The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) has amassed a $107 billion "debt" due to the accrual of pension liabilities. CalSTRS contributions are legislated to nearly double by 2021. The higher rates are required through 2046, requiring significant contributions from teachers, school districts, and the state government. Solutions involve reducing benefits, increasing contribution rates, or modifying the underlying benefit structure. California could consider reforms from other states to develop its own policy response.

California's education system faces challenges in leadership development, with defunded professional development programs leading to inexperienced and high-turnover principals, particularly in high-poverty schools. Studies show that effective principals improve student learning, but current professional development opportunities are insufficient. Many principals seek more support, with rural areas receiving less coaching and development. Promising results have been seen from stronger state standards for administrator education programs.

California has implemented new academic standards for English, math, and science, and changed how school districts are funded and held accountable. Educators face challenges implementing these standards, requiring changes in teaching, learning, and instructional materials. Teachers need professional development, improved instructional support, and collaborative learning opportunities. School principals play a key role in implementation and depend on district support. Despite positive perceptions, progress requires staying the course to let the standards take root.

CA is shifting the responsibility for school improvement to local school districts with County Offices of Education playing a supportive role. The focus is on local leaders driving educational improvement and ensuring quality. Strategic data use is central to the implementation of this policy, with questions remaining about what data is needed, by whom, and for what purpose. This paper provides a framework for how data use for improvement is different from data use for accountability and shares lessons from the CORE Data Collaborative on how to use data for improvement in networked structures.

This report commemorates the fifth anniversary of the Getting Down to Facts project, which sought to provide a thorough and reliable analysis of the critical challenges facing California’s education system as the necessary basis for an informed discussion of policy changes aimed at improving the performance of California schools and students. The report focuses on the four key issues that received emphasis in the Getting Down to Facts studies: governance, finance, personnel, and data systems.

Getting Down to Facts is an extensive investigation of CA's public education system commissioned by a bipartisan group of CA leaders. The project aimed to describe California's school finance and governance systems, identify obstacles hindering resource utilization, and estimate costs to achieve student outcome goals. The project resulted in 23 reports by scholars, which highlight that the current school finance and governance systems fail to help students achieve state performance goals, particularly those from low-income families. The reports provide a framework for assessing reform options.

This article highlights the lack of systematic evaluations of the relationship between educational governance and student outcomes. The authors provide a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of governance systems, drawing from previous research and interviews with stakeholders in California's educational system. The aim is to guide potential policy changes and inform future studies of educational governance.

This policy brief proposes a more rational and equitable school finance system for California that links district revenue to student needs and regional costs. The proposal aims to ensure that all districts are held harmless at current funding levels while providing essential backdrop for broader reform issues. The brief discusses the problems with the current finance system, the principles and concepts that guide the reform, and simulations of how it might work in practice. The report shows that significant improvement in the finance system can be achieved with modest new investment.

This report examines the fiscal and labor resources of California principals and how they acquire and utilize them to improve student performance. The authors seek to understand the background characteristics and educational goals of California principals, as well as the types of monetary, human, and informational resources they acquire and how they allocate these resources within their schools. The report also explores the support and constraints that principals experience from various actors as they attempt to acquire and deploy resources to raise student performance.

This report focuses on estimating the costs for California school districts to meet state-set achievement goals and how these costs differ across districts with different student characteristics. The study uses an econometric cost function approach to estimate base costs and marginal costs associated with poverty, English learners, and special education. The findings are compared with cost studies in other states and used to analyze whether the current school finance system appropriately accounts for cost differentials across districts.

The report explores the impact of teacher sorting, or the tendency for high-achieving students to be assigned to more effective teachers, on student achievement. It finds that teacher sorting has a significant positive effect on student achievement in both math and English language arts. The effects are particularly strong for students who start out low-achieving. The report argues that policies aimed at reducing teacher sorting, such as random assignment of students to teachers, may be counterproductive for student achievement.