States and school districts across the U.S. are seeking to expand their definition of student success to include social-emotional learning. The CORE Districts, a collaborative of California districts that has developed a system of school accountability and continuous improvement that includes measures of social-emotional skills based on student self-reports, exemplify this trend. In this case study, we provide an overview of CORE's School Quality Improvement System, which was implemented in the 2015–16 school year across six districts serving roughly one million students.

The shift towards multiple-measure dashboard accountability has potential for promoting more meaningful learning, but also comes with challenges. Lessons learned from research on CORE Districts show that a shift to flexibility and capacity building efforts has challenges. Oakland Unified School District's approach suggests that districts have agency to modify mindsets by modeling inquiry, openness, and flexibility, giving stakeholders space and authority to manage accountability and improvement.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows states to reshape their school accountability systems. One dominant model is the letter-grade system first adopted by Florida, while California is developing a dashboard-style system that encompasses multiple measures such as student attendance and school climate. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush presents the case for summative ratings, while Heather J. Hough and Michael W. Kirst of PACE stress the importance of multiple measures.

California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) aims to improve educational equity by providing additional funds to districts with disadvantaged students. Districts are required to engage with their communities and develop Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs) to identify priorities and allocate funds. However, there are concerns about the quality of LCAPs, lack of stakeholder involvement, and limited transparency. To improve the effectiveness of LCFF, districts must ensure meaningful stakeholder engagement and use data to guide decision-making.

The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) gives districts funding authority and requires input from stakeholders to create Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs) for equitable resource allocation and improved student outcomes. This report explores stakeholder engagement, implementation challenges, resource allocation, and equity using eight case studies. Despite limitations, this study offers valuable insights into California's K-12 education system's finance and governance.

Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) is a consortium of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from USC Rossier, Stanford, and UC Davis Schools of Education working to improve education policy in California. PACE's focus has been the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which changed the state's K-12 budget allocation. The consortium's strength is in its ability to get research into the hands of decision makers, especially in Southern California, where over a quarter of the state's K-12 students reside.

California and the US are undergoing a cultural shift in school accountability policies towards locally-determined measures of school performance. Lessons can be learned from the CORE districts, which developed an innovative accountability system, emphasizing support over sanctions, and utilizing multiple measures of school quality. The CORE districts' measurement system and collaboration hold promise for improving local systems, but efforts to build capacity remain a work in progress.

ESSA allows states to design accountability systems and measures to meet new college and career readiness goals. With the lack of adequate measures, states will need to develop new measures and structures. The CORE Districts in CA, with its innovative accountability system and waivers from No Child Left Behind, is a model for other states. Reports from CORE-PACE highlight the impact of decisions such as subgroup sizes and test score growth on identifying low-performing schools. States can use the district waiver provision to help develop and refine their accountability systems under ESSA.

This report examines the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and how schools can be identified for support and improvement using a multiple measures framework. The authors find that different academic indicators measure different aspects of school performance and suggest that states should be allowed to use multiple measures instead of a summative rating. They also find that non-academic indicators are not given enough weight and suggest a clarification in federal policy.

This analysis explores predictors of opposition to Common Core Standards (CCS) using data from a California poll. Opposition was found to be strongly associated with views about President Obama, testing, and negative conceptions about the standards. The study suggests using poll data for future understanding of public opinion on education issues.

The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) replaced categorical funding for schools in California in 2013, providing flexibility, targeted student funding, and local accountability. Two years in, research shows optimism and concern. The Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) faces challenges, stakeholders need more engagement, and implementation requires capacity and overcoming the emerging teacher shortage. Public awareness of LCFF lags at 65%.

This article examines the use of student test score data to measure the effects of school principals on student achievement. Multiple models are developed and compared using data from a large urban school district, with results showing the importance of model choice for accurately assessing principal effects. The most conceptually unappealing models that over-attribute school effects to principals align more closely with nontest measures than do approaches that more convincingly separate the effect of the principal from the effects of other school inputs.

The gap between researchers and policy makers is a significant issue. Both sides agree that the current state of affairs is unsatisfactory, but fundamental differences between their orientations and interests inevitably lead to disagreements about which questions merit study and which answers merit attention. The gap finds its origins in intrinsic dilemmas of policy research, making it wide and apparently unbridgeable.

California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) represents a major shift in the state's education system by empowering school districts to allocate funding based on the needs of their students, with added funds for disadvantaged students. The LCFF eliminates categorical funding streams and promotes local democracy by requiring stakeholder engagement. The implementation of the LCFF is still in its early stages, and this study examines how school districts are using their newfound budget flexibility and engaging stakeholders, as well as identifying opportunities and challenges.

This article discusses California's Early Assessment Program (EAP) to improve alignment between K-12 and postsecondary education. EAP provides high school students with information about their academic preparedness for college and encourages teachers to teach for college readiness. Findings show that EAP participation predicts college course placement but few students are ready for college-level work based on the exam. EAP can better serve community college campuses in placing students in developmental coursework.

This study examines how high-quality professional development can promote the diffusion of effective teaching strategies among teachers through collaboration. Drawing on longitudinal and sociometric data from a study of writing professional development in 39 schools, the study shows that teachers’ participation in professional development is associated with providing more help to colleagues on instructional matters. Further, the influence of professional development on participants’ instructional practice diffuses through the network of helping. These findings suggest that in addition to...

This study examines patterns of sorting across classrooms within schools in three large urban school districts. Students are sorted across classrooms by race, poverty status, and prior achievement. Sorting is smaller within schools than across schools, but is still significant, particularly at middle and high school levels. Lower achieving students tend to have more poor and minority peers and less experienced teachers, exacerbating inequalities.

This article analyzes recent education policies to explore trends in intergovernmental relations. The authors argue that federal efforts to exert more control have actually strengthened the influence of local actors, creating a bidirectional relationship between federal, state, and local governments. Local actors have retained and asserted significant control over schooling, despite the expanded federal role in education policy. The article concludes with questions for future research and practice.

This study examines teacher sorting within schools in a large urban district. It finds that less experienced, minority, and female teachers are assigned lower-achieving students than their more experienced, white, and male colleagues. The authors discuss the implications for achievement gaps, teacher turnover, and teacher value-added estimation.

Effective professional development is essential for achieving ambitious student achievement goals in standards-based education reforms. While research has identified key features of effective programs, many districts still offer unfocused and ineffective professional development that wastes limited resources. To deploy effective strategies, districts must first know how much they cost. This article aims to develop an analytical framework for organizing professional development costs and providing a common language for discussing programs.

This study analyzes the impact of the Early Assessment Program (EAP) on the college-going behavior and remediation needs of California high school juniors. Results show that EAP participation reduces the need for remediation at California State Universities by 6.1 percentage points in English and 4.1 percentage points in mathematics. The program does not discourage poorly prepared students from applying to college but rather encourages them to increase their academic preparation in high school.

This article explores the reasons why education has become a central focus of modern societies and the largest public expenditure around the world. The state has built and expanded national education systems, made attending school mandatory, and linked adult success to academic performance. The article delves into the economic factors behind state financing and provision of schools.

This article discusses how teacher recruitment and retention affect the quality of teaching in schools. The supply and demand model, including wages and non-pecuniary job attributes, influences the supply of potential and current teachers. The demand for teachers depends on factors such as student enrollment and institutional constraints such as hiring authorities' skill and efficiency. The article identifies common policy approaches to improve recruitment and retention and summarizes current research on their effectiveness.

Policymakers aim to improve student outcomes through the hiring of highly qualified teachers, but there is little consensus on what qualities make a teacher "good." Research on teacher characteristics that impact student achievement is inconclusive. This article examines recent empirical evidence on teacher quality in education production.

Economics of education has grown in importance over the past two decades, as education is viewed as a critical factor in a nation's economic success. Economics can help improve the productivity of educational institutions by focusing on incentives, choice, and competition. The article reviews important theoretical concepts in the economics of education, including human capital, markets, and education production, and how they have been used in empirical studies.