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.
Adolescence and the Reimagined High School: Scientific Perspectives on Development, Learning, and Civic Reasoning
This report draws on developmental science, neuroscience, and field studies of California secondary teachers, along with organizational research, to identify how high school design influences possibilities for adolescent development, including the development of transcendent thinking. It describes how schools designed around relationships, meaningful inquiry, civic reasoning, identity development, and purpose can support more powerful learning for adolescents.
Adoption Windows and Reform: California’s Math Pathways in the Post-Common Core Era
This report studies changes to middle and high school math pathways after the Common Core transition. It shows how decisions about the timing of Algebra I and the structure of high school courses can shape students’ achievement and opportunity in advanced mathematics.
AI and Education across California Schools: Calls for More Professional Development and AI Literacy
This report documents how AI is already entering California schools. It highlights the need for clear policies, professional learning, and AI literacy so that adoption is guided by educational purpose rather than left to chance.
Beyond the Whole Class: Systematizing Engaging, Individualized Support at Scale
This report examines high-impact tutoring and individualized support. It asks how California can organize staffing, time, and instruction to meet students where they are more consistently.
California Community Schools: Past, Present, and Early Impacts of the California Community Schools Partnership Program
This report examines the impact of California's $4.1 billion investment in community schools and illustrates how local leaders leveraged state funds to drive these outcomes. It highlights how the strategy has enabled early adopter sites to improve chronic absence and achievement, with historically underserved student groups (including Black students and Engish learners) benefitting the most.
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.
Curriculum Adoption and Implementation in California
This report examines how California districts and teachers select and use instructional materials. It highlights opportunities to strengthen guidance, quality, and implementation support so curriculum choices better serve instruction.
Does Your Math Pathway Make a Difference? High School Mathematics and College Outcomes
This report studies high school math pathways and their relationship to college enrollment. It highlights how four years of math and access to advanced coursework can expand opportunity, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
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.
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.
Material Hardship, Emotional Distress, and Early Learning Supports Among California Families with Young Children: Evidence from the RAPID California Voices Survey
This report uses the RAPID California Voices Survey to examine the lives of families with young children. It connects material hardship, emotional well-being, and early learning supports to broader questions about how California can support children before they enter school.
Multilingual Learners learning English: What can California learn from other states?
This report compares California with other states to identify policy options for supporting multilingual learners. It focuses on teacher expertise, funding, program access, and the structures that make multilingual learner policy more actionable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Supporting Immigrant-Origin Students in California’s Schools
This report examines immigrant-origin students’ educational experiences in California schools. It highlights the preparation, policies, and supports educators need to serve students and families of immigrant backgrounds well.
Teacher Preparation for English Learners and Bilingual Education in California Schools
This report examines California’s preparation system for teachers of English learners and bilingual classrooms. It highlights regional access, teacher qualifications, and the preparation needed to support multilingual instruction.
The Learning Experiences that Matter and AI’s Role
This report asks how AI might support the learning experiences students most need, including targeted direct instruction, and caring and supportive relationships. Rather than treating AI as a standalone tool, it considers how technology could become part of the infrastructure that helps schools create richer learning at scale.
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.