Technical Reports
Academic Gatekeeping of English Learner-Classified Students: The Case of California
This report examines California’s English learner reclassification criteria. It shows how local variation in academic criteria can shape students’ access to academic opportunities.
Assessing Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) Using Generative AI
This report uses generative AI to analyze thousands of LCAP goals and actions across California. It raises important questions about how local planning tools could become more measurable, strategic, and useful for improvement.
California Schools’ Revenue Sources and Constraints
This report explains how California’s revenue structure shapes school funding adequacy, equity, and reliability. It helps clarify why funding levels, revenue volatility, and local constraints matter for districts’ ability to plan and support students.
California's School Facilities in a Changing Climate: Funding, Equity, and Resilience
This report examines school facilities funding, climate resilience, and equity. It highlights how buildings, outdoor spaces, and local fiscal capacity shape students’ learning environments.
California’s System of Special Education Staffing
This report analyzes California’s special education workforce needs across teachers, related service providers, and paraeducators. It highlights strategies for improving recruitment, preparation, role design, and retention.
District Dollars 3: Recent Patterns in California School District Finances, Trends in Teacher Compensation, and Within-District, Between-School Spending
This report analyzes recent trends in California district finances at a moment when school revenues have grown substantially. It shows how rising costs for special education, employee benefits, and retiree obligations shape what districts can do with new resources.
Education Data Needs, Availability, and Access in California
This report reviews California’s progress in building statewide education data systems. It identifies opportunities to make data more connected, accessible, and useful for families, educators, policymakers, and researchers working to improve student outcomes.
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.
Multilingual Learners of English with Disabilities in California: Patterns in Enrollment, Opportunities, Outcomes, and County-Level Variation
This report examines the educational experiences of multilingual learners with disabilities. It highlights enrollment trends, demographic characteristics, and indicators of educational opportunities and outcomes. Implications for identification, reclassification, services, and long-term pathways from elementary school through college are discussed.
Multilingual Learners of English: Progress of California's English Learners and the Resources That Support Their Educational Achievements
This report examines the progress of California’s English learners over time. It connects student outcomes to the resources, staffing, and policies that support stronger multilingual learner trajectories.
Paraeducators in California: Current Trends and Recommendations for Policy
This report examines California’s growing paraeducator workforce, which is increasingly central to student support. It identifies ways to strengthen training, role clarity, compensation, professional support, and career pathways.
Pensions and California Public Schools, 2026
This report analyzes how rising pension costs affect California school district budgets. It shows how obligations from the past can shape the resources available for current students, staff, and programs.
Public Accountability in California: Evaluating the SARCs and the California School Dashboard
This report evaluates California’s public accountability tools, including the Dashboard and School Accountability Report Cards. It considers how these tools could become clearer, more usable, and more actionable for families, educators, and policymakers.
Re-Envisioning California’s County Offices of Education
This report examines the evolving role of county offices of education in California’s education system. It considers how county offices can serve as both support providers and accountability partners for districts.
Redesigning Special Education: Leveraging Technology for Flexibility, Equity, and Inclusive Designs for Learning
This report explores how technology could support more flexible, inclusive, and responsive special education systems. It emphasizes that technology is most promising when paired with strong guidance, educator support, equity protections, and attention to students’ rights.
Structuring Charter School Accountability: How State Policy Shapes Authorizer Practice in California
This report examines how California’s charter authorizing system works in practice. It considers how state policy can support clearer expectations, more consistent oversight, and stronger accountability.
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.
The Special Education Assessment Conundrum
This report examines special education assessment practices and the role they play in students’ educational experiences. It asks how eligibility processes could better inform instruction and ongoing support.
Who Benefits from Public PreK Expansions & Increased K-5 Spending? Dynamic Complementarity in California’s Education Policies
This report shows how California's investments in CSPP, TK, and elementary school spending delivered substantial, equity-enhancing gains in student achievement, and their effects reinforce one another across the preschool and early elementary grades. The results suggest that sequenced public investments in educational opportunity can produce developmental multiplier effects that exceed the sum of their independent effects.
Who Governs California’s Schools? A Cross‑State Map of Supervision, Administration, and Implementation in CA, FL, NY, and TX
This report maps California’s school governance system in comparison with other large states. It shows how authority, supervision, and implementation responsibilities are distributed across a complex set of actors.