INITIATIVE

Continuous Improvement and Support Systems in California

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Over the past 15 years, California has made significant changes to its educational systems, including adopting new academic standards, transforming its approaches to funding and accountability, and shifting toward a more decentralized system of governance and finance. These shifts have been implemented with continuous improvement as the vision for California’s approach to advancing experiences and outcomes for students. Given these recent significant shifts, PACE saw the need to take stock of what we know about the implementation of these policies and what we still need to know to continue moving policy and practice in a positive direction. To this end, on October 15-16, 2019, PACE hosted a meeting of key actors in policy, practice, and research to assess the current status of the implementation of continuous improvement in schools in California and to develop a research agenda to better understand and strengthen California’s continuous school improvement and support systems. Together, this PRP discussed the latest research on the systems to support continuous improvement in the state, surfaced knowledge needs, and co-developed strategies for using research to equip policymakers and practitioners in advancing outcomes for students.

Recent Initiative Publications
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Enrollment in California public schools has been declining and is projected to fall even more steeply during the next decade. Because funding for school districts is largely based on average daily attendance rates, a decline in enrollment results in…
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This study investigates racial disparities in school closures both within California and nationally. Findings highlight an alarming pattern: Schools enrolling higher proportions of Black students are at significantly increased risk of closure…
Constructing a Good Fit: Improvement Team Leads’ Perspectives on Fitting Improvement Work to Their Sites
Improvement Team Leads’ Perspectives on Fitting Improvement Work to Their Sites
This chapter in an edited book focuses on the work of two improvement network hubs in California as they tried to support participating districts and schools to improve the proportion of students “on-track” for post-secondary success. California has…
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Lessons for Improving Network Collaboration
Collaborative networks that use continuous improvement principles and tools can accelerate and spread learning across sites and contexts. Districts face unprecedented challenges in meeting students’ and families’ needs in rapidly changing conditions…
Policy Research Panel Members