This brief examines a three-year pilot of the California Collaborative for Education Excellence’s Intensive Assistance Model in five districts. It finds stronger educator collaboration and promising school-level gains, though achievement effects were not statistically significant and districtwide scaling remained uneven. The brief recommends sustained instructional coaching, protected teacher collaboration time, and a sharper focus on core academic outcomes to build district capacity and support lasting improvements in teaching and learning.

This brief draws on Getting Down to Facts III to recommend three priorities for strengthening California’s education system: clear student goals, reliable instructional support for every district, and stronger, more affordable teacher preparation. It calls for aligned policy and funding, reduced compliance burdens, sustained support for improving teaching, and expanded four-year preparation pathways to help promising reforms reach more classrooms.

This report examines how five California CORE member districts built principal pipelines to develop effective school leaders. The study, a collaborative effort between CORE-PACE and university researchers, aims to describe the policies, procedures, and practices that make up participating districts’ efforts to establish and maintain principal pipelines and understand the role of principal pipelines in attaining key objectives, including diversifying school leadership, retaining excellent school leaders, and improving student outcomes.