The world has faced challenges from a variety of viral respiratory illnesses over the past few decades, including the 2002 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and the 2009 swine-origin pandemic (H1N1) influenza. However, the disaster management guidelines for Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs in California were limited to earthquake and fire…

This self-study focuses on two teacher educators' (from the United States) exploration and examination - with the help of two critical friends (faculty from China) - of the benefits and challenges associated with cross-cultural collaboration. The teacher educators designed and implemented a virtual collaborative cross-cultural, fifteen-week…

California Bay Area school districts are experiencing a teacher shortage that threatens to further widen the opportunity gap for schools with the neediest student populations. Financial incentives, administrator support levels, appropriate and consistent professional development, and mentoring are often cited as areas that cause teachers to leave…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to learn about the experiences of ten California elementary teachers engaged in emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study examines previous ERT events from around the world as well as emerging literature about the Covid-19 ERT event. Using iterative thematic…

When the standards reform movement was introduced, researchers postulated the dual methods of rigorous standards and assessment to measure performance on those standards. Through the early part of the 21st century, the standards corpus has grown, and so too have the accompanying testing regimes (Delandshere and Arens, 2001). However, in…

This is the technical appendices to "Destination Integration: Perspectives of Students and Advisors about Improving Academic Advising. Part 2 of a Series on Academic Advising from the CSU Student Success Network." This research explores advising practices on five CSU campuses, expands on the previous report by bringing in the voices of…

The California Next Generation Science Standards (CA NGSS) Toolkit for Instructional Materials Evaluation (TIME) is a suite of tools and processes for evaluating and selecting instructional materials aligned with the CA NGSS. This 11th report in the NGSS Early Implementers Initiative evaluation series is intended for school and district…

Purpose: Community colleges continue to face an ever-changing environment. California Community Colleges are confronted with state initiatives, accountability, and accreditation changes that require integrated planning processes. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the role of communication as perceived by community college…

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) is in the midst of phasing in substantial increases in the contributions made by teachers, school districts, and the state of California. The phase-in period began in 2014-15. In the year prior, 2013-14, the total statutory contribution rate to CalSTRS from all parties was 18.3 percent of…

Although current and former English Learner (EL) or "ever-EL" students comprise one of the fastest-growing K-12 populations, we still know relatively little about the factors that influence their college-going. Using Perna's seminal college-going model as a launching point, we propose a policy-driven empirical approach to explore how…

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder have limited participation in the transition planning process, despite the link between active participation and an improvement in postsecondary education and employment outcomes. The Secondary School Success Checklist was designed to support transition planning for adolescents with autism spectrum…

Over the course of six years, a diverse group of school districts and charter management organizations in California ran a substantial experiment in implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in elementary and middle grades. WestEd led an extensive evaluation of that effort, the California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative,…

The year 2017 saw the publication of one of the strongest endorsements of language education on record: "America's Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century" (henceforth "America's Languages"). Commissioned by a bipartisan group of members of Congress and authored by the Commission on Language Learning of…

Drawing on institutional theory, this study describes how cognitive, normative, and regulative mechanisms shape bilingual teachers' language policy implementation in both English-only and bilingual contexts. Aligned with prior educational language policy research, findings indicate the important role that teachers' beliefs play in the policy…

Background: A San Francisco Bay Area school health initiative was established in fall 2010 to improve wellness programs in 4 local school districts using the Coordinated School Health (CSH) model. This study examines the role of district-wide wellness coordinators and the ways in which they contribute to intentional coordination of health and…