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The United Nations has set forth an ambitious vision for education systems around the globe: cultivating life-long learning from early childhood through an individual's civic and work life. Schools must support children and youth in basic learning--including crucial socio-emotional, literacy, and numeracy competencies--to contribute to sustainable societies. However prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a severe learning crisis held back hundreds of millions of children. Analysts project that 9 out of 10 children in low-income countries and 5 out of 10 in middle-income countries will not develop core secondary education skills in literacy and numeracy by 2030 and the pandemic has only deepened the learning crisis and widened achievement gaps. Students also face daunting global challenges: rapidly evolving job demands, worsening inequality, and doubts over economic sustainability. This brief argues that policymakers and educators must grasp the levers of organizational change inside education institutions to rethink goals and lift school quality. Systems thinking offers key tools for leveraging gains inside classrooms and enriching the quality of teaching and student engagement. This brief shares differing pathways for sparking systems change and details country and state cases that have raised student learning by deploying the powerful tools of systems analysis.

This paper documents the experience of California college students in the midst of the pandemic as their academic and home lives were disrupted. The analysis relies on a survey sent to all financial aid applicants statewide. Survey respondents include nearly 100,000 students enrolled in both two-year and four-year postsecondary institutions. Results reveal multiple stressors strained the educational experience and trajectories of many students. These stressors were not evenly distributed. In particular, students from low-income backgrounds were more likely to face increased financial stress, additional home responsibilities, and difficulty accessing the online learning environment, when compared to their higher-income peers.

To address lingering pressures in the aftermath of the pandemic, California public schools received record funding, largely bolstered by nearly $60 billion in federal and state one-time stimulus funds. This report takes a comprehensive look at the allocation and uses of these federal and state educational recovery funds in California.

The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was enacted by the California legislature in June 2013 and fundamentally changes the distribution of education dollars to districts. The legislation simplifies the formula for sending money to districts and now takes into account the higher costs of educating certain groups of students, specifically those from Low Income (LI) households, English Language Learners (ELL), and Foster Youth (FY). This document: (1) Proposes empirical questions that stem from key moving parts of the LCFF reform; (2) Digs deep into how eight districts frame the reform and the program models on which they will rely in Year 1 of implementation; and (3) Suggests a division of labor on monitoring implementation and illuminating promising practices. The following are appended: (1) How Eight Districts Framed and Implemented LCFF in the First Year; and (2) LAUSD's LCAP Goals by State Priority Area.

Aiming to relieve overcrowded schools operating on multiple tracks, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has invested more than $19 billion to build 130 new facilities over the past decade. District leaders asked researchers at Berkeley to estimate the achievement effects of this massive initiative--benefits that may stem from entering a bright, new school or from exiting an aging, even dilapidated facility bursting at the seams with students. Previous reports from the project examined how new schools and alternative schools have affected rates of student mobility and teacher turnover across LAUSD. By tracking thousands of students who moved from overcrowded to new facilities over the 2002-2008 period, the authors discovered robust achievement gains but also uncovered questions related to future deliberations. Key findings include: (1) The steady opening of new schools dramatically relieved overcrowding in elementary and secondary schools and set in motion a complex migration of students, both to new facilities as well as to a growing number of charter and pilot schools; (2) Significant achievement gains are discernible for elementary-school pupils who switched from an old facility to a newly constructed facility. On average, these "switching pupils" outpaced the average LAUSD student by a gain equal to about 35 additional days of instruction each year; (3) Achievement gains are most robust for elementary students who escaped severe overcrowding by moving to a new elementary school. Relative to the rate of learning for the average LAUSD student, this subset of students enjoyed achievement gains equivalent to about 65 days of additional instruction per year. Students migrating to certain new elementary schools experienced even stronger gains; (4) Across new elementary schools, the authors find no relationship between the per-pupil construction costs directly tied to classrooms and the magnitude of achievement gains. That is, pupils migrating to less-costly new schools saw achievement gains that were no different, on average, from those moving to more expensive new facilities; (5) After a new school opened nearby, students who remained in previously overcrowded elementary schools experienced modest gains, compared with the average LAUSD student; (6) Although new facilities featured slightly lower pupil-teacher ratios, higher shares of fully credentialed teachers, and lower teacher turnover, these features do not explain the steeper achievement growth of elementary students migrating to these new facilities. Additional research could uncover the deeper factors that explain the buoyant achievements results; and (7) The authors could only discern inconsistent and weaker achievement gains for high school students who moved from an overcrowded to a new school facility. Methodological Appendix is included. (Contains 5 figures, 3 tables and 3 endnotes.) [Additional funding for this policy brief was provided by the California Education Policy Fund.]

Among its planning and coordinating responsibilities, the California Postsecondary Education Commission is required by state law to assess the ongoing effectiveness of postsecondary education in meeting societal, educational, and workforce needs. At its September 28-29 meeting, the Commission supported staff's proposed work plan to transition from enrollment demand analyses to a broader range of policy issues pertaining to student success and state workforce needs. Student success is the research topic being addressed first. Staff formed an advisory committee and held two meetings in November. This paper outlines a more refined and focused student success work plan, based in part on the suggestions and recommendations provided by advisory committee members.

This report provides a staff review of a proposal by the Solano Community College District to convert its existing facility in Vallejo to a state-approved off-campus educational center of Solano Community College. Educational centers can be a cost-effective means for meeting educational needs of a region through agreements with local high schools, businesses, and nearby university campuses. Centers support learning productivity because students spend more time engaged near their homes and less time commuting to a main campus. Because the Commission concurred with the decision of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and the CPEC (California Postsecondary Education Commission) staff recommendation based on ten facilities review criteria, the Vallejo Center will become eligible to compete for state capital outlay funding and to receive base apportionment funding.

Although public universities account for most of the higher education enrollment in California, independent colleges and universities make an important contribution to meeting enrollment demand. California's 76 independent non-profit colleges and universities provide a wide range of degree and certificate programs. In fall 2008, the independents served approximately 241,000 undergraduate and graduate students, a number that could not be absorbed by public campuses, given the existing and projected demand. The purpose of "Ready for Learning" is to: (1) Update policymakers and the general public on the range of independent institutions serving California and the importance of incorporating the independents as an integral part of state higher education long-range planning; (2) Provide a benchmark estimate of undergraduate demand for the independents by student ethnicity and institution type; (3) Highlight key demographic and economic factors that influence demand for the independents; and (4) Identify additional data elements that would enable CPEC (California Postsecondary Education Commission) to derive undergraduate demand projections for the independents that are more refined and useful for higher education planning. Undergraduate demand estimates were derived from two forecast models: a demographic model that relies principally on observed and projected changes in college-going rates and the population aged 18 to 49 by ethnicity; and an economic model that considers projected changes in personal income, annual unemployment, and Cal Grant funding levels as a function of student demand. Both models estimate undergraduate demand for the independents to increase by about 16%, from about 130,000 students in fall 2008 to approximately 150,000 in 2019. The similarity in findings is evidence of construct validity in modeling enrollment demand. The findings are also consistent with projections developed in 2009 by the National Center for Education Statistics that show undergraduate enrollments at private institutions increasing by 13% nationwide. CPEC analysts recognize that estimating demand for the independents is more complex than for public colleges and universities. The independents, unlike public institutions, are not a system with a common purpose, mission, and legislated obligations and mandates. The objective of "Ready for Learning" is not to project precisely how many students will be enrolled at any particular independent institution in a particular year, but to derive a reasonable and valid trend in undergraduate demand to support long-range planning. Following formal Commission adoption of this report, staff expects to convene an advisory committee consisting of representatives of public and independent institutions to identify policy recommendations that address the increased enrollment demand shown by these projections and CPEC's projections for the public systems. Appendices include: (1) AICCU's [Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities'] Comments on the Projections; (2) Methodology; and (3) Participation Rates, by Classification and Ethnicity, 2000-2008. (Contains 8 displays.)

The California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) conducts policy research and analysis to support long-range planning and student success. The community college enrollment projection is the first in the "Ready or Not, Here They Come" series that will be developed over the next six months. Community college projections were derived first because the system is the largest in the state, and it accounts for about 75% of undergraduate demand in any given year. The complete series will update CPEC's statewide enrollment demand and institutional capacity reports published in 1995 and 2000. It is intended to support higher education long-range planning and assist the Governor and the Legislature during budgetary and policy deliberations. It will provide informed and valid projections of the demand for public undergraduate higher education over the next ten years and estimates of classroom lecture and laboratory capacity needed to maximize student success. Appendices include: (1) Mid-Range Enrollment Demand Forecast, Community College Participation per 1,000 Persons; and (2) Enrollment Demand Method. (Contains 3 figures.)

An important goal for California is that public high schools continue to make progress in closing the achievement gap between demographic groups and that students are prepared for postsecondary education. In early 2008 Commission staff started developing a composite measure of academic preparation based on standardized test scores in nine college preparatory subjects. Proficiency in these subjects is directly linked to the knowledge and skills that students need to acquire to be successful at the university level. Staff decided that a measure comprising multiple dimensions of preparation would be more useful in assessing school progress and success than would an assessment strategy relying on a single subject area. Preliminary results indicate that the Commission's measure correlates slightly better with one-year- and two-year persistence than does the school's Academic Performance Index (API). The Commission's measure has the advantage that it is based on data that is broken down by gender and ethnicity, so it can be used to assess how opportunities to prepare for postsecondary education vary by ethnicity and gender.

This report examines how California's massive and ongoing investment in school construction could better advance the shared goals of school improvement, sustainable urban growth, and equal opportunity. This brief is organized in five parts. First, the authors sketch a "framework" for how smart growth principles could help guide school facilities investments. This includes not only the bricks and mortar of infrastructure but also the creation of more effective forms of schooling, such as small, human-scale schools which are better integrated with their communities. Second, the widening "scope of school construction and renovation" is described. They outline how these $82 billion in bond revenues are being distributed to California's various regions. Third, the lack of coordinated planning is placed in sharp relief, once all the people illuminate "demographic and economic shifts" that shape quality of life in California, from where they live to how far they travel to jobs. Fourth, the authors detail what's known empirically about the "benefits of high-quality school facilities" that accrue to students and teachers. Smarter forms of schooling, in carefully designed facilities, could spur stronger engagement and motivation among children and educators alike. Finally, they argue that state policy makers, local educators, and city planners face key decision points, and they could exercise these influential policy levers more wisely. They highlight four communities that are grappling with these challenges in innovative ways and constructing smart schools that build from smart growth principles. These cases appear in boxes throughout this report. (Contains 4 figures and 44 endnotes.) [This report was produced by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and the Center for Cities & Schools.]

Gaps in early learning are starkly apparent among differing children even before they enter kindergarten. So, a rising number of states are trying to narrow initial achievement disparities by expanding access to quality preschool. At the same time, recent findings show that preschool is not a lasting inoculation: its benefits fade if children move from preschool to dreary elementary schools. So, efforts to advance quality preschooling, especially for children from poor and blue-collar families, will be more effective when the quality of public schools climbs in parallel fashion. Two states--New Jersey and Texas--offer laboratories for understanding how preschool and K-12 finance reforms can be interwoven over time and implemented in concert to raise quality at both levels. This study yields three sets of lessons for California and other states: (1) Advancing simple and equitable finance mechanisms; (2) Unifying mixed-markets of preschool providers; and (3) Widening access while improving quality. Overall, this study details how two large states are simplifying funding streams, progressively expanding access, and improving classroom quality. In New Jersey these efforts stem from a specific mandate by the state courts to equalize opportunity, and the preschool sector is a key part. In Texas pro-equity groups have succeeded in widening support for preschool expansion, and these policy efforts are becoming one element in long-running efforts to more adequately fund the schools. (Contains 3 tables, 4 figures, 1 box, and 79 endnotes.)

The new call for a universal preschool system is prompting an important policy debate across California. How preschooling is expanded and improved with limited public resources depends on several key issues. The hopeful ideals of "preschool for all"--with children beginning school ready to learn--spark enthusiasm and broaden public will. But tough policy questions must be addressed by early educators, parents, and policy makers: (1) Should California build and run a "universal system" of preschool, or should public support be targeted on these children who reap the greatest benefits and families who face the highest barriers to access? In other words, who will benefit and who should pay? (2) Who should operate universal preschool--local "schools" or the current "mixed market" of providers, including nonprofit centers and licensed family child-care homes? (3) How can the quality of preschool be improved? Does raising the credential levels of teachers yield discernible gains for children? Would other policy options more cost-effectively boost quality and children's development? (4) How should preschool be structured for diverse families? Does clearer specification of learning standards and the formalization of instruction inside preschools benefit children? Does more regimented instruction imply a single language and with what effects on non-English speaking children? This review considers evidence on these pivotal questions from around the nation, applying these findings to current debates in California. An appendix delineates specific questions that county and state agencies might consider as they attempt to assess the effects of their preschool initiatives. (Contains 104 endnotes, 3 tables, and 2 figures.)

During the past two years, three independent studies--conducted by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), American Institutes for Research (AIR), and the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE)--have examined the accomplishments, shortcomings, and continuing challenges of California's Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA). This brief outlines common findings in the experiences of teachers, principals, and district administrators in implementing PSAA and recommendations across the three independent studies. Some of the key findings include: (1) Educators reported a renewed and unparalleled focus on improving student achievement and low-performing schools, also evidenced by rising test scores; (2) Effective use of data to inform practice was sporadic--Many educators lacked the skills, capacity, or time to analyze, understand, and respond to data on achievement gaps; and (3) District policy and context significantly influenced PSAA implementation, instructional improvement, and student achievement. [This report also funded by the Noyce Foundation.]

This policy brief examines programs from California and elsewhere in the United States for attracting and retaining quality preschool and child-care staff and places these programs within the broader context of K-12 reforms. While this brief is specifically aimed at early-childhood-education planners and policymakers, it contains information for educators at all levels about experimental efforts and lessons on systemwide reform. The brief reviews the evidence on the scope and effectiveness of existing K-12 recruitment and retention policy strategies in the United States to determine those that may be transferable to early education. It begins with a broad review of what is known about these state initiatives. It then provides detailed examples and analyses for each program area from education nonprofit and research centers. It then reviews the evidence to determine the variety and effectiveness of existing programs. Few of the programs highlighted have been formally evaluated, and fewer still have collected data on cost-effectiveness. Finally, the brief returns to the question of how these program models may or may not fit the problem of teacher and staff turnover in the early-care and education arenas. (Contains 7 endnotes, 7 tables, and 62 references.) (WFA)

This report examines how state welfare-to-work programs have affected young children since the 1996 welfare reform act, which moved millions of women into low-wage jobs. Researchers followed a sample of 948 mothers and young children for 2-4 years after the women entered new welfare programs in California, Connecticut, and Florida. After interviews with these mothers, assessments of their children's development, and visits to homes and child care settings, several findings emerged. Many women had moved into low-wage jobs. Though their total income had risen significantly, most still lived below the poverty line. Related measures of economic wellbeing showed little improvement. For example, almost one-fifth of mothers had recently cut the size of meals because they did not have enough money to buy more food. The magnitude of income gains was too weak to improve home environments or allow women to move to better neighborhoods. Mothers were spending less time with their children as they went out to work. They displayed twice the national rate of clinical depression. Many children had moved into new child care centers and preschools. Those who move to center-based programs displayed significantly stronger cognitive and school readiness skills than children who remained in home-based programs. Measures and national norms are appended. (Contains 150 endnotes.) (SM)

Against the backdrop of evolving welfare policies in California following the approval of federal welfare reforms in 1996, the Growing Up in Poverty Project is examining how single mothers and their children fare as they move from cash aid to jobs, the types and quality of child care arrangements selected, and if mothers' access to child care subsidies bolsters their employability. This paper reports on wave 1 data, collected in 1998 from the 410 participating mothers residing in San Francisco or Santa Clara county. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations of each child's child care or preschool setting. Comparative quality data were obtained from 176 centers and family child care homes in the Bay Area and in Connecticut during 1997. Findings indicate that child care centers and preschools were of moderate to high quality. The array of child activities and educational content of home-based settings was not impressive. Areas of quality weakness include the provision of ample language and reading materials, and time to read and exercise communication skills with young children. Mothers reported that kith and kin were more respectful of their own parenting practices than were child care centers or preschools and were more flexible in terms of when the caregiver was available. They also believed that the child received more individual attention, compared to those using centers. Women who selected child care centers or preschools often received subsidies to cover the cost. Only a small fraction of women selecting home-based arrangements took advantage of available subsidies. Several risk factors were associated with this pattern: (1) having an infant or young toddler rather than a child over age 3; (2) coming from a Latino or Vietnamese-American community; (3) having spent less time on welfare; and (4) living in a neighborhood with fewer center-based enrollment slots. Appended are descriptive statistics for quality data for both counties. (Author/KB)

Noting that the quality of child care and early education available to lower-income families has received considerable attention over the past decade, this study explored variability in the quality of California day care centers and preschools. Participating in the study were 170 centers and preschools situated among 20 California zip codes, clustered in three counties: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Clara. All the zip codes selected contained significant concentrations of lower-income families. Findings indicated that the majority of centers displayed high levels of quality along structural measures, such as class size, the ratio of children per adult, and staff education levels. About one in six failed to meet recommended quality standards. Some quality indicators were slightly lower for centers located in communities with less supply, possibly due to directors' attempts to accommodate greater family demand for enrollment slots. Center quality was not consistently influenced by community conditions such as poverty levels, ethnic composition, or maternal employment rates. Quality was higher among centers receiving stronger flows of public subsidies. Analysis of findings centered around the success of state agencies in building high quality among centers in lower-income communities as well as the policy challenges that remain. Maps indicating the sampled communities by zip code are appended. (Contains 14 references.) (KB)

School choice, as one avenue toward educational reform, must be placed in context, according to this brief policy analysis. Prepared mainly for policymakers in California and stressing implications for public education in California, the report briefly discusses five samples of school choice: (1) magnet schools; (2) charter schools; (3) open enrollment; (4) voucher experiments; and (5) tax credits for private-school enrollment. The report describes how these choice mechanisms are intended to work and what is known about their actual effects on students, parents, and local educators. One key finding is that the claims made by advocates of choice programs far exceed the hard evidence required to judge actual results. The report also touches on accountability as a reform strategy and urges policymakers and local interest groups to consider accountability reforms alongside the desire to spawn more diverse forms of schooling. (WFA)

When California implemented its class-size reduction (CSR) program in 1996, a number of questions regarding financial burdens, teacher shortages, scarcity of facilities, and collective bargaining were raised. This first-year implementation study aims to provide some contextual information as background for answering questions, to clarify these issues and to provide a more comprehensive, long-term evaluation of CSR, contextual information. In section 1, the introduction examines the status of the class-size reduction initiative and discusses what the research says. Section 2 provides the study design and then describes the major findings, focusing on the effects on special populations, on staff development, on classroom practices, on parent involvement, and on implementation challenges. Section 3 contains detailed coverage of findings in these same areas of focus. Section 4 provides an overview of policy and research implications of CSR. The emphasis throughout the report is on the perceptions of school-level educators, so as to provide evidence of how CSR unfolded in particular schools across California in its first year of implementation. Findings show that district officials, teachers, principals, and coordinators generally believe that CSR will lead to high student achievement. Some specific areas of CSR that warrant more careful evaluation are provided. (Contains 36 endnotes and 51 references.) (RJM)

Everyone knows that student achievement often suffers when children and families move, leaving behind their school and neighborhood, yet, in urban districts like Los Angeles, mobility is now encouraged by the development of mixed-markets of diverse schools, including charter, pilot, and magnet schools in. Over 60 new school facilities were opened as well during 2002-2008 period, thanks to a $27 billion construction program undertaken by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In this paper, the authors first assess how student attributes and differing school organizations, varying by type and quality, influence the rates of student exit prior the end their school's grade cycle within elementary and secondary schools. They estimate the discrete influence of student factors and school types on the likelihood that pupils leave their school, using what are known as hazard-rate models, based on 4.5 million person-period observations. They find contrasting patterns of student mobility along ethnic lines: African American and White students were more likely to exit their school, compared with Latino, non-English speaking, and foreign-born students, yet students attending overcrowded schools--disproportionately situated in low-income Latino neighborhoods--exited at higher rates. Charter and magnet school students left their schools at much lower rates, compared with peers in regular schools, after taking into account prior effects of family background. The opening of new high schools slowed student mobility substantially. Furthermore, they discuss implications for conceptualizing student mobility--especially the capacity of charter and magnet schools to slow student mobility--as diverse portfolios of schools come to characterize urban areas like Los Angeles. Various grade structures for LAUSD schools are appended. (Contains 4 figures, 7 tables and 11 endnotes.)

In 2009, California state legislators freed local educators from the specific guidelines that previously regulated spending on 40 categorical-aid programs known as Tier 3 programs. This Tier 3 flexibility reform, which deregulates $4.5 billion in education funding, was enacted at the same time the legislature made cuts in education spending in response to the economic recession. Drawing on interviews with school district leaders from around the state and with policymakers in Sacramento, this report details how leaders in 10 California school districts are responding to the Tier 3 flexibility reform, including what districts are doing with the newly flexible funds, how allocation decisions were made, and what their consequences have been. The researchers found that school districts felt uncertainty about the new flexibility and generally remained committed to the goals of the Tier 3 programs. Appended are: (1) Tier 3 Categorical Programs Combined into New "Flex Item" (2009-2010); and (2) Advisory Committee. (Contains 5 tables, 7 figures, 1 box and 8 endnotes.) [This paper was written with Mary Briggs, Scott Epstein, Nina Lorenzi, Reino Makkonen, Angeline Spain, and Anisah Waite. Additional funding for this paper was provided by the Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation.]

In this paper, we investigate the effects of teacher characteristics and school context on the timing of teachers' decisions to exit schools where they teach. The two-level discrete time survival analysis framework allows for simultaneous examinations of who exits, when, and under what conditions. Our results for a large sample of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District observed from 2002-03 to 2008-09 affirm the importance of school context such as type of school (e.g., charter) and school organizational characteristics (e.g., teacher-students racial match in some context), above and beyond individual teacher characteristics and qualifications. In addition, differences in the relationship between some factors and teacher turnover are observed between elementary and secondary teachers. Data merging process is appended. (Contains 7 tables, 3 figures and 3 footnotes.)