This report provides policy guidance for new state assessments aligned to Common Core State Standards. It aims to inform the work of the two consortia funded by the U.S. Department of Education in developing the assessments. The report includes three papers addressing issues of computer adaptive assessments, assessment of English learners, and assessing science. The authors' vision of new assessments goes beyond the horizon of current practice and emphasizes the need to use new technologies to provide useful and timely information to students and teachers.

This report explores how 10 California school districts responded to the deregulation of $4.5 billion in education funding, which became entirely flexible in 2009. The study investigates how district leaders made budget decisions and what local factors influenced their responses. The research was conducted by a team of scholars from the RAND Corporation, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and San Diego State University.

This report discusses the effects of California's partial release of categorical funds to local school boards in 2009. The increased flexibility has provided an opportunity to observe how districts respond to the policy change, but the impact is difficult to isolate as most districts have been struggling to maintain core services during a severe budget crisis. The report includes preliminary results from an ongoing study of district responses to the increased categorical flexibility.

This brief analyzes the effectiveness of contextualized developmental math in California Community Colleges, where fewer than 10% of students who enter at the basic math level complete college-level math. These integrated courses focus on math required in specific occupations and have higher success rates than traditional math courses. However, the pressure for traditional academic courses has eliminated many of these courses, hindering students' ability to acquire occupational skills and complete advanced courses or degrees.

This brief analyzes the relationship between teacher employment, collective bargaining laws, and school district policies in California. The authors examine the extent to which California's legal structure constrains or facilitates district-level discretion over teacher employment policies and practices. They classify various aspects of the teacher-school district employment relationship into four categories, and conclude that California statutory law is somewhat more constraining of administrative decision-making in teacher employment matters than in four other large and diverse states.

The James Irvine Foundation sponsors the Linked Learning approach as a strategy for improving California high schools' performance. PACE was asked to gather evidence on the cost of linked learning programs. The report explores how traditional high schools use their resources and how much school districts spend on their high schools to achieve current performance. It proves challenging to judge whether reform strategies like Linked Learning cost more than, less than, or the same as traditional high school programs.

This brief examines the strengths and weaknesses of value-added measures, which are useful for separating out school influences from other factors when evaluating teacher and school performance. Although value-added assessments give a summative picture of teacher performance, they do not provide guidance on how to improve. The author explores best uses and practices for value-added measures and discusses the limitations of attainment measures in evaluating school performance. The "Cardinal Rule of Accountability" is to hold people accountable for what they can control.

This study analyzes the impact of the Early Assessment Program (EAP) on the college-going behavior and remediation needs of California high school juniors. Results show that EAP participation reduces the need for remediation at California State Universities by 6.1 percentage points in English and 4.1 percentage points in mathematics. The program does not discourage poorly prepared students from applying to college but rather encourages them to increase their academic preparation in high school.

This working paper examines the use of Quality Education Investment Act (QEIA) funds, which allocated $2.6B over seven years to California's lowest-performing schools. The authors conducted a study of four Los Angeles high schools to investigate how QEIA dollars were spent in the first year, who made the decisions, and how funds were used to improve teaching and the instructional program. The study found that district officials and principals had discretion in allocating funds, consistent with recent efforts to deregulate categorical-aid programs and give local educators fiscal discretion.

This brief evaluates the effectiveness of CA's Governor's Teaching Fellowship, which aimed to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers in low-performing schools by providing a $20K fellowship to individuals enrolled in traditional teacher licensure programs who agreed to teach in designated schools. The study found that financial incentives can attract skilled professionals to work with underserved populations, but alternative policy designs should also be explored for cost-effectiveness. The results of the evaluation have important implications for state and national education policy.

PACE has published a policy book to support informed debates about the issues facing California education. The book includes recommendations to improve education quality, targeting resources to those who need it most, giving local schools more flexibility, and designing policies for continuous improvement. While there's no one solution to fix public education, a series of good policies can bring about fundamental reform and improve outcomes for schools and students.

This brief discusses the significant disparity between the Latino population in California's public schools and their representation among college graduates. The author suggests that this may lead to a shortage of graduates for California's economy and outlines six steps the state could take to improve access and success for Latino students in higher education.

This article explores the reasons why education has become a central focus of modern societies and the largest public expenditure around the world. The state has built and expanded national education systems, made attending school mandatory, and linked adult success to academic performance. The article delves into the economic factors behind state financing and provision of schools.

This article discusses how teacher recruitment and retention affect the quality of teaching in schools. The supply and demand model, including wages and non-pecuniary job attributes, influences the supply of potential and current teachers. The demand for teachers depends on factors such as student enrollment and institutional constraints such as hiring authorities' skill and efficiency. The article identifies common policy approaches to improve recruitment and retention and summarizes current research on their effectiveness.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has undergone decades of reform, resulting in an unstable atmosphere rather than institutional stability. A recent book, "Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in Public Education," identifies five policy levers that can create a more effective educational system and a new institutional structure for public education, both in LA and beyond.

Policymakers aim to improve student outcomes through the hiring of highly qualified teachers, but there is little consensus on what qualities make a teacher "good." Research on teacher characteristics that impact student achievement is inconclusive. This article examines recent empirical evidence on teacher quality in education production.

Economics of education has grown in importance over the past two decades, as education is viewed as a critical factor in a nation's economic success. Economics can help improve the productivity of educational institutions by focusing on incentives, choice, and competition. The article reviews important theoretical concepts in the economics of education, including human capital, markets, and education production, and how they have been used in empirical studies.

This report presents findings from the third annual evaluation of Partnership Academy Programs in CA, a high school-based, state-funded program with a school-within-a-school administrative structure that enrolls at-risk students with academic potential. The program provides students with basic job skills in a promising labor-market field and support from local businesses, including curriculum development, guest speakers, field trips, mentors, and work experience positions. The evaluation addresses the quality of program implementation and the degree to which programs follow the academy model.

The growing demand for compensatory education and for child care has generated a rash of federal legislation; many states have enacted new early childhood programs, most of them located within schooling systems, and many others are considering their options. This article examines the basic policy issues governments confront in early childhood education, including the content of programs, their financing, and the inevitable trade-off between cost and quality. The final section of the article outlines the available policy options.

An inventory of 30 California districts reveals their policy stance on teacher professional development, which primarily consists of skill acquisition through district-led programs. Other sources, such as universities or professional communities, are less visible. The districts are the dominant providers of development opportunities, with expenditures reflecting a ready marketplace of predetermined programs. Alternative routes to professional growth are less evident.

This paper discusses childcare quality and its impact on child development. It highlights the need to consider various factors that contribute to quality and how they affect children's experiences. Presented is a hypothetical day in two different childcare situations to demonstrate the varying experiences children have. The characters and incidents are fictional but based on the author's real observations and experiences in early childhood programs in CA. The author emphasizes the need to promote quality early childhood programs informed by research in child development and early education.

Evaluation of 11 California high school academies in 1987-88 found positive in-school outcomes. Academies combine academic and vocational courses to reduce dropout rates. Graduation rates available for one grade-level cohort, with an estimated net benefit of $1.0-1.3 million from dropout prevention.

The notion that larger school districts are superior has changed, with some researchers advocating for smaller ones. Recent reform reports have focused on the school site as the decision-making seat. Three main issues guide district size research: fiscal efficiency, school effectiveness, and community identity. Although research has been conducted, there is still no definitive answer. This article explores the research and debate on the "right" size for school districts and identifies unanswered questions, hoping to kindle interest in further research.

California's growing child population will require significant increases in public spending, particularly in education due to immigration, working parents, poverty, and family disorganization. Counties and school districts bear the brunt of providing children's services, but cities have greater fiscal flexibility and revenue-raising potential. This paper provides information on county children's services and trends in county budgets to support further research on county financing for children's services.

Public school funding in the US has seen continuous increases in real funding since 1960, reflecting strong citizen support for public schools and a growing economy. Despite pessimism and recession in the 1980s, real school funding continued to increase substantially. This report provides an overview of school revenues and funding increases needed for education reforms, and details changes in education finance during the 1980s, comparing increases to the levels needed to fund proposed reforms.