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California's K-12 funding and instructional policies for English learners (ELs) have changed significantly over the past 2 decades. The major policy shifts held the potential to change student learning outcome patterns for ELs. As a first step in identifying the potential impacts of these policy shifts, this report describes changes over time in the development of academic skills and English proficiency among English learners in California. The results suggest that some combination of the policies described--from more rigorous requirements for teacher preparedness for EL students to increased funding and the introduction of transitional kindergarten--has likely made a difference in EL outcomes. This report also illuminates a gap between when students achieve English proficiency and when they are reclassified. The authors find that almost three quarters of K-cohort EL students are English proficient as measured by the California English Language development Test (CELDT) by the end of elementary school, but only half of K-cohort ELs are reclassified by that same time point. In California, where English proficiency represents only one of the four criteria students must meet to be reclassified, this discrepancy demonstrates the role played by other barriers to reclassification, most likely the criterion to demonstrate basic skills on another assessment.

In 2021, California committed to providing universal prekindergarten (UPK) for all 4-year-olds and expanding access for income-eligible 3-year-olds by 2025-2026. California UPK includes several early learning programs, including transitional kindergarten (TK), the California State Preschool Program (CSPP), Head Start, and locally funded early learning programs. To support UPK expansion, California's legislature and administration established the Universal Prekindergarten Planning and Implementation Grant in 2021, which allocated $200 million to all local education agencies (LEAs) serving kindergarteners, which include school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education. The California Department of Education surveyed all grant recipients in August 2023 about their UPK programs. This report provides an update on UPK implementation across the state through an analysis of survey responses from 1,384 LEAs, which represent almost all (95%) public school districts and two thirds (65%) of charter schools that serve elementary grades. Findings provide insights into LEAs' progress in UPK implementation related to service delivery models, facilities and transportation, instruction and assessment, strategies to support student needs, workforce development, implementation challenges, and technical assistance needs. In addition to statewide insights, the survey revealed promising practices and wide access with UPK expansion in California's four largest districts during their first year of implementation. The findings in this report may help policymakers and practitioners identify areas for additional investments and supports.

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.

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.

As the nation transitions from responding to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to navigating its ongoing impact on youth and their communities, K-12 students continue to experience mental health and wellbeing challenges. In the fall of 2021, Redwood City School District (RCSD) placed a full-time, district-employed mental health counselor in each of its twelve schools in order to bolster district capacity to support mental health and wellbeing. This study aims to identify strategic opportunities for understanding and advancing the counseling program's impact as it moves into its third year. With these goals in mind, this research brief will describe findings related to three questions: (1) What is the role of RCSD's school-based mental health counselors?; (2) What are early signals or "lead indicators" of the value or impact of the counseling program?; and (3) What considerations might further improve the program as it moves into Year 3? To answer these questions, the authors conducted 19 interviews with district administrators, site administrators, and mental health counselors; and 22 participant observations of meetings related to the counseling program and student services more broadly. While the research team employed qualitative data analysis software (Dedoose 9.0.90) to facilitate the coding of qualitative data, the analysis of coded data followed a more traditional, iterative approach, moving between deductive and inductive reasoning. This research brief summarizes key findings and offers considerations for leveraging the counseling program to strengthen a district-wide, coordinated system of support for mental health and wellbeing and developing a theory-based evaluation of impact during Year 3 of program implementation. [This work is generously funded by Stanford's Office of the Provost through the Office of Community Engagement.]

Emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges make it difficult for many children and adolescents to engage and succeed at school. Research indicates that at least 20% of all children and adolescents have been diagnosed with one more mental health disorders. Behavioral problems, anxiety, and depression are the most diagnosed mental health issues, and they often co-occur. Moreover, these conditions are being diagnosed at increasingly younger ages. In the past several years there has been a rise in the number of adolescents and young adults with serious mental health issues such as major depression and suicidal ideation, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated mental health problems for children and adolescents. Schools offer promise for providing intensive clinical support to the most at-risk students, and schools are necessary environment to explore the implementation of multi-modal youth mental health services. This paper provides an analysis of an intensive, in-school mental health services model developed and implemented by Effective School Solutions (ESS), a New Jersey based provider of high acuity school based mental health services for K-12 students. We analyze this multi-modal model for its effectiveness in improving educational outcomes for over 3,000 students identified as requiring intensive clinical mental health support across the 2021-22 school year. This analysis reveals that those students receiving High- versus Low-fidelity programming (i.e., multiple sessions per week for at least half of the school year versus for less than half of the school year) had better educational outcomes. Students receiving High-fidelity programming had greater improvements in grade point average (GPA) and greater reductions in absences across the school year. A higher number of in-school clinical sessions per week significantly predicted a greater increase in GPA and a greater reduction in total disciplinary incidents (including out of school suspensions) across the school year. This report provides initial promising evidence that in-school intensive mental health clinical services yield positive effects on students' educational outcomes. Though future research is needed to validate and extend these findings, schools may consider implementing such services onsite to meet students where they are and to optimize students' mental, behavioral, and educational well-being. [This white paper report was published by the Yale Child Study Center."]

To provide a landscape of mathematics activities children experience in U.S. preschool and kindergarten classrooms, we observed time children spent in mathematics activities (and -- as a contrast -- literacy) in 101 geographically diverse early childhood classrooms in seven U.S. states. We also observed what mathematics content, grouping strategies, and management formats teachers engaged during classroom mathematics activities. Each observation lasted approximately 2 hours; collectively these observations focused on 930 children observed one to three times during the 2018/2019 or 2019/2020 school year. Averaging across individuals' data within classrooms, we found that mathematics and literacy activities comprised 5% and 45% of time observed in preschool classrooms, respectively; and 26% and 42% of time observed in kindergarten classrooms, respectively. At both grades, when mathematics activities occurred, they were proportionally more often teacher-led rather than child-led. These findings raise concerns about the paucity of mathematics and over-reliance on developmentally inappropriate teacher-managed mathematics instruction in early childhood classrooms, especially preschools. Amount of time in math did not vary by preschool auspice, but time in literacy and the proportion of math time devoted to specific math content did: In Head Start classrooms we observed lowest percentage of time in literacy (and the highest percentage of time in non-instruction) compared to all other auspices. Across auspices, numeracy was the predominant math content area overall, but especially in Head Start classrooms. Thus, some aspects of early mathematics may differ with program auspice, suggesting that recommendations to increase and improve early mathematics activities may need to consider auspice characteristics. [This paper was published in "Early Childhood Research Quarterly" v69 p25-37 2024.]

This study aims to measure the impact of 95 Percent Group's Phonological Awareness Lessons (PA Lessons), an intervention program designed primarily for Tier 2 or 3. The study is a replication of Schechter & Lynch (2023) research conducted in the same medium-sized school district, Val Verde Unified School District, in California during the 2021-2022 school year. It presents the fall results from September 2022 to January 2023 using Acadience? Reading data. The same school groups (treatment with PA Lessons and comparison without the PA Lessons) continue from the previous study and therefore uses a quasi-experimental design to generate evidence of the program's impact that aligns with evidence standards associated with ESSA Level 2 (Moderate). A total of 527 kindergarten students from 11 schools who were well below/below benchmark in the Fall of 2022 participated in the study. Of these students, 257 were in the treatment group, and 270 were in the comparison group. The demographic characteristics of the comparison group included 56% males, 3% with special education (SPED) status, 44% English Language Learners (ELL), 88% from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds, and 24% identified as foster/homeless. Similarly, the treatment group demographics comprise 51% males, 2% with SPED status, 36% ELL, 87% from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds, and 20% identified as foster/homeless. Results of the study found that using PA Lessons substantially impacted student growth for Tiers 2 & 3 over the fall. PA Lesson schools had reduced Well Below Grade Level by half (67% to 28%). Comparison schools only reduced the group by less than a third (67% to 47%). Notably, 41% of PA Lesson students were At/Above grade level mid-year, compared to only 25% in other schools.

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.

School discipline policies are broadly intended to foster a high-quality learning environment by maintaining safety in the classroom; however, far too often, schools adopt measures that harm a student's social, emotional, academic, and in some cases, physical health and well-being. To create physically safe and emotionally supportive environments for all students, schools must adopt evidence-based approaches such as restorative justice that can be used to build and repair relationships while also holding students accountable for their actions. When positive discipline policies and practices use a race-equity lens and are fairly implemented, these efforts can not only create safe and inclusive learning environments, but also support students' holistic development.

Data governance is a core obligation for leaders and staff across any agency that collects, stores or uses individuals' data. It ensures that individuals' personal information is protected, and can support the continuous improvement of data quality and use, particularly when it includes well-defined processes, structure and responsibilities. Effective data governance can promote trust among those who administer the data systems, those who use them and those whose private information the data systems collect. This Policy Brief stems from a Thinkers Meeting hosted by Education Commission of the States that gathered experts in data governance to discuss how state leaders can avoid common pitfalls that undermine data governance policies. The group developed six principles that can aid any state leader in establishing effective governance of data systems.

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.

The 2021-22 accreditation year continued to be impacted in significant ways by the ongoing nature of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. All accreditation activities, including site visits, were adjusted to reflect this new reality while maintaining full implementation of the system. This report presents information about the major activities of the accreditation system, the Committee on Accreditation (COA) decisions that were made, and some of the major areas of focus for academic year 2021-22.

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.

Measures of student disadvantage--or risk--are critical components of equity-focused education policies. However, the risk measures used in contemporary policies have significant limitations, and despite continued advances in data infrastructure and analytic capacity, there has been little innovation in these measures for decades. We develop a new measure of student risk for use in education policies, which we call Predicted Academic Performance (PAP). PAP is a flexible, data-rich indicator that identifies students at risk of poor academic outcomes. It blends concepts from emerging "early warning" systems with principles of incentive design to balance the competing priorities of accurate risk measurement and suitability for policy use. PAP is more effective than common alternatives at identifying students who are at risk of poor academic outcomes and can be used to target resources toward these students--and students who belong to several other associated risk categories--more efficiently.

In California, 2021 legislation expanded transitional kindergarten (TK) to be universal for all 4-year-olds by 2025-26. This expansion will require an additional 11,900 to 15,600 credentialed teachers. Given projected workforce needs and historic investments in teacher preparation, early childhood-focused residencies can help districts strategically build TK teacher workforces. This brief describes two early childhood residency programs--Fresno's Teacher Residency Program and UCLA's IMPACT program--to help inform the development of strong early learning-focused residencies.

In 2021, California made major new investments to advance its commitment to early childhood education through universal preschool. One important investment was extending state funding for transitional kindergarten (TK), previously just for older 4-year-olds, to all 4-year-olds by 2025-26. To ensure the quality of new preschool investments, California must recruit and prepare a sufficient number of qualified teachers in TK and other early childhood programs--a challenge given the rapid expansion of the program. This challenge is even greater during the COVID-19 pandemic, when school districts and early childhood programs are facing significant staffing shortages. This report provides estimates of how many TK teachers California will need through 2025-26 and discusses potential pathways to support a diverse, well-prepared workforce, both in TK and in other early childhood programs. The authors also offer recommendations that state policymakers could follow to stabilize, support, and expand the broader early childhood workforce and to build pathways for racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse educators. [For the Research Brief, see ED622845.]

In partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and 22 San Mateo County school districts, this report and research brief explore the ways in which local students experience housing instability, and how cross-sector strategies can better identify and serve these students. This study considers a rich set of school administrative data, which allow us to describe youth based on their dwelling status designations reported by the school districts, their free or reduced-price meal participation, and several demographic characteristics. We also examine the relationship between student dwelling status designation and educational outcomes. At a high level, our research finds that over 2,600 adolescents in San Mateo County experienced housing instability over the course of the three school years before the pandemic. Students experiencing housing instability were also: (1) disproportionately Latinx, Black, and/or English language learners; and (2) likely to miss more days of school than their housing stable peers. Based on these findings, we conclude that youth experiencing housing instability face a range of unique challenges, and we recommend a set of concrete actions that state policymakers, local and county leaders, school district leaders, and leaders from youth-serving organizations can take to help ensure positive and equitable outcomes. [This report was written with contributions from Francine Biscocho, Elise Dizon Ross, Kristin Geiser, Amy Gerstein, Leslie Patron, Jayme Pyne, Nicole Tognozzi, and Charlotte Woo. For the report brief, see ED624056.]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on education. Science teaching, in particular, has faced specific challenges given the field's emphasis on high-quality instruction that has students "do" science collaboratively rather than just read about it or hear about it in a lecture. This brief provides: (1) a summary of data collected by WestEd relating to how the pandemic has affected science education in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Early Implementer districts and other locations around the country; (2) findings regarding student-centered science instruction and equity during the pandemic; (3) descriptions of how some teachers innovated to provide engaging, high-quality science instruction to their students despite the challenges; and (4) lessons learned and recommendations for ensuring high-quality NGSS-aligned science instruction and learning moving forward. [For the companion brief, "Teaching K-8 Science through Distance Learning: Specific Challenges and Successes during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Policy Brief," see ED620731.]

Most teachers report wanting more training and support to teach autistic students. Individual, autism-focused coaching is a promising approach for improving teacher self-efficacy and autistic student outcomes. Given the high workload demands of coaching, it must be feasible and acceptable. This study considers coaches', teachers', and autistic peoples' perspectives to identify key components integral to autism-focused coaching as well as strategies that enhance the feasibility and acceptability of each component. Interviews with seven K-2nd grade teachers, ten autistic adolescents and adults, and a focus group with six coaches were qualitatively examined using an inductive approach and incorporated grounded theory practices to develop an autism-focused coaching framework. This framework consists of four contextual elements that were identified as crucial to coaching within an autism-specific context, including the use of a neurodiversity-affirming lens and coaches' strong autism knowledge. This framework also comprises eight sequential coaching components informed by principles of adult learning theory (e.g., observation, feedback, self-reflection) that are generalizable to supporting teachers' work with autistic and neurodivergent students. These findings offer guidance to coaches and program developers regarding key components to implement when working with teachers supporting autistic students. We highlight specific recommendations within each component to maximize the feasibility and social validity of autism-specific coaching. [This is the online version of an article published in "Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation."]

Young people across California are leading the way forward socially, culturally, and politically. They are organizing for racial justice, learning and working and caring for family members during a pandemic, and voting in record numbers. The past two years with the COVID-19 pandemic has been hardest on kids, particularly children of color, in poverty, or in the child welfare system. The California Children's Report Card grades the State on its ability to support better outcomes for kids, from prenatal to age 26. Each grade is based on the State's progress (or lack thereof) on passing and implementing state-level policies and making investments in the supports and services needed for all kids to reach their full potential. The Pro-Kid Agenda provides recommendations to the state's leaders on how to improve outcomes for kids in each section. This year's California Children's Report Card highlights some good news: key areas of improvement in the State's ability to meet the needs of California's children with increased funding and policy advances. Yet, in far too many areas, state leaders are failing to do enough to support kids. This lack of policy progress, along with unacceptable racial gaps highlighted in the data and the state's mediocre national rankings, contribute to the mostly low grades in this report. The report card is organized into the following sections: (1) Health; (2) Education; (3) Family Supports; (4) Child Welfare; and (5) Adolescents & Transition Age Youth.

In 2021, California made historic investments in early learning to expand transitional kindergarten (TK) to serve all of California's 4-year-olds. Transitional kindergarten began in California in 2012 as a free public school program for 4-year-olds who were not yet eligible for kindergarten (a non-compulsory grade). Yet by 2019, just 28 percent of Black and 31 percent of Latinx 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in high-quality early learning programs in California. Universal TK can be a considerable step toward leveling the playing field for young children, however, it has to be done in a way that centers equity. In this equity alert, we share the investments that the budget includes to expand TK and provide seven recommendations for state leaders, local education agencies (LEAs), and community members and advocates to ensure that implementation of universal TK leads to equitable outcomes. It is essential that early learning and care providers, parents (including parents who do not speak English as a primary language), community partners, and advocates are all involved as LEAs build their plans to scale up TK. State and local leaders have a responsibility to leverage this additional funding to bolster stakeholder engagement, partnerships, and data utilization, to strengthen professional development and career opportunities for educators, and to intentionally expand access in evidence-backed ways that support communities that have been the most underinvested.

California requires each school district to belong to a Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) for special education planning and governance. The California Department of Education (CDE) and the State Board of Education (SBE) are interested in the impact on the surrounding small and midsized districts when large districts become single-district SELPAs. Given one of the original motivations of SELPAs was economies of scale, the state wanted to examine the association between different SELPA types and district configurations and outcomes, including SELPA funding patterns, inclusion rates of students receiving special education services in the general education environment, and academic outcomes for students receiving special education services. This study examined those differences using publicly available data. The findings provide mixed evidence for the possible implications of large districts leaving multidistrict SELPAs to form single-district SELPAs. The study found no meaningful association between different SELPA and district configurations and academic outcomes for students with disabilities--including graduation and dropout rates--and proficiency rates in math and English language arts and on the alternative assessment. Several meaningful differences with regard to funding and inclusion were found. For example, when comparing multidistrict SELPAs with and multidistrict SELPAs without a large district, multidistrict SELPAs without a large district received larger per pupil apportionments and had higher inclusion rates. Also, when comparing small districts in multidistrict SELPAs with and multidistrict SELPAs without a large district, inclusion rates were higher for preK students and lower for K-12 students in SELPAs without a large district. The larger amount of per pupil special education funding in multidistrict SELPAs without a large district may help to alleviate some concern about the impact of large districts separating from surrounding small and midsized districts to become their own SELPAs. The CDE and the SBE may want to further examine which regionalized programs are implemented by SELPAs of different compositions and how they benefit small districts. Further research could consider more complex analyses to better understand the outcomes that may be due specifically to membership in a single-district versus a multidistrict SELPA.

This study investigated the relative importance of three subdomains of early number competence (number, number relations, and number operations) in predicting later mathematics achievement in cross-sequential samples of pre-K, kindergarten (K), and first graders (N=150 at each grade). OLS-regression analyses showed that each subdomain predicted mathematics achievement at each grade level, controlling for the other two subdomains as well as background variables. All of the subdomains explained a significant amount of variance in later mathematics achievement. Unconditional quantile regression analyses examined relations between number competencies and mathematics achievement at quantiles representing low (0.2), intermediate (0.5) and high (0.8) achievement. The subdomain of number operations was highly related to mathematics achievement for high achievers. For low achievers, number and number relations abilities were most highly related to future mathematics achievement in the pre-K sample, and number relations abilities in the K and first grade samples. Findings highlight the unique importance of all three subdomains of early number competence for later mathematics achievement, but show some of the relations are contingent upon achievement level. [The paper will be published in "Journal of Experimental Child Psychology."]

The future of California will be defined by ensuring better educational opportunity for Latinx Californians. While historic numbers of Latinx students are graduating from high school prepared for college and are enrolling in higher education, these numbers are still too low. Inequitable access to college opportunity and success in graduating with a degree is very real. Today, most high schools fail to prepare the majority of their Latinx students for college. While both access and success for Latinx students enrolling in the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU) are improving, there are still disturbing gaps by race/ethnicity and gender, with Latinos attending and completing college at rates far below their Latina peers. The purpose of this report is not to simply highlight the statistics. Instead, it is to recognize that the problem has never been Latinx students or their families, but the choices made by society, institutions, and governments. This report calls on policymakers, college leaders, and the public to be intentional in demanding and removing unnecessary barriers and in providing equitable opportunities for Latinx students to succeed. [For the full report, see ED616958.]

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.

Early childhood assessments can provide important information to guide instruction and inform policy. Given the widespread and growing use of statewide kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs), in particular, it is important that policymakers understand how to choose and use assessments wisely. This brief summarizes research showing how authentic assessments grounded in guided observation and well-chosen performance tasks can be used to chart children's progress in multiple domains of development and inform instruction. It provides recommendations for state policymakers about how to select, develop, and implement high-quality assessments that can both support instruction and inform policy to improve systems. [For the full report, see ED614431.]

Children in kindergarten and first grade are missing more school than at any other point during the elementary years. Some research has examined schoolwide policies and practices that might help reduce absences, but limited research has focused on the role of teachers. This is the first known study to examine the role teacher preparation programs play in teachers' perceptions of and knowledge about policy and practices to address absenteeism. This study found that: (a) novice teachers (defined in this study as the teachers surveyed in the summer months after graduating from their teacher preparation programs but before starting their classroom teaching assignments) who entered kindergarten or first grade classrooms reported greater knowledge of chronic absenteeism when they thought their licensure requirement and placements prepared them well to teach; (b) teachers felt better prepared to address absenteeism with specific practices when they reported receiving more support from their teacher preparation program supervisors; and (c) novice second through fifth grade teachers do not report feeling better prepared to address absenteeism when they receive support from their teacher preparation program supervisors. This is meaningful given that teachers who feel the most prepared to address absenteeism are entering classrooms with greater absences. This study also offers motivation to consider how new teachers can be prepared to interface with parents of young children about state early education policies.

This knowledge brief is part of a continuing series designed to inform California education leaders about key policy issues related to teachers and teaching in the Golden State. The brief outlines the current policy environment surrounding math instruction in California, summarizes California information from a nationwide teacher survey on teachers' experiences with professional learning during the 2019/20 school year, and highlights options for instructional supports for California math teachers.

The research featured in this paper is part of the CORE-PACE Research Partnership, which is focused on producing research that informs continuous improvement in the CORE districts as well as policy and practice in California and beyond. Since spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been abruptly interrupting regular instruction in almost all schools in the U.S. One year later, policymakers, district administrators, and educators are still balancing the benefits and risks of returning K-12 students to fully in-person school. Many are concerned about the pandemic's disruption to students' academic progress. In California, educators have been focused equally on students' mental and emotional health, social relationships, and learning environment, given that many students have been learning remotely since the onset of the pandemic. Anticipating the need for schools and districts to understand their students' social-emotional well-being, the CORE Districts in California developed survey instruments to collect such information in the 2020-21 school year. The surveys were administered remotely, as all participating districts offered distance-only instruction. This report draws on data from the "Student well-being and learning conditions diagnostic survey" taken by 32,000 students in Grades 4-12 from three districts at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year. The results from 15,000 students who also responded to the "Comprehensive interim survey" a few months later are also highlighted. This report brings data to bear on the areas of student well-being that are most relevant at each developmental stage, so that all education stakeholders are able to focus their efforts on meeting the most pressing needs of each group of students.

In the fall of 2021, Redwood City School District (RCSD) placed a full-time, district-employed mental health counselor in each of its twelve schools in order to bolster district capacity to support student mental health and wellbeing. Stanford's John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (Gardner Center) conducted a Year 1 Implementation Study and followed up with a Year 2 Implementation Study to further document the evolution of the counseling program and its areas of impact. Focusing on data collected through interviews with faculty, staff, and administrators, the Year 2 study investigated three research questions: (1) What is the role of RCSD's school-based mental health counselors?; (2) What are early signals or "lead indicators" of the value or impact of the counseling program?; and (3) What considerations might further improve the program as it moves into Year 3? This report is an executive summary to the research brief. [This work is generously funded by Stanford's Office of the Provost through the Office of Community Engagement.]

Do employees at public colleges and universities have better retirement benefits than K-12 employees? This is the central question in the new report "Choice and Quality Among Retirement Plans for Educators." To answer this question, we evaluate the quality of higher education and K-12 retirement plans using five key variables: (1) Choice: Do employees have a choice over their retirement plan?; (2) Vesting: How long do employees have to stay in the system to qualify for employer-provided retirement benefits?; (3) Benefits: What is the value of the benefit that employees receive from their employers?; (4) Debt: Has the plan built up unfunded obligations, and how much are employers contributing toward those unfunded liabilities?; and (5) Social Security: Are employees covered by Social Security? The analysis shows that K-12 teachers are often offered different, worse retirement benefits than those offered to public higher education employees. When compared with higher education employees, K-12 teachers are less likely to have choice over their retirement benefits, they have to serve longer to qualify for those benefits, and the benefits are worth less. Moreover, the K-12 sector is more burdened by unfunded liabilities, whereas higher education retirement plans are able to direct a higher share of employer contributions straight toward employee benefits. Based on these findings, the authors recommend that states provide the same retirement plan options for all public sector employees. K-12 teachers should have the same choices in their retirement plans as their higher education counterparts. Beyond expanding the number of retirement options, states need to ensure that the options they offer are good ones, including short vesting periods, portability, and adequate employer contributions. Adopting these recommendations will give K-12 employees access to more and better retirement options.