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The COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges to students across the United States, particularly those who are parents enrolled in community colleges. California's community college system serves a diverse student population, including a significant number of non-traditional, working adults who are also parents. These students have faced unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic, including the difficulties of balancing childcare responsibilities with academic and professional obligations. This paper summarizes the preliminary findings of a study that intends to contribute to the crucial conversation around childcare needs among community college students. The focus of this study was understanding the experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) mothers with young children and the impact of COVID-19 on their educational experiences in community colleges across the state of California.

This study explores the underrepresentation of Black and Latinx students in California's community college Dual Enrollment (DE) programs. The study investigates how DE staff describe an understanding and commitment towards equity for Black and Latinx students in DE programs and how staff engage in equitably aimed praxis to serve Black and Latinx students through practices and collaborations between feeder high schools. Using a Critical Policy Analysis lens, the research highlights how Black and Latinx students are prioritized through equitable practices focused in advising and outreach. However, not all DE staff prioritize Black and Latinx through practices. Despite this, scant instances reveal that collaborative efforts between DE programs, high schools, and districts improve DE services and outcomes, though majority of K-12 partners are absent from collaborative efforts led by DE programs. The study emphasizes the need for increased collaboration between K-12 partners and integrating equitable approaches to DE outreach and advising to engage and recruit Black and Latinx students. This research advances the conversation of equity in DE programs and offers insights for addressing participation gaps among Black and Latinx students.

In this paper we present the Advancing Racial Equity in Community College Model which maps out the organizational conditions shaping institutional transformation. Focused on two dimensions, the level of "organizational support" and "shared responsibility" to enact equity, we describe four quadrants with distinct organizational conditions that shape how equity advocates design, build, and sustain equity efforts. With well-documented racial inequities and renewed calls for racial justice across higher education, it demands new ways of exploring and understanding how institutional actors leading equity efforts are nested within differing organizational contexts that can enable as well as restrict the enactment and success of racial equity efforts. Our model helps equity advocates gain an "awareness" of known barriers to implementation in higher education, assess the readiness of their campus for racialized change, and take action to build the necessary institutional support and capacity to move the work forward.

This paper presents a rationale for using professional and continuing education (PaCE) units at post-secondary institutions throughout California to design and implement talent-pipelines, research and development collaborations, and other knowledge ecosystems where emerging and returning professionals can acquire the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), as well as the experience, they need to address the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The paper provides an analysis of the reasons why PaCE units are uniquely positioned to address the needs of industry and job seekers, and on a timetable that keeps pace with 4IR velocity.

While current higher education literature stresses the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusivity, these imperatives have been mainly absent from conversations related to boards of higher education. In this paper, the authors present a historical overview of the demographic landscape of trustee boards from inception to the present. Using critical literacy as a methodology, the authors problematize the lack of discourses regarding Board's diversity. The authors juxtapose the longstanding homogeneity of boards with the increasing heterogeneity of higher education students and argue that systemic forms of racism have denied the opportunity to diversify those in charge of making decisions in higher education. Additionally, using the case of California, the authors problematize how diversity gaps in board composition manifest even within one of the most diverse and liberal states in the country. Ultimately, the authors make a case for diversifying the board of trustees as an instrumental step to align with the national push for enhanced diversity and equity in higher education.

An ongoing debate in K-12 education policy has been between the "reform" agenda, including charter schools and school vouchers, and advocates of traditional public schools, led by educator unions. A similar split has emerged in higher education, particularly community colleges. Using California as an example, this paper: 1) summarizes the evolution of the current political divide between advocates of the "completion and success" agenda and faculty-led opponents, including the major reforms involved, 2) discusses the claims that leading organizations on each side have made, including their policy priorities, and 3) argues that the two sides share do share some areas of mutual agreement. The paper concludes by noting future policy considerations that could complicate reform efforts.

In recent years, American universities have implemented many innovative strategies to enhance the academic success of students, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. Yet first-generation and/or low-income (FLI) college students continue to encounter barriers to success because they do not have authentic access to digital technology needed to graduate and be career-ready in our rapidly changing economy. This paper analyzes the current state of digital inequity among FLI students at Stanford University. It also reviews existing programs to address digital inequity at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), the University of Michigan and Bowdoin College and provides guidance on developing a device program. Finally, the paper recommends strategies to better understand digital inequity and to address it in a sustainable way.

Our look at the well-being of California's early educators points to the need to consider work environments in early care and education (ECE) policy development. The learning environments of young children are also the work environments of the ECE workforce. Supportive and safe work environments that foster a respectful workplace climate can enhance educators' practice, professional esteem, and job satisfaction. This is the second of three reports, drawn from our statewide survey of nearly 1,800 early educators. Our findings show that: (1) Though the majority of early educators find satisfaction and reward from their work with children, many feel their work is not respected; (2) Despite their dedication to their profession, many educators encounter inadequate work environments: more than two thirds of center teachers are given duties no one else wants, and nearly a tenth have been the target of racial slurs at work; and (3) Working with children with challenging behaviors, finding planning time and spending time with individual children are common classroom challenges.

Multi-campus public higher education governance systems exist in 44 of the 50 U.S. states. They include all the largest and most influential public colleges and universities in the United States, educating fully 75 percent of the nation's public sector students. Their impact is enormous. And yet, they are largely neglected and as a tool for improvement are underutilized. Meanwhile, many states continue to struggle achieving their goals for higher education attainment, social and economic mobility, workforce development, equitable access and affordability, technological innovation, and human and environmental health. The dearth of scholarly research on these systems and their more effective use is explored in a forthcoming volume edited by the author. This paper extracts from that volume a set of specific ways in which systems can leverage their unique ability to use scale in service to their mission.

Despite the crucial role early educators play in young children's development, the field has always struggled with poor compensation and inadequate support (McLean et al., 2021). The persistent undervaluation of the ECE sector and the labor provided by the nearly all-female workforce can be traced back to its racist roots, when enslaved Black women were forced to care for White children (Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, 2022a; Lloyd et al., 2021). This report shows how racism continues to affect the ECE workforce. Racial disparities take many forms, from inequities in racial and ethnic representation across provider types and job roles to disparities in compensation. Black and Latina educators, for example, routinely experience lower wages than their peers. Asian and Black educators tend to hold higher levels of educational degrees compared to other groups, but their credentials do not necessarily lead to job advancement or higher pay. Systemic racism is most often understood as a form of racism that is "pervasively and deeply embedded in systems, laws, written or unwritten policies, and entrenched practices and beliefs that produce, condone, and perpetuate widespread unfair treatment and oppression of people of color" (Braveman et al., 2022, p. 171). Yet, systemic racism also fosters an absence of systems or processes that provide recourse for discrimination or protection from inequities. A transformed system could begin to repair the current injustices. (1) For example, if early care and education were treated as a public good, programs would be funded to reflect the true cost of care; (2) A salary scale driven by a combination of years of experience and education would reduce the vast pay gaps, especially between Black educators and their peers of other races and ethnicities with similar education and experience; (3) Professional pathway programs and mentorship initiatives could be designed specifically to expand access to leadership roles for underrepresented communities. Efforts like apprenticeships, degree-completion programs, and fellowships have proven incredibly successful (Copeman Petig et al., 2019; Kipnis et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2023). However, such opportunities are not built into ECE systems, but are often pilots, demonstration projects, or very limited in reach (Malone et al., 2021); and (3) Data to pinpoint disparities could track how or if they are reduced over time. North Carolina, for example, routinely funds robust data collection, but it is unclear if and how identified disparities are acted on (Child Care Services Association, 2020). [Additional funding for this report was provided by the Blue Shield of California Foundation.]

Early care and education (ECE) programs are central to a thriving community: they support the well-being of children as well as their families. In Contra Costa County, approximately 260 child care centers serve children from birth through age five, along with 765 family child care providers operating in their own homes. These nurturing and vibrant learning environments reflect the ECE workforce, a highly skilled yet undervalued professional group of nearly 4,000 individuals. Building on the "California Early Care and Education Workforce Study," this report provides a snapshot of the state of the licensed ECE workforce in Contra Costa County. Chapter 1 offers a profile of its core members: family child care providers and center-based educators (directors, teachers, and assistants). Chapter 2 describes the state of educator well-being, and Chapter 3 explores stability for center- and home-based programs and for professionals in the field. [This report was funded by First 5 Contra Costa, the Contra Costa County Office of Education/Local Planning Council, the Contra Costa County Employment Human Services Department's Community Services Bureau, and CoCoKids.]

Average-wage-by-major statistics have become widely available to students interested in the economic ramifications of their college major choice. However, earning a major with higher average wages does not necessarily lead individual students to higher-paying careers. This essay combines literature review with novel analysis of longitudinal student outcomes to discuss how students use average-wage-by-major statistics and document seven reasons that they may differ, sharply in some cases, from the causal wage effects of major choice. I focus on the ramifications of two-sided non-random selection into college majors, mismeasurement of longitudinal student outcomes, and failures of extrapolation between available statistics and student interests. While large differences in average wages by major are likely to indicate causal ordinal differences between fields, small differences are probably best ignored even by students with strong interest in the economic consequences of their major choices. This essay is adapted from Chapter 6 of "Metrics that Matter: Counting What's Really Important to College Students."

Working with young children is intellectually, emotionally, and physically demanding. These challenges are compounded by the inadequate compensation that characterizes the early care and education (ECE) sector and lack of workplace support such as access to health benefits, retirement plans, and time off (Montoya et al., 2022). The cumulative strain can intensify the stress experienced by early educators, adversely affecting both their emotional and physical well-being (Cumming, 2017). The California Early Care and Education Workforce Study is an ongoing longitudinal study that provides comprehensive statewide and regional information on the center- and home-based ECE workforce. The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) launched the current workforce study in 2020 to provide an update on the status of the workforce since the previous study in 2006 (Whitebook et al., 2006). Phase 2 of the present study was conducted during 2023, collecting information predominantly from educators who had participated in 2020. This report focuses on the emotional and physical well-being of California's ECE workforce who work with children birth to age five. It is the first in a series on early educator well-being, highlighting findings from Phase 2 of the California Early Care and Education Workforce Study. [Also acknowledged was funding by Blue Shield of California Foundation.]

The United States retains many aspects of a healthy open society, but there are indicators of trouble and deep divisions around the meaning and importance of democratic values. This debate has significant repercussions for universities and their academic communities. In the most-simple terms, there is a red and blue state divide over the role and importance of public institutions, including universities -- red representing largely rural states in which most voters vote Republican and blue being majority Democratic voters, often with one of the two parties having majorities in their respective state legislatures. Then there are so-called purple states in which both parties are vying for dominance, but they are fewer in number. This brief discusses this contemporary dynamic and its implication for higher education and science policy.

This brief discusses cases of neo-nationalist violations of academic freedom in Hungary and Poland. The most prominent case of neo-nationalist violation of academic freedom in Hungary is the fate of the Central European University (CEU). The circumstances of CEU's forced move out of Hungary came before the European Court of Justice regarding it a possible violation of EU law. The Court cited the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) under one of the three pillars of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) 1994 agreement, free trade, and the determination that CEU was a form of international educational services that should not be denied to the people of Hungary. Poland has a similar hostile environment to academics and academic freedom, although with a glimmer of hope following recent elections. The brief also discusses how such open breaches of academic freedom as in Hungary or Poland, in which politicians directly try to exert influence on research institutions and professors, are fortunately rather rare in Germany. However, a confluence of factors perhaps obscures the differences between "academic freedom" and the "freedom of opinion." In Germany, academic freedom includes the search for topics, rigorous methodical investigation, and professional norms to express findings and competent opinions, whereas the free speech is outside of these professional norms. The brief concludes with a discussion of the role of universities and the future of democracy in the context of ensuring a space for free and open debate.

Starting this year, tens of thousands of Russian freshmen found themselves attending a new mandatory course -- "Foundations of Russian Statehood." Swiftly designed under the auspices of Putin's administration, this ideologically charged course aims to position Russia as a unique civilization-state, bolstering Putin's political narrative and providing justification for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Consider, for example, this excerpt from the course's instructional video: "The 'Russian world' extends beyond current Russian borders, transcending ethnicities, territories, religions, political systems, and ideological preferences." As this curriculum becomes standard in Russian universities, it contributes to the emerging trend of weaponizing Russian universities and turning them into instruments in Russia's war of attrition with Ukraine and its broader stand-off with the West. This report discusses this weaponization process and the impact it is having on Russian universities, faculty, students, and the academic communities they belong to. It is regrettably a story of back to the future, reminiscent of the Soviet era of repression and attempts at control and manipulation of academics.

First 5 Los Angeles County partnered with the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) to explore the state of child care centers and family child care (FCC) providers. As part of the California Early Care and Education Workforce Study, CSCCE conducted surveys in 2020 and 2023 to measure both individual- and site-level factors. In this report, we present highlights from longitudinal trends in each of the two levels (Chapters 1 and 2), as well as a portrait of current educator well-being (Chapter 3). [This report was funded by First 5 Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles County Office of Education.]

China's higher-education system has been shaped in recent years by a trio of factors: the COVID-19 pandemic, the ambitions of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to make his country into an innovation superpower that is loyal to the Communist Party, and western alarm about those ambitions. But a fourth development, the slowing of China's formerly super-charged economy, could play a more prominent role going forward. This article examines these four factors.

In this essay, we explore the consequences of the University of California's policies to address racial disparities and its support for social justice activism as influences on its commitment to academic freedom and other intellectual values. This is a story of the interaction between two essential public university missions -- one civic, the other intellectual -- and the slow effacement of one by the other. The University's expressed commitments to academic freedom and the culture of rationalism have not been abandoned, but they are too often considered secondary or when confronted by new administrative initiatives and social movement activism related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The experimental use of mandatory DEI statements on a number of the ten UC campuses, within willing academic departments, as initial screening mechanisms in faculty hiring is the most dramatic of the new administrative policies that have been put into place to advance faculty diversity. This policy can be considered the most problematic of a series of efforts that the UC campuses and the UC Office of the President have taken for more than a decade to prioritize representation in academic appointments. Our intent is to encourage a discussion of these policies within UC in light of the University's fundamental commitments to open intellectual inquiry, the discovery and dissemination of a wide range of new knowledge, and a culture of rationalism.

Since establishing its first campus in 1868, the University of California (UC), California's land-grant university, developed into the nation's first multi-campus system in the United States, and is today widely recognized as the world's premier network of public research universities. This short essay provides an historical brief on the role that shared governance, and specifically the role of the Academic Senate, played in creating an academic culture of excellence and high achievement in pursuing its tripartite mission of teaching and learning, research and knowledge production, and public service. A key component in understanding the critical role of the Senate in UC's evolution from a single campus in Berkeley to now a ten-campus system is the university's unusual designation as a public trust in the state constitution that, beginning in 1879, protected the university at critical times from external political pressures and allowed the university to develop an internal academic culture guided by the Academic Senate. By the 1920s, the emergence of California's unique and innovative public system of higher education, with UC as the sole public provider of doctoral degrees and state funded research, also helps explain the ability of the UC system to maintain its mission and formulate what is termed a "One University" model. The Academic Senate has created coherency and shared values within UC, and a culture and expectation for faculty performance that is unique among universities around the world. This essay also offers a brief reflection on the Academic Senate's past influence, its current status, and prospective role. The overall intent is to provide context for the current academic community and higher education scholars regarding the past and future role of faculty in university governance and management, and what distinguishes UC in the pantheon of major research universities.

Stakeholders and advocates in Indiana are committed to advancing strategies that improve ECE services, including workforce preparation and development, to ensure that early educators can meet the complex needs of young children. Critical to these efforts is the establishment of a well-coordinated, comprehensive professional preparation and development system that can train and support a diverse generation of pre-service educators, while also strengthening the skills of the existing ECE workforce. This study looks at how Indiana early childhood higher education programs have changed since 2015. The report describes the early childhood degree programs offered in Indiana, focusing on variations in program content, age group focus, and student field-based learning.

This Educator Voices report examines the working conditions that impact educator practice and well-being in center-based programs in Flagler and Volusia Counties, Florida. The study documents the experiences of early educators since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and is the first to look at the relationship between educators' future plans and supports in their work environment. Main findings include: (1) Educators noted persistent staffing challenges; teaching staff who felt supported in their work environment were more likely to want to stay at their current center; (2) Teaching staff reported having insufficient training for working with children with challenging behaviors and those who are dual language learners; close to two thirds reported having children who speak another language in their classroom; and (3) The hourly median wage in Flagler and Volusia Counties was $13.75 for teaching staff and $19.81 for program leaders. Many early educators struggled to afford housing, health care, sufficient food, and other basic necessities for themselves and their families, and a majority of early educators relied on at least one form of public support. [This study and report were supported by the Early Learning Coalition of Flagler and Volusia Counties (ELCFV).]

This Educator Voices report examines the working conditions that impact educator practice and well-being in center-based programs in Flagler and Volusia Counties, Florida. The study documents the experiences of early educators since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and is the first to look at the relationship between educators' future plans and supports in their work environment. This executive summary shares the key findings and recommendations from the study. Main findings include: (1) Educators noted persistent staffing challenges; teaching staff who felt supported in their work environment were more likely to want to stay at their current center; (2) Teaching staff reported having insufficient training for working with children with challenging behaviors and those who are dual language learners; close to two thirds reported having children who speak another language in their classroom; and (3) The hourly median wage in Flagler and Volusia Counties was $13.75 for teaching staff and $19.81 for program leaders. Many early educators struggled to afford housing, health care, sufficient food, and other basic necessities for themselves and their families, and a majority of early educators relied on at least one form of public support. [This study and report were supported by the Early Learning Coalition of Flagler and Volusia Counties (ELCFV).]

Research universities enable students to have a unique learning environment and other experiences. This article aims to analyze student engagement in one research university in Brazil, the effects of student socioeconomic and academic characteristics and their associations with university structures (curriculum), and student trajectories. The data comes from the Student Experience in the Research University, an international survey administered in 2012 at the University of Campinas and longitudinal academic registers. The study used both Principal Component Analysis and also Multiple Linear Regression Models. Five modes of engagement were found: two related to curricular engagement (engagement with faculty and engagement outside the classroom), social and leisure engagement, curricular disengagement and co-curricular engagement. The main effects are associated with the disciplines. Regarding student trajectories, there was a negative association between academic engagement and dropout students and those still enrolled seven years after the survey application. The results align with other studies that associate disciplines with student engagement and student engagement with student success.

While international alliances among research universities are relatively well established, the challenges for the small liberal arts college to execute a meaningful global collaboration can be much more difficult, due both to the much smaller size of the institution, its more limited resources, and its smaller and more intimate culture centered on undergraduate teaching and learning. A new alliance of liberal arts colleges known as the Pacific Alliance of Liberal Arts Colleges (PALAC) was established in 2021 with the purpose to better articulate the global components of liberal arts education, and to collaborate on key projects that will build collective capacity for student-centered liberal arts education that engages with the world's most pressing problems. PALAC contains nine of the best liberal arts institutions from across the Pacific Region, including institutions in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Canada, and the United States. This essay describes the origins, motivations, and context of the creation of PALAC, its member institutions, and some of the initial projects planned by the new organization, and goals for global impact for PALAC.

The academic professoriate is a determinant of successful higher education systems. Yet, recently, worsening conditions of employment, deteriorating salaries, and threats to job security have made the academic profession less attractive, especially to young scholars, in several countries. This paper investigates the salaries as well as the recruitment and retention procedures in public higher education institutions from a cross country perspective. The UK, Germany, France, and Italy are adopted as case studies to determine the attractiveness of European higher education systems. The evolution over the last decade creates an extremely variegated picture.

Early care and education (ECE) programs for children prior to kindergarten in California are provided through a mixed delivery system that includes licensed home- and center-based programs as well as school settings. The requirements, experience, and supports for educators vary widely across settings, depending more on funding sources and regulatory status and less on what educators and children may need. This situation is typical across the ECE system for children from infancy through preschool, though California has made substantial changes in providing preschool for four-year-olds. Transitional Kindergarten (TK) was introduced into this mix in the 2012-13 school year. As of the 2022-23 school year, TK became the only free, universal ECE program in California available for four-year-olds. This brief explores the experiences of ECE lead teachers across settings: TK classrooms, child care centers, and family child care (FCC) programs. It examines their demographics, classroom context, working conditions, compensation, and economic well-being. It identifies threads of continuity among lead teachers regardless of setting: for instance, virtually all these early educators are women, and many are age 40 or older. They teach similar numbers of dual-language learner students, and they face similar classroom challenges. By contrast, educators in centers and FCC providers are much more likely to be women of color and/or immigrant women. Teacher pay and benefits also diverge sharply, with TK educators earning at least twice the salary of other lead teachers with a bachelor's degree along with corresponding metrics of economic well-being. By exploring the experiences of teachers by setting, the authors aim to understand the state of equity in ECE employment. For the purposes of this analysis, they focus on educators who lead their respective classrooms in order to compare similar job roles and level of teaching responsibilities. They then explore the implications for sustaining an effective and equitable ECE system in California.

A statewide coalition of nearly 50 experts -- including doctors, medical and environmental health researchers, educators, youth and community groups -- worked together to explore the challenges of climate change from the perspective of children's health and education. The insights and recommendations are published in this report. It is presented in four parts: (1) demonstrates how climate change is impacting children's physical health, mental health, and access to educational opportunity; (2) assesses schools' current capacity to operate safely and reliably, to safeguard students' health and wellbeing, and to develop students' climate literacy; and (3) lays out the authors' vision for climate-resilient and sustainable schools; and (4) propose a statewide Master Plan process, engaging key agencies and stakeholders, as an essential first step toward fully operationalizing the vision for climate-resilient and sustainable schools. [For the executive summary, see ED629546. This report was written in collaboration with the Stanford University's Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, Center for Innovation in Global Health, Action Lab for Planetary Health (ALPHA), UndauntedK12, and Ten Strands. The report was sponsored by the 11th Hour Project, Schmidt Family Foundation.]

This report describes initial findings from a study conducted across three California school districts during the 2021-22 school year of science curriculum materials that were designed to promote learning as called for by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The study, led by WestEd, was an independent randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of the NGSS-designed Amplify Science 1st grade curriculum. The curriculum aims to support science language and literacy in day-to-day science lessons in ways meant to integrate science learning with students' literacy development. It is among the first randomized controlled trials of widely available curriculum materials for the NGSS in K-3 classrooms. Of high interest was studying the extent to which the curriculum supports young students' three-dimensional learning, their literacy learning related to reading and the use of science-related language, and the nature of teachers' implementation. The results show that science curriculum materials that use the high-leverage strategy of integrated science and literacy can improve students' proficiency with science, enrich their science vocabulary knowledge and usage, and simultaneously develop their reading skills. [This study was conducted in partnership with LFC Research.]

Early educators are the key to quality early care and education (ECE) services, and there is broad consensus that high-quality care and learning environments for young children depend on educators who are skilled at nurturing children's development and learning. Yet, inadequate working conditions and low pay routinely hamper educators in their efforts to apply effective teaching and caregiving practices (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2015; McLean et al., 2021). The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) had the opportunity to ask early educators about their working conditions. Educators employed in both center- and home-based programs were surveyed throughout the state of Oregon. Notably, this was the first CSCCE study utilizing the Supportive Environmental Quality Underlying Adult Learning (SEQUAL) tool to capture the experiences of family child care (FCC) providers and their staff and also the first SEQUAL study to examine working conditions after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report examines the results of the SEQUAL survey across settings and roles of early educators in Oregon.

California is expanding transitional kindergarten (TK) to become a universal preschool program for all four-year-old children. Upwards of 300,000 children are expected to enroll in universal transitional kindergarten (UTK) by 2025, requiring thousands of additional lead teachers and classroom aides to meet lower student-to-teacher ratio requirements and new student demand. This report presents the first comprehensive data collected from California's transitional kindergarten teachers about their teaching experiences. In the fall of 2020, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) surveyed almost 300 TK teachers in classrooms throughout California as part of the California Early Care and Education Workforce Study. This report provides an exploratory picture of the composition of the TK workforce, the characteristics of the TK job, and the experience of teaching TK. Recommendations for policymakers conclude the study.

Although part-time faculty have long contributed specialized expertise to colleges and universities, their role has shifted away from specialized expertise as they have shouldered an increasing share of day-to-day teaching operations at colleges and universities. Today, part-time faculty provide higher education institutions a flexible workforce and a less expensive workforce alternative. Despite their significant impact, the research literature lacks an up-to-date integrative synthesis of the part-time faculty workplace on its own terms, an object of study unto itself instead of a less-than version of the full-time faculty workplace. In this paper, we summarize key themes from the existing research literature most relevant to the part-time faculty workplace, with attention to both the technical components of the workplace and the socio-cultural dimensions of part-time faculty members' daily work experiences.

India has the second largest higher education system in terms of institutions worldwide, despite having only 26.3% Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), including vocational education. It aspires to achieve a target of 50% GER by 2035. It means it would require a larger number of higher education institutions (HEIs), public and private, in addition to huge fiscal resources. At present about 75% of the HEIs are privately managed with about 66% of student enrolment. Though there is no provision of for-profit higher education institutions in India, many non-profit private HEIs are actually working as for-profit. They are growing fast and are visible too. Therefore, it is high time now to think seriously about the pros and cons, causes and consequences of for-profit and nonprofit private HEIs in India. India provides a big market for non-profit and for-profit higher education to domestic and foreign stakeholders. Already 160 foreign universities are working in collaboration with public or private limited companies in India. This essay provides an analysis of issues related to for-profit and nonprofit HEIs, including desirability, size, funding, transparency, accountability, quality, feasibility and sustainability, government policies, regulation, foreign collaborations, private investments, and incentives. The methodology adopted is analytical, comparative, and empirical.

Public school districts across California struggle to upkeep and modernize their school facilities. For many districts, aging inventory, coupled with limited capital funding opportunities, has led to school facilities with ballooning deferred maintenance problems and classrooms that do not appropriately support modern instructional practices. These realities also work against California's priorities for high quality, equitable education, childhood health, racial justice, and climate resiliency. In this paper, we investigate adequacy and equity of investment in California's public school facilities. By using a standards-based framework to understand patterns of investment levels, we gauge the likely "good stewardship" of these physical school assets. We look at both "maintenance & operations" (M&O) spending and capital investment by local K-12 public school districts across the state for the years 2009-2019.

The critical role of communication is usually overlooked by higher education institutions. Here we argue that higher education institutions must consider an effective communication as one of their top priorities. This communication must go well beyond promoting the university's opportunities to potential new students, the pursuit of potential donors and outreach to policymakers: it must engage all aspects of internal academic life and seek the engagement of the larger society. Increasingly, higher education has to defend its purpose, integrity and legitimacy in a climate of growing neo-nationalist and populist movements. A comprehensive communication plan includes a deep revision of the University core values and practices, better teaching and learning strategies, as well as modern internal and external communication tools, including all sorts of social media.

This paper examines how international education (IE) as a tool of government foreign policy is challenged in an era of new geopolitics, where China's growing ambitions have increased rivalry with the West. It compares U.S. and Canada as cases first, by examining rationales and approaches to IE in both countries, second, IE relations with China before conflict and third, current controversies and government policy responses to IE relations with China. The paper concludes identifying contextual factors that shape each country's engagement with IE, but suggests that moving forward, the future of IE in a world of new geopolitics is likely to be far more complex and conflictual.

International partnerships have become increasingly important for the mission and goals of universities and colleges globally. Understanding the nature of these partnerships and the perspectives of their senior leaders is critical. Senior international officers (SIOs) at 59 US public and private universities and colleges and 4 non-US universities completed surveys regarding: goals and criteria for developing the partnerships; number and country of their partners; types of existing partnerships; ways the university/college promotes/rewards international partnerships; challenges faced and important considerations for developing partnerships; and recommendations to enhance successful international partnerships. The SIOs' insights and recommendations were reviewed and analyzed. The most frequently identified major goals were "enhancing the quality of research and scholarship" and "strengthening students' education and preparation for life in a multicultural world and global economy." Conclusions included the recognition that successful strategic international partnerships and effective policy will likely: need to expand in scale, scope, diversity, and complexity; require strong, committed leadership; draw on the research and pedagogical knowledge worldwide; and carefully consider the wide, unique opportunities and challenges of these partnerships for practice and policy.

The rapid rise of online enrollments in public universities has been fueled by a reliance on for-profit, third-party providers--especially online program managers. However, scholars know very little about the potential problems with this arrangement. We conduct a mixed methods analysis of 229 contracts between third-party providers and 117 two-year and four-year public universities in the US, data on the financing structure of third-party providers, and university online education webpages. We ask: What are the mechanisms through which third-party relationships with universities may be exploitative of students or the public universities that serve them? To what extent are potentially predatory processes linked to the private equity and venture capital financing structure of third-party providers? We highlight specific mechanisms that lead to five predatory processes: the targeting of marginalized students, extraction of revenue, privatization by obfuscation, for-profit creep, and university captivity. We demonstrate that contracts with private equity and venture capital financed third-party providers are more likely to include potentially problematic contract stipulations. We ground our findings in a growing body of work on "platform capitalism" and include recommendations for state universities, accreditors, and federal policy.

The early care and education (ECE) system has been under-resourced and undervalued since well before the pandemic. Low pay and poor working environment have long plagued the ECE industry as key drivers of chronic high turnover rates and teacher staffing shortages in the field. Additional disparities within the system place providers on vastly different financial footing as a function of the type of program in which they operate, their access to public funding, and characteristics of the families they serve. The pandemic has exacerbated these pre-existing issues. Using data collected by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) through the 2020 California Early Care and Education Workforce Study, this report takes a closer look at the impact of COVID-19 on ECE programs in California, with a focus on program-level challenges, staffing shortages, and disparities based on program type and center funding type. While federal and state pandemic relief have played an important role in helping programs stay afloat, current job numbers suggest not enough has been done to stabilize child care as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

In assessing the current and future role of universities in the nation-states in which they are chartered and funded, it is useful to ask, When are universities societal leaders as societal and constructive change agents, and when are they followers, reinforcing the existing political order? As discussed in the book, "Neo-Nationalism and Universities: Populists, Autocrats and the Future of Higher Education," the national political history and contemporary context is the dominant factor for shaping the leadership or follower role of universities -- what I call a political determinist interpretation. We often think of contemporary universities, and their students and faculty, as catalysts for societal progress -- the Free Speech and Civil Rights movements, Vietnam War protests, the anti-Apartheid movement, Tiananmen Square, and more recently the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. Universities can be, and have been, the locus for not only educating enlightened future leaders, but also for opposing oppression and dictatorships. But universities have also proved over their history to be tools for serving the privileged, and reinforcing the social class divisions of a society; they also have been factories for errant theories that reinforce the worst of nationalist tendencies. Universities are both unique environments for educating and mentoring free thinkers, entrepreneurs, and citizens with, for example, a devotion to social change, or for creating conformists -- or all of the above. How might we assess whether universities are followers or leaders in their societies? This essay considers this question, offering a framework for evaluating the follower or leader role, and with particular attention to the emergence or, in some cases, re-emergence of neonationalist leaders and autocratic governments.

Eligibility is a policy construct unique to California. UC and CSU are the only US universities that distinguish between eligibility for admission and admission itself and set separate requirements for each. The eligibility construct derives originally from California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which famously mandated that UC admit students from the top 12.5% (and CSU from the top 33.3%) of California public high school graduates. Thus began a long and twisting saga of policy implementation that has become increasingly convoluted over time. UC's decision to eliminate the SAT/ACT in university admissions presents an opportune moment to rethink the eligibility construct from the ground up. This essay proposes, first, eliminating the now-antiquated "Eligibility Index," a mechanical algorithm that is increasingly at odds with the thrust of UC admissions policy over the past two decades; second, moving from a 12.5% eligibility target (the percentage of students who qualify for admission) to a 7.5% participation target (the percentage who actually enroll); and third, redefining eligibility from a norm-referenced to a criterion-referenced construct. "Using holistic or comprehensive review to select from among applicants who have successfully completed UC subject requirements at a specified level of proficiency, UC would admit that number of applicants needed to yield a 7.5% participation rate among California high school graduates." This is the same average participation rate that the Master Plan has yielded historically, so that the proposal would be revenue-neutral with respect to State funding for UC. At the same time, like the 12.5% eligibility target, a 7.5% participation target would tie UC enrollment growth to growth in California's college-age population. Conversion from an eligibility to a participation target would not eliminate the eligibility construct but would redefine it. In place of a norm-referenced standard -- whether students rank in the "top 12.5%" -- eligibility would be redefined as a criterion-referenced standard: Whether students have mastered the foundational knowledge and skills needed to succeed at UC. When we judge students against that standard, two truths become evident. First is that the pool of students who are qualified for and can succeed at UC is far larger than UC can accommodate; the chief advantage of a criterion-referenced standard is the greater scope for UC to select from a broader, more diverse pool of qualified applicants. Second is that expanding eligibility is much less a priority than increasing actual enrollment and participation rates among the pool of those who are already qualified.

This report provides a closer look at the well-being of the early care and education (ECE) workforce in California, using data collected by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) through the 2020 California Early Care and Education Workforce Study. For decades, low levels of public investment in this sector have kept the ECE workforce--largely women of color and immigrant women--in a grim financial bind. During the first year of the pandemic, the majority of early educators continued to work in person--risking their health and that of their families--while K-12 schools closed for distance learning. This report reveals new details on the economic realities of life as an early educator during the COVID-19 public health crisis. [Additional funding for this paper was provided by the TIME'S UP Foundation and the Blue Shield of California Foundation.]

Today, free public kindergarten for five-year-old children is available in every state and community throughout the United States, and public education is routinely referred to as K-12. But kindergarten did not start out this way. Kindergartens in the United States once served children as young as three and four years old. In fact, today's movement for public pre-kindergarten (pre-K) is a consequence of the gradual exclusion of almost all three- and four-year-olds from public kindergarten. A century ago, the U.S. kindergarten landscape looked similar to preschool today. Kindergarten had limited public funding and was predominantly composed of private programs paid for by families and charitable donations. It took more than a hundred years to establish kindergarten as a public good. This report explores the history of Kindergarten in the United States and seeks to answer the following questions: How did kindergarten become a public good?; Why were children under age five excluded from public kindergartens?; How did that impact the evolution of services for younger children?; and How can the kindergarten story inform the establishment of free early care and education for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers today?

Many of California's public school teachers cannot afford to live in the communities where they work, forcing them to commute long distances or pushing them out of the education system altogether. Attracting new teachers has also grown more challenging. Housing prices have climbed across the state, yet the majority of the nearly one thousand local educational agencies (LEAs) in California offer entry-level teacher salaries below the Area Median Income. As housing affordability challenges intertwine with staffing challenges, more and more LEAs are considering building workforce housing on land they own. The Teacher Housing Act of 2016 authorizes California LEAs to pursue affordable housing for employees and shifts the playing field on development finance. LEAs can now address employee housing by leveraging a range of programs and fiscal resources available to other housing developers. This report provides an extensive review of the need for public education workforce housing solutions, where and how such strategies can--and are--being implemented, and recommendations to advance housing solutions on LEA-owned land. [Additional collaborators on this Research Report are cityLAB at the University of California Los Angeles and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley.]

This report describes initial findings from a study of middle school science curriculum materials that were designed to promote learning as called for by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). WestEd led an independent randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of the NGSS-designed Amplify Science Middle School (ASMS) curriculum. This study examined the impact of the materials in 7th grade classrooms across three school districts. Schools were randomly assigned to one of two groups: an intervention group in which teachers implemented ASMS and a comparison group in which teachers implemented their regular curricular units. Science teachers in both groups implemented instruction that aimed for the same NGSS performance expectations. Hierarchical linear regression modeling was used to analyze the impact of the curriculum on student learning outcomes in physical science, as measured by an assessment aligned to NGSS performance expectations. Initial findings show promise that the ASMS curriculum can be used to support next generation science learning. The main result was that students in intervention classrooms significantly outperformed students in comparison classrooms. This study is among the first rigorous studies of widely available curriculum materials for the NGSS.

Underrepresented minority (URM) college students have been steadily earning degrees in relatively less-lucrative fields of study since the mid-1990s. A decomposition reveals that this widening gap is principally explained by rising stratification at public research universities, many of which increasingly enforce GPA restriction policies that prohibit students with poor introductory grades from declaring popular majors. We investigate these GPA restrictions by constructing a novel 50-year dataset covering four public research universities' student transcripts and employing a dynamic difference-in-difference design around the implementation of 29 restrictions. Restricted majors' average URM enrollment share falls by 20 percent, which matches observational patterns and can be explained by URM students' poorer average pre-college academic preparation. Using first-term course enrollments to identify students who intend to earn restricted majors, we find that major restrictions disproportionately lead URM students from their intended major toward less-lucrative fields, driving within-institution ethnic stratification and likely exacerbating labor market disparities. [Funding for this report was provided by University of California Humanities Research Institute and Opportunity Insights.]

Hong Kong and Singapore are island city-states that exude the complicated tensions of postcolonial nationalism. Both are influenced directly or indirectly by the long shadow of China's rising nationalism and geopolitical power and, in the case of Hong Kong, subject to Beijing's edicts under the terms of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Both have productive economies dependent on global trade, and each has similar rates of population density--Hong Kong's population is 7.4 million and Singapore is home to 5.8 million people. It remains to be seen whether Hong Kong's peripheral nationalist identity will be retained, or whether the increasingly assertive influence and control by mainland China will prevail and fully assimilate Hong Kong. But it is apparent that Hong Kong is at a turning point. Throughout 2019, protesters filled the streets of the city, worried about declining civil liberties, specifically Beijing's refusal to provide universal suffrage as promised previously in law and the disqualification of prodemocracy candidates, along with the growing control of Hong Kong's government and universities by Chinese central government designates and fears of an ever-expanding crackdown on dissent. Singapore provides a less dramatic but relevant example of the tension caused by the influx of foreign national students and academics who often displace native citizens, combined with government-enforced efforts to control dissent in universities. And like Hong Kong, the long shadow of China influences the role universities are allowed to play in civil society. The following is an excerpt from the book "Neo-Nationalism and Universities: Populists, Autocrats and the Future of Higher Education" (Johns Hopkins University Press) that explores the implications of nationalist movements on universities in Hong Kong and Singapore. In both, university leaders, and their academic communities, value academic freedom and the idea of independent scholarship. Yet the political environment is severe enough, and the opportunity costs great enough, that they, thus far, remain generally neutral institutions in a debate over civil liberties and the future of their island states. The exception is the key role students have played in the protest movement in Hong Kong, but for how long?

The University of California, Riverside has raised its four- and six-year graduation rates significantly over the last decade while maintaining near-equity in graduation rates among the four major racial-ethnic groups and across socio-economic strata. The paper discusses campus policies and practices that have helped to produce these results. The campus has contributed to nearly equal graduation outcomes by maintaining strong network ties with parents in minority communities, by offering high levels of academic support and research opportunities to students from under-represented groups, by recruiting faculty and staff who are dedicated to the social mobility mission of the campus, by simplifying bureaucratic procedures, and by a consistent message emphasizing the values of diversity and inclusion. The campus has been able to raise graduation rates among all groups by guaranteeing 15 units of credit each quarter, by leveraging summer to provide courses students need, by improving pre-calculus math instruction, by hiring transition advisors to help students who were struggling in the science colleges, and by aggressively promoting a "finish-in-four" campaign. A coordinated and committed campus effort is necessary to achieve these results.