The practice of temporarily removing students from school as a form of punishment (i.e., suspensions) remains quite common. This study uses longitudinal data from a large, urban school district in California to assess whether the use of suspensions improves school safety in the following school year. Additional analyses by student race and…

Nearly all states and the District of Columbia have policies requiring schools to address prevention of alcohol or drug use and abuse in high school health education curricula, according to National Association of State Boards of Education's (NASBE's) State Health Policy Database. But with the added concerns about the pandemic's impact on youth…

This policy brief was adapted from "English as a Second Language at California's Community Colleges: An Early Examination of AB 705 Reforms." In Fall 2021, colleges began implementing reforms to English as a Second Language (ESL) that were mandated by Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705). In recognition of the need for effective and equitable ESL…

Under federal civil rights law, U.S. school districts have a dual obligation to provide students identified as English learners (ELs) with designated English-language development (ELD) instruction and integrated ELD support during core content instruction. Drawing on an analysis of interviews with 96 educators in two large California districts, we…

Because the pandemic exacerbated chronic absenteeism in many parts of the country, the need to understand how schools can improve student attendance has never been greater. Accordingly, this study breaks new ground by examining high schools' contributions to attendance after accounting for individual students' prior absenteeism and other…

In an effort to align its college admission requirements with the new K-12 science standards, the University of California (UC) recently proposed to increase its high school science admissions eligibility requirement--known as area D--from two to three years. UC's new policy has the potential of improving student science learning and readiness for…

Drawing on the theories of the racial contract and whiteness as property, this one-year qualitative case study explored the ways in which 27 classroom teachers harnessed school structure and classroom curriculum to support the college readiness of students of color in two California school districts. The study discovered that these teacher…

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented education equity crisis in California. Since mid-March, almost all California schools and colleges have closed in response to the pandemic, requiring education leaders and administrators to stretch their resources to create or improve distance learning plans, support students' basic needs, and…

Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705) sought to increase successful completion of transfer-level math and English courses by addressing systemic problems in traditional placement policies and curricular structures. The law requires colleges to maximize the probability that students who enroll in credit English as a second language (ESL) courses complete…

These technical appendices are for the report, "English as a Second Language at California's Community Colleges: An Early Examination of AB 705 Reforms." Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705 Irwin) sought to increase successful completion of transfer-level math and English courses by addressing systemic problems in traditional placement policies…

The purpose of this qualitative document analysis research study was to explore how public high schools in California create local unexcused absence and truancy policies in similar and different ways. The study used Lipsky's "street-level bureaucracy" and the American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force's definition of…

Employing longitudinal, multisite comparative mixed-methods, we describe patterns of reclassifying and not reclassifying eligible English learner (EL) students to fluent English proficient, and we identify factors impeding and facilitating reclassification. Analyses of administrative data for 7 cohorts of students over 3 years in one district and…

While most research examining school discipline policies have focused on the experiences of boys of color, this article explores the relationship between violence and school discipline as they shape the lives of girls of color and their disciplinary records. Using in-depth interviews, this article re-narrates the experiences of Black and non-Black…

Multilayered disciplinary policies including sophisticated surveillance mechanisms and harsh punitive practices increasingly characterize schools in the United States. Researchers contend that these modalities funnel students into prisons and produce "prison-like" conditions and/or militarized spaces. Most studies have examined the…

Last year, the California Legislature passed a new law--the California Mathematics Placement Act--to address widespread concern over equity in the math placement process. The law is aimed at improving the measurement of student performance in order to move more students successfully through the high school curriculum. In this context, researchers…