Compassionate Partnerships for Youth in Foster Care PDF

Compassionate Partnerships for Youth in Foster Care

The Role of Expanded Learning
Commentary authors
Michelle Francois
Margaret Olmos
Published

The commentary is a guidebook for districts, schools, and expanded learning providers in better serving California's 60,000 foster care youth amid the pandemic. For these vulnerable youth, COVID-19 worsened existing trauma, isolation, and educational disruptions due to frequent home and school changes. Collaboration among public systems and community partners is crucial to create caring systems acknowledging individual strengths and needs. To bolster pandemic recovery, the approach should prioritize tailored programs by consulting foster youth about their needs, amplifying community expertise, employing staff knowledgeable about schools, and ensuring accessible health services and multilingual resources. Creativity, flexibility, and continuous learning are vital in addressing the immediate and long-term needs of foster care youth, emphasizing constant evaluation through their perspectives for effective support.

How Can Test Scores Be Going Both Up AND Down?
October 28, 2019 | Ed100

Each spring, California public school children in grades 3-8 and 11 take a set of tests known as the CAASPP (the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress). In summer, families receive the results electronically. In autumn, schools and districts...

A Perspective on Education: Continuous Improvement
August 19, 2019 | Mendocino Voice

Every year, California schools are evaluated on a variety of measures, everything from students’ math and English skills to suspension rates and chronic absenteeism. When things don’t go well, school districts scramble to put new programs in place that will...

Data and Evaluation PDF

Data and Evaluation

Spotlight on Chronic Absenteeism Toolkit
Commentary author
PACE
Published

PACE research is prominently featured in the repository on chronic absenteeism established by the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE). The collaborative serves as a valuable resource hub, offering toolkits, materials, and various other assets related to chronic absenteeism in educational settings. PACE's contribution to this repository includes two research briefs focusing on chronic absenteeism. The first brief involves PACE's in-depth analysis of student chronic absenteeism data from the CORE Districts, exploring the utilization of chronic absence metrics within a multi-metric accountability system. The second brief delves into the chronic absence performance levels of California's districts, schools, and student groups, utilizing recently released data from California's School Dashboard. This brief also investigates the pivotal role played by chronic absence in determining differentiated assistance, providing insights into the impact on school performance. Together, these research briefs offer valuable perspectives and data-driven insights into addressing and understanding chronic absenteeism in the context of California's educational landscape.

Fresno Unified Increases Applications to CSUS and UCs
July 12, 2017 | EdSource

he Fresno Unified School District increased student applications to California State University and University of California campuses after training their counselors and giving students timely information to help them make selections. Their strategies are outlined in a new report from Policy Analysis...

Fresno Unified Increases Applications to CSUS and UCs
July 12, 2017 | EdSource

he Fresno Unified School District increased student applications to California State University and University of California campuses after training their counselors and giving students timely information to help them make selections. Their strategies are outlined in a new report from Policy Analysis...

Can Social-Emotional Skills Drive Continuous Improvement? PDF

Can Social-Emotional Skills Drive Continuous Improvement?

Commentary author
Daisy Gonzales
Published

California has embraced Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as a crucial aspect of education, integrating emotional management, positive goal setting, empathy, and relationship skills into academic success. This commitment is evident in the state's adoption of SEL components in its educational standards and accountability systems. However, while the state is implementing surveys to gauge school climate, it's yet to fully understand how these relate to academic progress or link social-emotional learning to overall school improvement. The CORE districts have taken strides by measuring specific competencies like self-management and growth mindset, finding that these skills predict student performance at different academic levels. Yet, educators need guidance on using this data for improvement. PACE is studying the CORE districts' innovative accountability system to pinpoint successful policies and practices regarding SEL, aiming to reduce disparities among student sub-groups. Understanding how learning environments foster SEL can inform efforts to improve education across California and potentially nationally. Moving forward, California needs to focus on developing educators' capacity to utilize SEL data effectively and invest in integrating SEL in both school-day and expanded learning environments for continuous improvement.

California CORE Districts Pilot Accountability Measures
November 3, 2016 | Education Week

In school accountability, flashlights work better than hammers. That’s the oft-repeated argument of California’s CORE districts, a data collaborative now serving over 1.8-million students. It’s generally recognized that the practice of using data to bash schools—commonly known as naming and...

California Data Show Flaws in Federal Regulations
August 2, 2016 | Education Week

When Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, it was celebrated as relief from its predecessor, but as regulations emerge it’s beginning to look like its evil sibling of the discredited No Child Left Behind Act’s name-and-shame policy...