This report is the companion account of principal survey results from the Local Control Funding Formula Research Collaborative's (LCFFRC) fall 2018 surveys of stratified random samples of California superintendents and principals. The superintendent results were published in June 2018 in Superintendents Speak: Implementing the Local Control Funding Formula.

Recent legislative and judicial activity across the country aims to attract and retain high-quality teachers for every classroom. Research has shown that a high-quality teacher is the most important factor in students' academic success and long-term outcomes, and having a bad teacher for a single year can cost a student an entire year of learning gains. Students assigned to higher-quality teachers are more likely to attend college, attend higher-quality colleges, and earn higher salaries than their peers assigned to lower-quality teachers.

This report commemorates the fifth anniversary of the Getting Down to Facts project, which sought to provide a thorough and reliable analysis of the critical challenges facing California’s education system as the necessary basis for an informed discussion of policy changes aimed at improving the performance of California schools and students. The report focuses on the four key issues that received emphasis in the Getting Down to Facts studies: governance, finance, personnel, and data systems.

The Quality Teacher and Education Act (QTEA) was passed in 2008 in San Francisco, authorizing $198 per taxable property to be collected by the SFUSD for 20 years. CEPA and PACE collaborated with the SFUSD to evaluate the implementation and impact of QTEA on teacher compensation, support, and accountability. This report documents the first-year implementation of QTEA and its effects on the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers, improvement of the teacher workforce, and removal of less effective teachers using a mixed-methods approach.