This qualitative study analyzes how teachers change their pedagogies in response to a reading and writing intervention designed specifically for Biliterate Latine English language learners. Through the analysis of structured interviews this paper examines teachers' perceptions of and reactions to the intervention. Teachers responded to curricular…

Across the United States, policymakers, educators, and community members increasingly support community schools as a method of supporting whole child outcomes. Oakland Unified School District (Oakland Unified) in California has made whole child education central to its community schools initiative. Oakland Unified's community schools provide a…

The Teaching First-Generation College Students Across Cultural Strengths course was developed in the context of a large-scale initiative to eliminate equity gaps in graduation rates within the California State University system. The online course enabled faculty to revise curriculum and instructional practices in the summer and support…

Across the United States, policymakers, educators, and community members increasingly support community schools as a method of supporting whole child outcomes. Oakland Unified School District (Oakland Unified) in California has made whole child education central to its community schools initiative. Oakland Unified's community schools provide a…

The main goal of this social policy report is to propose a holistic approach for promoting developmental success among Latinx children and youth. This report highlights the need to 1) redefine success and 2) account for intersectional inequalities. First, the current demographic landscape of Latinx students is presented to showcase the variability…

This final brief in the series focuses on policy options that can foster more innovation and address challenges in career education (CE) program development. It is based on earlier research for a series of reports called "Career Opportunities," aimed at identifying ways that state and system policy can best support the CE mission of the…

What would it look like to engage in more humanizing assessment practices, practices that support the positive development of students' identity, agency, and belonging? In a Southern California school district, a group of teachers have been working toward doing exactly that. One of the first things the teachers did was to recognize that the…

This research was a descriptive study in which the researcher explored the beginning phases of Ethnic Studies implementation in a Kindergarten through Eighth grade (K-8) school district in Northern California. Using a social justice lens, and through a review of Ethnic Studies, Collective Efficacy, Critical Consciousness, and School Culture…

Across the landscape of higher education, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused fundamental changes at a variety of scales. To understand which aspects of higher education instruction at the departmental (meso-scale) level were most and least impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, chairs of geoscience departments at public higher education institutions in…

Access to affordable preschool programs is a crucial issue for improving kindergarten readiness for 3- to 5-year-olds, but research shows that the quality of teaching and learning in those programs is just as essential. Across the country, states are boosting preschool policy standards and strengthening educational requirements for preschool…

Clovis Unified School District (USD) serves about 43,000 students in a city just northeast of Fresno. The district is diverse, serving sizeable groups of Latino/a and Hmong students, and 40% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The district's proportion of English learners is below the state average, but students are…

Guidelines for teaching California's students have changed dramatically in recent years, as state leaders have adopted new academic standards, curriculum frameworks, and instructional materials lists in an attempt to better prepare students for college and career. However, adopting high-quality standards and curriculum materials does not guarantee…

The driving force of California's growing innovation economy is talent. However, there is also a growing mismatch between the type of talent in demand and the type of talent in supply. This paper describes why one of California's best options for closing this talent gap is to expand and modernize the State's apprenticeship system. [Additional…

This work attempts to examine instructional leadership from a peer influence perspective within a districtwide network of educational leaders. This approach to instructional leadership supplements a conventional understanding of technical core of professional collaboration. We argue from a social network perspective that individual perception is…

This report documents the results to date of reforms underway from California Community Colleges (CCC)--Strong Start to Finish, one of the six systems that make up the first phase of the Strong Start to Finish initiative, an initiative of Education Commission of the States. Beginning in May 2019, CCC-Strong Start to Finish was created as a…