The U.S. college-going population has diversified significantly in the past five decades. That fact, combined with a large community college capacity, an increased need for highly skilled workers, and the knowledge that higher education means social and economic mobility, makes improving student success at community colleges essential. All 116…

In this paper we present the Advancing Racial Equity in Community College Model which maps out the organizational conditions shaping institutional transformation. Focused on two dimensions, the level of "organizational support" and "shared responsibility" to enact equity, we describe four quadrants with distinct organizational…

This knowledge brief is part of a continuing series designed to inform California education leaders about new research findings on key state policy topics. To better understand the reopening planning process and other issues related to education during the pandemic, WestEd conducted telephone interviews with County Office of Education (COE)…

Though scholars agree that professional development (PD) is a key mechanism for implementing education policies that call for teacher change, and that PD generally needs to be content-focused, active, collaborative, coherent, and sustained, the application of this framework has yielded mixed results. In this qualitative study, we employed…

For the past six years, California has been revising its preparation system for school and district administrators, including developing the California Administrator Performance Assessment (CalAPA), the first required performance assessment for preliminary administrator certification. In this study, researchers from the California Comprehensive…

Frustrated by their own state's pace and direction of school improvement, eight California districts have banded together to move ahead on rolling out the Common Core State Standards and designing new teacher evaluations based in part on student performance. Known as CORE--the California Office to Reform Education--the member districts also…

Charter schools--what was their original promise? They would enroll diverse groups of students. They would give teachers the room and power to innovate. They would be educational laboratories that would find new ways to reach students, and they would share those lessons with other public schools. But charter schools haven't lived up to their…

Preparing students as 21st century learners is a key reform in education. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed a framework that identifies outcomes needed for successful implementation of rigorous standards. The Dual Language (DL) program was identified as a structure for reform with systems and practices which can be used to prepare…

Since Congress enacted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, the federal government has emphasized states' shared responsibility for improving student achievement. When Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2001 as the No Child Left Behind Act, it called upon states to provide technical support to…

Purpose: Educational leadership is key to addressing the persistent inequities in low-income urban schools, but most principals struggle to work with parents and communities around those schools to create socially just learning environments. This article describes the conditions and experiences that enabled principals to share leadership with…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

This newsletter addresses various supports that districts are utilizing to help keep students in school and on the path to graduation. Described herein are three districts that have been particularly successful in raising student achievement--even though they differ in their specific strategies, fund allocation, and demographic composition. A…

A national arts research agenda is presently substantiating claims about positive academic and social effects. As a result, states such as California responded with legislative activity that included the arts in mandates for educational reform. This was followed by the development of state content standards in dance, music, theater, and the visual…

During the last few years, the development of seamless education systems to promote students' postsecondary success has been discussed by policymakers at the local, state and federal levels as well as reform-minded individuals. Florida, Washington, Iowa, Georgia and California either have statewide integrated systems or are moving quickly toward…

This paper discusses the fact that, in the same decade and despite obvious differences, two separate and distinctive systems of higher education (those of California and the Soviet Union) have been urged by their respective policy making bodies, to make major changes in at least six parallel ways; the paper investigates reasons for this timing and…