February 10, 2009 – 2:21 pm
In a new PACE Policy Brief, Katharine Strunk from the University of California-Davis analyzes the Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) negotiated between school districts and local teachers’ unions in 464 California school districts. She shows that CBAs vary widely across districts, which suggests that school boards and unions are taking advantage of the flexibility inherent in contract negotiations to develop creative solutions to specific local problems. She also shows that CBAs in school districts educating high-need students are the least likely to include provisions that depart from conventional policies. She concludes by identifying three policy levers that the state can use to ensure that increased local flexibility is used to advance the interests of students: dissemination of information about ‘best practices,’ incentives for innovation on matters covered by CBAs, and sanctions for districts that abuse increased flexibility.
In a new PACE Policy Brief, Susanna Loeb and David N. Plank argue that to raise student performance and satisfy public expectations California’s education system must be transformed into a continuously improving system that encourages innovation, carefully measures the impact of different policies and practices, and—most importantly—learns from experience. Loeb and Plank identify the essential features of a continuously improving system, which include clear and specific goals, timely and reliable data, strong capacity to support change, decision-making flexibility, and aligned incentives. They explain how each of these features supports continuous improvement, and discuss the differences between a continuously improving system and the education system that California has now.
In this PACE Policy Brief, Julia E. Koppich puts forward a set of policy recommendations aimed at improving the quality of teaching in California’s schools. She argues that California can help to bring about sustained improvement in teaching and learning by experimenting with new policies in several areas, including professional development, evaluation, compensation, and the structure of teachers’ careers. Her policy brief includes descriptions of innovative programs in each of these areas that are now being implemented in school districts across the U.S. As Koppich notes, many of the changes that she proposes will have to be negotiated at the local level, in bargaining between school boards and teachers unions. The state can nevertheless play a critical role by providing incentives to support policy innovation, by carefully evaluating the effectiveness of alternative policies, and by developing partnerships and networks to share new knowledge about effective policies and practices.
February 2, 2008 – 3:56 pm
Jennifer Imazeki of San Diego State University analyzes recent performance trends in California’s education system in Meeting the Challenge: Performance Trends in California Schools, a new PACE Policy Brief. Imazeki shows that California students have generally held steady or improved their academic performance across grades and subject areas in recent years, in spite of growing financial and demographic challenges in the state’s schools. Per pupil spending in California is well below the national average, and the ratio of adults to children in the system is lower than in almost any other state. A majority of California’s students are poor, and nearly one quarter are English learners. Despite these challenges, scores on state and national assessments have been rising, not only on average but for poor and minority students as well. The number of students taking advanced courses in math and science has increased, and so has the number of students satisfying the “a-g” requirements for admission to the University of California or California State University. Performance levels in California’s schools continue to fall short of the state’s ambitious educational goals, and the need for systemic reforms remains urgent, but the performance gains that Imazeki documents testify to the commitment and hard work of the California’s educators.
February 1, 2008 – 3:49 pm
A PACE Policy Brief by Susanna Loeb, Tara Beteille and Maria Perez of Stanford University explains why California must accelerate its efforts to create an effective data system for collecting and using vital school information. Building an Information System to Support Continuous Improvement in California Public Schools highlights the elements of an effective data system, with a particular focus on issues related to data collection. It reveals that despite efforts to improve California’s education data system, the state continues to lag behind other states in data collection and management, in policy evaluation and data use and in funding for local school districts to support the collection and maintenance of reliable education data. The authors show that valuable lessons can be learned from the high quality data systems that have been created in other states, and in organizations in both the public and private sectors. They argue that data, if used wisely, can help to transform California’s education system.
A new PACE Policy Brief by Anne Driscoll of the University of California at Davis explains why California must do more than expand access to community college if our state is to prepare the workforce needed to remain economically competitive in the 21st century. Beyond Access: How the First Semester Matters for Community College Students’ Aspirations and Persistence shows that fewer than half of the young high school graduates who entered California community colleges with the goal of transferring to four-year colleges in 1998 made it through their first semester with their goals intact. One quarter of these young people did not return for the second semester, and barely half of those who returned still planned to transfer to four-year schools. Approximately 40 percent of those who aspired to transfer to four-year colleges when they entered community college ultimately achieved their goal. Driscoll’s analysis illuminates the decisive importance of the first semester in students’ post-secondary academic careers, and suggests that providing additional guidance and support to students as they enter college for the first time could yield big dividends in terms of student persistence and eventual transfer.
A PACE Policy Brief by W. Norton Grubb and David Stern. Career-technical education (CTE) is back in the policy spotlight, as Governor Schwarzeneggger and key legislators seek strategies to strengthen California’s much-criticized high schools. Some forms of CTE that integrate academic with occupational content could usefully be expanded to provide high school students with multiple pathways to college and careers. This strategy, which we call “CTE/multiple pathways,” is more feasible and desirable for California high schools than other approaches to CTE — including the traditional vocational education of the past century, the “dual” systems developed in Austria and Germany, or the sophisticated technical training provided in community colleges.
