Welcome!
No front page content has been created yet.
Follow the User Guide to start building your site.
Follow the User Guide to start building your site.
Informing Policy, Improving Practice for California Students
Toward a Stronger Next Generation of California Education
California is at an inflection point in education. Over the past two decades, the state has built stronger foundations through more equitable school funding, stronger standards and assessments, expanded early childhood education, improved data systems, and investments in community schools, early literacy, and the educator workforce. Yet California now faces a different question: whether those stronger foundations can support a public education system prepared for a very different future. Work is changing quickly, student engagement and well-being remain fragile after the pandemic, and federal commitments to civil rights, student welfare, and accountability have become less certain.
What the Research Shows
Across 55 studies, this body of work examines the conditions, practices, and systems that drive impact. The findings provide a rigorous evidence base to inform decision-making at the state, district, and school levels.
Technical Report
The Fiscal Consequences of School Closures in California: Evidence from a Statewide Synthetic Difference-in-Differences Design
This report examines whether school closures improve district finances. It offers evidence to inform more careful decision-making as districts respond to enrollment decline and community change.
Research Brief
Special Education in California: Growth, Capacity, and Equity
This brief examines the growth of special education in California, highlighting increasing demand alongside ongoing challenges in capacity, funding, and equitable access to services for students with disabilities.
Technical Report
Who Stays, Who Leaves: Five-year Retention Patterns by Teacher Entry Pathways
This report follows teachers across their first five years in the profession. It shows how entry pathways, preparation, and school context shape early-career retention and the stability of the teacher workforce.
Technical Report
Learning from California’s Prior Reading Reforms
This report studies California’s recent literacy initiatives and what can be learned from their design. It shows that professional learning, funding, planning, and support can improve reading outcomes.
Technical Report
Strategic School Staffing in California: Opportunities and Barriers
This report examines the evidence on strategic school staffing, a framework for rethinking how schools organize educators’ roles, time, and pay to better align teacher expertise with student needs. It presents evidence of demonstrated impact on teacher and student outcomes, investigates California principals' interest in and perceived barriers to implementation, and concludes with implications for state policy to further support more innovative staffing.
Technical Report
Mandatory Regionalization and Its Limits: How California Districts Experience and Navigate Special Education Governance
This report provides evidence on how California’s SELPAs serve important administrative, compliance, and service-coordination roles that are only partially visible in current reporting. It identifies substantial variation in SELPA spending and supports, pointing to policy changes that could strengthen transparency, accountability, and equitable access to regional special education services.