The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office is pleased to present the California Community Colleges report on College and Career Access Pathways. This report is submitted by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office to satisfy the requirements of Assembly Bill 288 (AB 288) and Assembly Bill 30 (AB 30). It includes an…

School finance reforms are not well defined and are likely more prevalent than the current literature has documented. Using a Bayesian changepoint estimator, we quantitatively identify the years when state education revenues abruptly increased for each state between 1960 and 2008 and then document the state-specific events that gave rise to these…

As school systems work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, states continue to grapple with persistent teacher shortages, a lack of teachers of color in the workforce, and high turnover rates undermining recruitment efforts. Teachers' effectiveness and their likelihood of staying in teaching are strongly influenced by the quality of preparation…

In 2016, there was an increasingly dramatic divergence between state economies in the West. Most states in the region benefited from an ongoing economic recovery, but states reliant on the energy sector for tax revenues were hit hard by the global decline in oil prices. This resulted in varying budget situations in legislatures across the…

The outcomes states gain from investing in postsecondary financial aid programs remain hotly debated, leading to great interest in developing programs that are both cost-effective and productive in helping states meet goals. In the 2012-13 academic year, states collectively provided approximately $11.2 billion in financial aid to students enrolled…

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 original paper, "The Role of Counseling Faculty in the California Community Colleges" (1994), provided principled positions of the Academic Senate regarding the essential functions of counselors and the delivery of counseling services in helping students achieve success. The paper concluded with specific guidance on appropriate roles…

California's public colleges and universities are benefitting from the passage of Proposition 30 in 2012, which provides for temporary tax increases through 2018 to help preserve education funding, and will likely benefit from increasing state revenues. While additional funding will allow the three public postsecondary systems (University of…

Under incapacitation theory, higher incarceration rates are expected to correlate with accelerated reductions in crime. California's contemporary incarceration patterns offer an opportunity to analyze the validity of this theory, particularly as it applies to young people. This study focuses on California's juvenile incarceration and crime trends…

This paper profiles California's test score trends through 2008-09. In 2004, the mean scale score on the state 4th grade reading test was 341 for non-Title I students and 315 for Title I students. In 2008, the mean scale score in 4th grade reading was 379 for non-Title I students and 340 for Title I students. Between 2004 and 2008, the mean scale…

California currently faces an opportunity to develop an effective data system that can assist in improving the state's future understanding of the educational progress of English learners (ELs). This policy brief outlines the needs for good data on ELs and makes recommendations for creating an effective longitudinal data system for ELs. It…

According to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, states are required "...to ensure that poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers..." Although the NCLB law and State Education Agencies (SEAs) currently offer very clear definitions of…

This dissertation examined the impact that Proposition 227 had upon the identification and placement of English language learners in Special Education programs in small, necessary Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPAs) in the state of California. Furthermore, this dissertation studied the practices and strategies used by small, necessary…

This study examines trends in Black student achievement and in the Black-White achievement gap over the period 2000 to 2007, employing data from ten states drawn from the NAEP Grade 8 mathematics assessments. Results are obtained for three levels of aggregation: the state, school poverty stratum within the state, and schools within poverty…

Under federal and California law, cost alone cannot be used as a defense for modifying or denying education and support services to a student with a disability. This has contributed to growth in special education spending. However, funding has not kept up with costs, forcing school administrators to "encroach" upon general education…