state leaders have been preparing for Common Core State Standards since 2010, but 2014-2015 is the first academic year that many educators, students, and parents are seeing changes inspired by the reform in classroom practice. In this seminar, Andrea Venezia and Jodi Lewis present findings from their research exploring implementation of the Common Core. The study identifies practices that appeared to help teachers operationalize the Common Core in their classrooms, challenges associated with implementation, and implications for state policy.

As California educators enact the instructional shifts called for by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), formative assessment has reemerged as a key practice for moving students toward college and career readiness. Join us for a one-day, hands-on workshop focusing on questions of practice: how can educators embed formative assessment into the classroom and the curriculum, and how can administrators and district leaders embed formative assessment into the culture of schools?

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.

The Local Control Funding Formula represents the first significant change in 40 years to the way California funds education. It gives school districts greatly expanded flexibility to allocate dollars in ways they believe make the most educational sense for their students. It requires districts to engage parents, community members, and other stakeholders in discussion and deliberation about district services, programs, and priorities. This seminar explores the results of a study of early implementation of LCFF.

This seminar presents findings on the early implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in California. Milbrey McLaughlin reports on interviews with educators in all regions of the state, and on their views of how implementation is proceeding in their schools and districts. She reviews some of the key challenges that local educators identify as they move forward with CCSS implementation, and highlights areas where districts, schools, and counties will require more or different support as they continue their implementation efforts.

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.

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.

In this seminar Tom Dee presents findings from his study of the effects of SIG-funded whole-school reforms in California. He finds that there were significant improvements in the test-based performance of schools receiving SIG grants. His findings suggest that these improvements were largely concentrated among schools that adopted the Turnaround model, which requires the replacement of the principal and at least half of the current teaching staff. Results were also positive by the second year in schools that adopted the Transformation model.

In this seminar Martin Carnoy will present data on achievement gains across U.S. states and persistent variation among states in student performance. He will also discuss various hypotheses that could explain these phenomena with a focus on the particular case of California, which currently is among the lower scoring U.S. states even when social class differences are accounted for. Carnoy’s presentation will assess what we know about the factors that could explain why California’s students are not doing as well as students in other states and may be making less progress.

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?

Recent news headlines have drawn attention to budget cuts that districts pursue in response to the state’s revenue shortfalls. But policymakers and state agencies need to consider more than episodic revenue declines or relative rankings of districts. This seminar reviews evidence from a 2010-11 survey that provides a snapshot of district responses to unpredictable state aid. The speaker suggests ways that policymakers can account for the revenue instability a district has faced when evaluating district fiscal and academic performance.

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.

In this seminar, Patricia Gándara, Gary Orfield, and Kimberly King present research findings on a series of reports designed to analyze the impact of fiscal cutbacks on opportunity for higher education in the CSU system. CSUs educate a greater number of Latino and African American students, enroll a much larger undergraduate student body than the University of California system overall, and many CSU students are first-generation college students struggling to get an education in difficult times.

Recognition of the importance of school leadership has led to increased attention to recruiting and preparing school leaders. Yet, principal preparation and development programs tend to emphasize the role of principals as instructional leaders. In this seminar, Susanna Loeb discusses the findings of her leadership studies that highlight the importance of organizational leadership and the development of organizational structures for improved instruction.

Despite rising awareness of educators about the importance of addressing the needs of English Language Learners, there has been almost no systematic attention to supporting school and district leaders. Instructional strategies for addressing the language and content needs of ELLs has nevertheless been working itself into the mainstream. In this seminar, Kenji Hakuta and Rich Smith discuss their work on how districts and school leaders can play an active role in structuring and supporting appropriate programs for ELLs, and the policies necessary to improve the educational achievement of ELLs.

The RAND Corporation, in collaboration with the University of California and San Diego State University, is conducting a study that explores district and school leader responses to the Tier 3 initiative and federal stimulus dollars. In this seminar, the study team discussed qualitative data collected at 10 districts during the spring of 2010. Initial findings suggest that after one year, the Tier 3 flexibility is playing a critical role in helping districts to backfill budget gaps as the state crisis continues.

The history of LAUSD over the past five decades, reveals an organization pulled up from its early 20th Century Progressive Era roots. Decades of reform efforts have provided a lively audition for what a new institution of public education could look like. In this seminar Charles Kerchner shows how successive reform efforts have outlined the design of a more effective educational system, and identifies some policy levers that can help to create a new institutional structure for public education, in L.A. and for all of California and beyond.

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.

Since 2008, Fresno and Long Beach Unified School Districts have been engaged in a formal district partnership designed to help the districts achieve a common a set of goals. With the generous support of the Hewlett Foundation and Stuart Foundation, the American Institutes for Research, in collaboration with Pivot Learning Partners, has been documenting the districts’ work together. This panel featured the leaders of these two districts who discussed their Partnership and its implications for policy and practice.

Bringing the Common Core to California: A Discussion Morning Presentations. Welcome and Overview by David N. Plank, Executive Director, PACE and Scott Hill, Compliance, Programs and Policy An Introduction to Common Core by Keith Gayler, Program Director, Council of Chief State School Officers The Common Core Standards English/Language Arts by Sue Pimentel, Co-Founder, StandardsWork The Common Core Standards Mathematics by Hung-Hsi Wu, Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley Afternoon Panel Discussion. Implementing the Common Core in CA: Reflections on Standards