This report examines the early implementation of California's Statewide System of Support, which is designed to empower local educators in determining the best approaches to improvement. While COEs and district officials hold positive views of the system's emphasis on support over compliance, they have concerns about under-resourcing and the effectiveness of the Dashboard measurement tool. The report provides five recommendations to make the System of Support a more comprehensive system aligned with the Local Control Funding Formula.

This report examines how California's education sector is embracing continuous improvement over standards-based reform. The study presents six lessons learned from PACE and CORE Districts' collaboration on the topic, including the complexity of embedding continuous improvement processes into school norms and the need for deliberate steps to build a culture conducive to continuous improvement. The report provides implications for broader continuous work in California and beyond, with three case studies providing more detail on exemplary practices in two districts and one school.

California’s shift towards continuous improvement in education makes understanding how districts and schools can learn to improve a more pressing question than ever. The CORE Improvement Community (CIC), a network of California school districts engaged in learning about improvement together, is an important testing ground to learn about what this work entails.

Effective data use is crucial for continuous improvement, but there is confusion about how it differs from data use for other purposes. This report explains what data are most useful for continuous improvement and presents a case study of how the CORE data collaborative uses a multiple-measures approach to support decision-making.

CA is shifting the responsibility for school improvement to local school districts with County Offices of Education playing a supportive role. The focus is on local leaders driving educational improvement and ensuring quality. Strategic data use is central to the implementation of this policy, with questions remaining about what data is needed, by whom, and for what purpose. This paper provides a framework for how data use for improvement is different from data use for accountability and shares lessons from the CORE Data Collaborative on how to use data for improvement in networked structures.

California policy shifts gave school districts more control, but many lack expertise and capacity for improvement. The CORE districts applied continuous improvement in a Networked Improvement Community to close the math achievement gap for African American and Hispanic/Latino students. The four lessons learned were: create an improvement team, refine theories through systems analysis, interpret different data, and benefit from expert facilitation. Investment in continuous improvement can lead to powerful insights and reform.