SPECIAL EVENT:

PACE is turning 25!
	Please join us to commemorate this occasion with a conference marking the release of PACE's signature publication, Conditions of Education. The conference will be held at the Sheraton Grand Hotel at 1230 J Street in Sacramento (map) from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM on October 2, 2008. Please reply as soon as possible to let us know if you'll be joining us by sending an RSVP email to PACE.

PACE Seminar Series:
Seminars for Education Policymakers and Scholars 2007-2008

The current series has concluded. Please check back soon for our next seminar series listings!

Unless otherwise noted, all PACE seminars are held at 1130 K Street (Old Weinstock's Building) from 11:30-1:30 P.M. Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to sadiep@sia-us.com or Phone 916.669.5418

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Recent Seminars

July 11, 2008
ìAlternative High Schoolsî
Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco and Milbrey McLaughlin

Milbrey McLaughlin from Stanford and Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco from the Earl Warren Institute in the Law School at Berkeley will present their policy brief on alternative high schools.

Each year, more than 10% of California's public high school students attend some kind of "alternative" program, most notably continuation, community, and community day schools.

The California Alternative Education Research Project is an ongoing effort to examine California's alternative education system in order to shed light on these programs and raise important issues regarding hoe the state's public schools are meeting the needs of California's most vulnerable teenagers.

This seminar reviews the project's initial research study. Alternative Education Options: A Descriptive Study of California Continuation High Schools. It looks at the study's finings about the students who attend these programs and their academic achievement, and it also describes their basic structure and the policy context for these schools, the largest of California's alternative programs.

April 11, 2008
“Turning Around Low-Performing Schools”
Bruce Fuller - U.C. Berkeley and PACE

Bruce Fuller is a Co-director of PACE and a Professor of Education and Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley. The number of California schools that are subject to sanctions under state and federal accountability policies is steadily growing as is the number of interventions aimed at improving their performance. In this seminar Fuller will convene a panel to discuss current strategies in California for improving the performance of low-performing schools, and their prospects for success.

March 7, 2008
“Reforming California’s High Schools to Reduce Dropout Rates”
Russell W. Rumberger - UC – Santa Barbara

Russell W. Rumberger is Professor of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Director of the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute. He is also the Director of the California Dropout Research Project. The CDRP seeks to identify the causes and costs of dropping out, and to develop policies that would increase the number of young people who complete their high school education. In this seminar Dr. Rumberger will review the main findings from the CDRP, and discuss strategies for reforming high schools and reducing the rate of dropout.

February 1, 2008
“Untangling School Governance”
Dominic Brewer - University of Southern California

Dominic Brewer's research on educational policy issues has included work on charter schools, class-size reduction, and teacher labor markets, among other subjects. Dr. Brewer contributed a wide-ranging study of California school governance to “Getting Down to Facts,” which evaluated the state’s governance system on five key criteria: stability, accountability, responsiveness, transparency, and efficiency. In this seminar, Dr. Brewer reviews the main findings from his study, and identifies strategies that might strengthen California’s school governance system over time.

January 11, 2008
“Making Resources Count”
Goodwin Liu, Assistant Professor of Law at UC Berkeley
Michael Kirst, Professor Emeritus of Education and Buisness at Stanford
Jon Sonstelie, Professor of Economics at UC Santa Barbara

The Getting Down to Facts studies made it clear that California ’s schools finance system is in need of fundamental reforms. In PACE’s January 11 seminar a team from the Warren Institute at the University of California, Berkeley will present their proposal for a new school finance system that links district revenue to student needs and regional costs, while holding all districts harmless at current funding levels. The seminar will be presented by Goodwin Liu, Assistant Professor of Law at UC Berkeley; Michael Kirst, Professor Emeritus of Education and Business at Stanford and Founding Director of PACE; and Jon Sonstelie, Professor of Economics at UC Santa Barbara.

December 14, 2007
“Policies to Support Better Teaching”
Julia Koppich - Koppich and Associates

Julia Koppich is an expert on teacher professionalism and the new teacher unionism, and a regular consultant to policy-makers and teachers associations across the United States and abroad. Better teaching is the key to improving the academic performance of schools and students, and the “Getting Down to Facts” studies identified a number of obstacles to better teaching in California’s education system. In this seminar Dr. Koppich will discuss policy options that might help to overcome these obstacles and support effective instruction for all students.

October 12, 2007
“The Economic Consequences of School Performance”
Eric Hanushek - Hoover Institution

In this seminar Dr. Hanushek will present data on how California’s schools compare to schools elsewhere, and explain why school improvement is essential for our state’s economic future.