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This brief examines the experiences of California high school seniors from the graduating class of 2023, offering insights into their preparation, plans, and concerns for college prior to enrollment. Drawing on results from a large-scale survey of seniors, the findings reveal important variation in students' secondary school experiences and their plans for college, particularly by race/ethnicity and gender identity. As students' experiences in high school influence concerns about their college futures, these results represent an important marker of what college going may look like for future graduating cohorts and can help policymakers and practitioners better understand the context of students' postsecondary decisions and pathways.

California's investment in Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) reflects a commitment to providing access to UTK for all 4-year-olds in public schools by the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the implementation of transitional kindergarten (TK) presents challenges for districts in aligning this new grade coherently with existing grade levels and prekindergarten (PK) options within the context of the mixed-delivery model. This model adds complexity to achieving coherence as students transition from PK or TK to the existing district system. This report from PACE identifies four promising practices observed during the 2022-2023 school year to support access and coherence in early childhood education: (1) Coordinate across providers within the mixed-delivery model, aiming to ensure universal access and vertical alignment of PK and TK offerings; (2) Establish clear and aligned expectations for PK-3 standards and instruction across providers and school sites; (3) Monitor PK-3 student learning and progress to guide decision-making; and (4) Develop coherent professional learning that builds capacity for high-quality teaching and learning in the early grades.

In October 2023, the California Department of Education released test scores for all students in Grades 3-8 and 11 for the 2022-23 school year. These results represent an opportunity to analyze whether and to what extent student learning has rebounded after the dramatic declines in scores resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures. Despite marginal improvements from 2021-22, student cohorts in 2022-23 remain very far behind prepandemic levels: in ELA, by 4.4 percentage points, and in math, by 5.1 percentage points. Most concerning is that these scores reveal so starkly the large and growing opportunity gaps between student groups.

Student achievement in California has not rebounded after the precipitous declines of the COVID-19 pandemic, with English language arts (ELA) and math scores remaining well below prepandemic levels. Student attendance has declined dramatically, and trauma and time away from school have led to mental health challenges, delays in social development, and behavioral issues among students. It is in this context that the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) has launched the Intensive Assistance Model (IAM) pilot school-improvement project, which is designed to build new approaches for teacher collaboration and student support. The IAM pilot's goal is to support schools in implementing the Professional Learning Community (PLC) at Work model, which uses an intensive support and coaching process to empower teachers as instructional leaders through developing processes, structures, and culture that support collaborative planning, data analysis, and targeted interventions. The PLC at Work model has led to measurable impacts in student achievement. Realizing the model's potential requires the active engagement of district offices to align resources, remove barriers, and support effective teaching and learning systems.

Career Technical Education (CTE)--a structured series of courses that provides high school students technical and vocational skills, paving the way to postsecondary education and careers--is key to aligning secondary education with both labor market needs and college opportunities. CTE provides high school students with the chance to engage in practical learning experiences, boosting engagement and expanding students' exposure to and preparation for a variety of careers. CTE participation is linked to increased high school graduation rates, greater likelihood of enrollment in two-year colleges, and higher earnings. With the promise of improved student outcomes, California has invested substantially in CTE over the last ten years. While CTE is generally linked to better educational and earnings outcomes, these outcomes vary across student subgroups and industry sectors. Within each industry sector, there are a number of pathways--a sequence of two or three courses with a final capstone course--that a student may choose to complete. Participation in specific CTE pathways is a function of many factors beyond student choice, including but not limited to course availability and scheduling within a high school or at an alternative school site, distance from the student's high school to the CTE program, and partnerships between high schools and local businesses. As such, pathways are not equally available to students across schools. This extended infographic provides an updated look at CTE pathway completion among California public high school graduates and how completion patterns vary by student race/ethnicity, gender, and CTE industry sector.

This study investigates racial disparities in school closures both within California and nationally. Findings highlight an alarming pattern: Schools enrolling higher proportions of Black students are at significantly increased risk of closure relative to those enrolling fewer Black students, a pattern that is more pronounced in California than elsewhere in the United States. This study also finds that conventional explanations for school closures--such as declining enrollments, poverty rates, and achievement differences--cannot fully account for why schools enrolling larger shares of Black students have greater odds of closure. These findings underscore that school closures in California and elsewhere reflect racial inequalities that require adequate policymaking to ensure equitable and fair school-closure proceedings

Enrollment in California public schools has been declining and is projected to fall even more steeply during the next decade. Because funding for school districts is largely based on average daily attendance rates, a decline in enrollment results in a loss of funding. To address budget shortfalls and align services with student counts, many districts have consolidated or closed schools, or they are contemplating doing so. Leaders in declining-enrollment districts will need to consider the benefits and costs when seeking to balance their budgets with new enrollment realities. This report makes three recommendations for how local decision makers, including district officials and school board members, should approach school closures: (1) establish and execute an inclusive, transparent process; (2) implement a strategy to provide displaced students and the broader student community with accessible, high-quality educational opportunities; and (3) develop a long-term plan to address factors--such as housing affordability, gentrification, and economic divestment--contributing to the disproportionate closure of schools serving low-income students and students of color. This report aims to provide evidence and suggestions to help state and local education leaders as they confront declining enrollment and urges them to work with other city and county agencies, including housing and economic development authorities, to increase opportunities for low-income families and communities of color so that fewer enrollment-related school closures are necessary.

Declining student enrollment is leading to a loss of revenue in many California school districts. To address ongoing budget shortfalls, many districts have consolidated or shuttered schools, and others are contemplating doing so. A new report and working paper, summarized in this brief, explore the racial dimensions of school closures and how to address them. The authors find that closures are far more common for schools that serve higher proportions of Black students. Even after controlling for a range of factors, the odds of school closure increase by nearly 25 percent for every 10-percentage-point increase in the share of Black students. This research situates this and other disparities within the U.S. history of segregation, neighborhood disinvestment, and gentrification, and provides evidence and suggestions to help education leaders center equity as they confront declining enrollment-related school closures.

Newcomers represent a large and understudied subgroup of students in California. The Oakland Unified School District has been disaggregating data on newcomer status for the last 7 years, providing a basis for analyzing graduation outcomes for newcomer compared to non-newcomer students. The data highlight the variance in outcomes based on program placement and design. Drawing from analysis of Oakland Unified's data and practices, the authors make programmatic recommendations for districts with newcomer students, focusing on special considerations for different subgroups, enrollment patterns, school models, the intersection of special education and newcomer status, and effective models of English language development. The authors also make recommendations for the state to consider, focusing on data-collection practices, the need for articulated technical assistance, and funding considerations.

This case study identifies promising practices for newcomer education implemented in San Juan Unified School District (SJUSD), one of 12 local educational agencies (LEAs) funded under the California Newcomer Education and Well-Being (CalNEW) project between 2018 and 2021. This report was developed through a partnership between the Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) Newcomer Research-Practice-Policy Partnership and the Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL) at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). SJUSD is the fifth largest immigrant-enrolling district in the state, with 2,982 newcomer students who speak a wide variety of languages, including Spanish, Russian, Pashto, Arabic, Farsi, Ukrainian, and Turkish. The case study was conducted during a 2022 summer program for approximately 500 recently arrived immigrant students. Using interviews with 32 school and community leaders and educators, a review of 65 program documents, and observations of 15 classrooms using a tool focused on effective instructional practices for newcomer education, the authors identified four overarching themes that illustrate promising practices: (1) "How big can you make your village?"--building on community cultural wealth; (2) "Match dollars to needs"--leveraging multiple and differentiated resources; (3) Developing educator capabilities to teach and support newcomer students; and (4) Designing newcomer program and placement practices.

This study highlights the collaborative efforts undertaken to create a temporary school called "Futuro Brillante" in San Diego County, California, to provide educational services for more than 3,000 unaccompanied undocumented minors who had newly arrived in the U.S. The study describes the compelling trajectory of the school's development, its multisector community partnerships, its core facilitating organizational conditions, and the key curriculum strategies that facilitated the school's success.

Oakland International High School, winner of the 2017 National Community School Award, supports its recently arrived immigrant students by integrating academic, social, mental health, and material supports into the school day and beyond. Its community school model incorporates a Wellness Center, a tiered system of support and engagement, external partnerships, specialized staffing, and a collaborative culture of continuous improvement that promotes agency and belonging for both students and staff. As a result of this work to promote comprehensive student well-being, newcomer students at Oakland International drop out at half the rate they do at other district schools, and roughly 63 percent graduate, compared to just 40 percent of newcomer students districtwide. This brief describing Oakland International's model may serve as a resource for school and district leaders working to develop their own community school models.

Academic preparation is a key factor in readiness for college-level work. Students who enroll in rigorous courses while in high school realize better secondary and postsecondary outcomes. Evidence from California suggests that rigorous learning opportunities may not be equally distributed across the state, prompting questions about course availability and accessibility. This study examines the variation in statewide participation in a host of courses that are recognized as critical to students' preparation for college: A-G courses (required for admissions eligibility to California's public 4-year universities), college-credit coursework, and the level of math courses that students take their senior year. Drawing on comprehensive student- and course-level administrative data, the authors explore college preparatory course-taking patterns for the four most recent graduating cohorts unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic (2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019). [Funding for this report was received from Tipping Point Community.]

Completing the A-G course sequence is the standard pathway to college for California high school graduates; however, findings indicate that there is substantial variation in A-G enrollment and completion rates across student subgroups and schools. This brief describes the distribution in access to and success in A-G courses as well as strategies that local leaders could consider to increase these rates among the students they serve. Drawing on the case studies of nine public school districts with exemplary A-G completion rates, we highlight best practices to broaden A-G access for students and ease barriers to completion. These practices include identifying gaps in availability and enrollment, implementing policies to expand equitable participation and completion, and monitoring A-G progress over time.

California is prioritizing equity in education post-COVID-19 by investing in community schools. Districts have an important leadership responsibility to develop the conditions, capacities, and resources for effective, sustainable community schools. Specifically, districts must strengthen system-level supports and infrastructure to ensure sustainable resources, shared governance, robust and usable data systems, and organizational learning and improvement. The district can also support community school coordinators, strengthen data access and sharing, identify and celebrate successful school-site practices, and scale innovations. By taking a cohesive, districtwide approach to community school implementation and sustainability, district leaders can help ensure the success of community school transformation in their districts. [This brief was created with Community Schools Learning Exchange.]

The term "newcomers" is commonly used to describe students who have recently arrived in U.S. schools. Depending on usage, newcomers may mean students in their first 6 months in U.S. schools, in their first 4 years, or anywhere in between. A majority arrive speaking little to no English, most are from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, and a large but unknown proportion have experienced trauma. Unfortunately, reliable national data are not available on language proficiency or socioeconomic status. This report gives an overview of newcomer education in California and makes recommendations to support improved student outcomes. The report is informed by a special data request to the California Department of Education (CDE), interviews with staff from 12 California school districts, and a literature review. Sam Finn's perspective is further contextualized by Finn's experience as an elementary school teacher in three cities, a consultant for the California Newcomer Education and Well-Being (CalNEW) program, and a researcher and advocate for Oakland Unified School District. [For "Newcomer Education in California. Report Summary with Recommendations," see ED628245.]

High-quality early learning experiences (i.e., developmentally appropriate, play-based instruction with clear learning goals) have positive long-term effects on student outcomes. As California rolls out Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK), district leaders focused on meeting state requirements for hiring qualified staff and finding appropriate facilities, and thus have been unable to focus on quality. The state can take the following actions to incentivize and support districts to broaden their focus for UTK: set a vision, establish goals, and measure progress in terms of enrollment, key implementation features, and student outcomes for preschool through third grade; align resources and support to advance high-quality implementation of UTK at scale; and publicly communicate key aspects of implementation and outcomes, enabling communities to monitor whether their districts are serving them well.

Finding effective ways to improve school attendance is more important than ever given the dramatic increases in chronic absence nationwide and in California. This report presents a compelling case for using data about unexcused absences to advance a more preventive, problem-solving, and equitable response to poor attendance. When an absence is labeled unexcused, it affects how a student and their family are treated. Although students face no negative consequences for excused absences, they can be denied credit for missed work, excluded from extracurricular activities, and eventually taken to court and fined for unexcused absences. As absences accumulate, responses generally become more punitive. Yet punitive responses are unlikely to improve attendance when absences occur for reasons beyond the control of the student and their family. Rather, overuse of the unexcused-absence label could undermine efforts to partner with students and families to improve attendance. This report concludes with recommendations for how stakeholders can use data to detect and address disparities in the labeling of unexcused absences and advance more equitable opportunities to learn. [This report was written with Joshua Childs, Cecelia Leong, and Janet E. Rosenbaum.]

Despite clear evidence of the benefits of taking advanced math courses in high school, access to and success in these courses are not experienced equally. Only about half of California high school seniors enroll in an advanced math course, and nearly one-quarter of seniors do not take any math. To increase equitable access to advanced math, six partnerships between university faculty and high school math specialists have developed advanced innovative math (AIM) courses as viable alternatives to traditional 12th-grade math courses. This report highlights the ways in which these partnerships demonstrate and benefit from the common features of successful intersegmental partnerships including: (1) investment of state resources; (2) shared purpose; (3) commitment to equity; (4) community building; (5) capacity development; and (6) improved educational outcomes.

School leaders across the state of California seek tools to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline and improve school climates. Research suggests that restorative practices (RPs) have the potential to achieve these ends, particularly when staff throughout the school implement, and students throughout the school experience, these practices. Research also indicates that schools often struggle to achieve widespread adoption of RPs. In many cases, schools will see selective adoption of RPs--some teachers use these practices while others do not (resulting in only some students experiencing these practices). And districts will see some schools implementing these practices while others struggle to do so. How can schools overcome these implementation challenges? The first step is to identify sticking points in implementation. To do this, school and district leaders need simple, reliable means of measuring the extent to which teachers are using and students are experiencing RPs. At present, though, many leaders lack measures of RP utilization and exposure. This report provides detailed guidance regarding why, when, and how to measure the use of RPs in schools. In the first section, the authors briefly describe what RPs are and summarize research regarding the potential of these practices to decrease the use of discipline, reduce racial disparities in discipline and academic achievement, and improve school climates. In the second section, they discuss why measuring RP implementation is essential to employing RPs in a manner that is likely to achieve the intended impacts. In the third section, the authors provide detailed guidance on how to measure the extent to which teachers are using and students are being exposed to these potent practices.

Busy educators are often faced with a dilemma--staying up to date with evidence-based practices and initiatives that support their professional growth while combating a constant barrage of superficial ideas from other contexts. Continuous improvement approaches to change offer methods for testing new ideas and adapting them to local contexts. If seen as add-ons to educators' roles, however, these approaches are unlikely to yield deep engagement and sustained improvement. This practice brief explains the CORE Districts' five-driver model, a modified approach that deepened educators' ownership of the work and positioned schools to sustain improvement over time.

High school student participation in dual enrollment--a key strategy for increasing equitable access to postsecondary education and improving readiness for college--has been on the rise in California in recent years. Despite the overall increase in participation, however, large gaps between racial/ethnic subgroups persist. Also of concern, English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, youth in foster care, and students experiencing homelessness lag their peers in dual enrollment participation. To address these gaps, California policymakers and advocates are working with K-12 and community college educators to increase participation and to ensure that dual enrollment opportunities are more equitably available to students and accessed by them earlier in high school. This report updates and expands our prior work by examining participation in dual enrollment among California public high school students at all grade levels. Our partnerships with the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office (CCCCO) enable us to merge data from both segments and analyze the full extent of dual enrollment for California public high school students through the state's 72 community college districts. While we have previously reported dual enrollment participation among high school graduates, this analysis incorporates new data to show rates of participation and characteristics for all 9th- through 12th-grade students during the 2021-22 academic year. For the first time, we have a statewide picture of dual enrollment participation for high school students at all grade levels to inform current policy discussions and efforts by local educational agencies (LEAs) and community colleges to increase dual enrollment. [An additional collaborator for this report is the University of California, Davis, California Education Lab.]