In this brief, we use data from the 2021 PACE/USC Rossier Poll to report on California voters' attitudes towards and engagement with local school district governance. Generally, our findings show relatively high support for school boards among California voters, although voters were less satisfied with school board performance in the context of…

As the number of student-parents on college campuses continues to rise, college personnel are often unaware of their experiences. This study examines the distress of college students who are expecting or currently are parents of young children and the factors that promote student resilience.With a sample of 422 heterosexual college…

Despite recent calls to more fully incorporate multimodal perspectives into literacies research, there is still limited scholarship examining how students critically engage in reading activities by drawing on embodied practices. Racially and linguistically minoritized students are particularly disadvantaged by dominant logocentric and…

Thriving communities depend on a strong early childhood education (ECE) system--one where both young children and members of the workforce are served and supported. In recent years, state government leaders have increasingly focused on changing qualifications for specific ECE roles, as increasing credential requirements has sometimes been…

While many standardized assessment measures exist to track child mental health treatment outcomes, the degree to which such tools have been adequately tested for reliability and validity across race, ethnicity, and class is uneven. This paper examines the corpus of published tests of psychometric properties for the ten standardized measures used…

Assembly Bill 1705 (AB 1705) seeks to strengthen students' completion of the first STEM Calculus course for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs across the California Community Colleges. The law sets new standards for students' placement and first math enrollment to ensure STEM students begin in transfer-level coursework that…

This technical appendix accompanies the report, "Preparatory Pathways and STEM Calculus Completion: Implications of the AB 1705 Standards." The appendices contain a full methods section and multivariate analyses that augment the descriptive analyses presented in the report. Together, these analyses examined a cohort of more than 37,000…

Utilizing a person-centered approach, the present study explored two-hundred and sixty-five adolescents' reports of self-disclosure, help, conflict, and conflict resolution with a close friend to investigate variability in profiles of friendship quality, whether gender and gender homophily and ethnicity homophily of friends are associated with…

Postsecondary education and career training is increasingly important, with growing polarization of the labor market and forecasts for increasingly skilled workers to meet the needs of the US economy, particularly in California. Additionally, gaps between various student groups in educational access and attainment continue to persist despite…

To evaluate the net effects of classroom disciplinary practices, policy makers and educators must understand not only their effects on disciplined students but also their effects on non-disciplined peers. In this study, we estimate the link between peer suspensions and non-suspended students' learning trajectories in a California school district…

Background and Context: Differences in children's and adolescents' initial attitudes about computing and other STEM fields may form during middle school and shape decisions leading to career entry. Early emerging differences in career interest may propagate a lack of diversity in computer science and programming fields. Objective: Though middle…

High school student participation in dual enrollment--a key strategy for increasing equitable access to postsecondary education and improving readiness for college--has been on the rise in California in recent years. Despite the overall increase in participation, however, large gaps between racial/ethnic subgroups persist. Also of concern, English…

We hope this report will help to renew attention to the problem of excessive discipline. In keeping with this aim, we compare the projected full-year suspension rate for 2019-2020 to rates from prior years. We provide these projected suspension rates for the overall student population in California, and for every racial/ethnic subgroup at the…

Creating engaging student-faculty interactions has been a challenge for instructors teaching at community colleges in the United States. The purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between student-faculty interactions and students' course engagement and completion. To explore this relationship, the research study collected…

California's higher education system depends heavily on community colleges. California enrolls a much larger share of recent high school graduates in community colleges than other states--but is near the bottom when it comes to enrolling in four-year colleges and universities. Transferring to four-year institutions thus plays a vital role in…