Technical Reports and Research Briefs
Research Brief
Artificial Intelligence, Learning, and the Future of California Schools
This brief explores the implications of artificial intelligence for California schools, focusing on how AI can support learning while raising important questions about equity, implementation, and future system readiness.
Research Brief
California’s Balance Between State and Local Control
This brief examines California’s balance between state and local control, exploring how governance can better support equity, accountability, and continuous improvement across school systems.
Research Brief
California’s Teacher Workforce: Progress and Persistent Structural Challenges
This brief examines California’s teacher workforce, highlighting progress in addressing shortages while emphasizing persistent structural challenges in recruitment, retention, and equitable teacher distribution.
Research Brief
California Schools in Transition: Enrollment Decline, Climate Pressure, and System Capacity
This brief examines how California’s schools can adapt to enrollment decline, climate pressures, and shifting system capacity while maintaining equitable, high-quality education.
Research Brief
Charter Schools in California: Autonomy, Accountability, and Variation
… of their goals (Hibel and Beberman). This brief synthesizes evidence from Getting Down to Facts III and related research on governance and authorizing, organizational variation, planning and accountability, and differences in outcomes … of short or weakly specified goals. 5. Charter school outcomes vary by context, model, and organizational capacity. Research on California charter schools finds stronger results in some urban areas and among some network-affiliated …
This brief examines California’s charter school system, focusing on the balance between autonomy and accountability and the wide variation in performance and practice across schools.
Research Brief
Curriculum Policy for California Schools
… tools such as SARCs and LCAPs, these data are often not standardized or accessible in ways that support monitoring, research, or improvement. Important gaps remain in understanding curriculum adoption, supplementation, high school …
This brief examines California’s curriculum policies and offers recommendations to improve coherence, quality, and equitable access to high-quality instructional materials across schools.
Research Brief
Education Data in California: Infrastructure, Access, and Use
… substantial variation in local data capacity, staffing, and access to analytical support. County Offices of Education, research partnerships, and third-party providers help fill some of these gaps, but access to those supports varies widely …
This brief examines California’s education data systems, highlighting opportunities to improve data infrastructure, access, and use to support better decision-making and student outcomes.
Research Brief
English Language Arts and Literacy in California: Progress, Capacity, and Implementation
This brief examines English Language Arts and literacy in California, highlighting progress in student performance alongside ongoing challenges in instructional capacity and consistent implementation across schools.
Research Brief
Family and Community Engagement in California: Requirements, Capacity, and Relationships
… schools. Formal engagement structures alone do not ensure meaningful family and community engagement (FCE). Prior research on community engagement through LCFF found that many districts relied on shallow forms of democratic engagement, … from districts to families and communities rather than deliberative decision-making (Marsh et al., 2018). Broader FCE research also points to the potential of families’ and communities’ insights, experiences, and wisdom, while documenting …
This brief examines family and community engagement in California schools, highlighting state requirements, uneven district capacity, and the importance of building stronger relationships to support student success.
Research Brief
From Expansion to Excellence: Addressing Systemic Challenges to Better Serve California’s Youngest Learners
… California and what will be required to move forward. At the heart of that challenge are three recurring issues in the research: fragmented governance, uneven workforce preparation and compensation, and weak data infrastructure. The central … states, and professional development is typically not organized around the job-embedded and sustained approaches that research has found most effective. Meanwhile, TK teachers are held to higher preparation requirements than teachers of …
This brief examines how California can expand and improve early childhood education by addressing systemic challenges to better serve its youngest learners.
Research Brief
Goals for Students and Schools in California: Broad Aspirations, Uneven Translation into Practice
This brief examines how California’s broad goals for student success are inconsistently defined and implemented, creating uneven educational opportunities and outcomes across schools.
Research Brief
Governing for Improvement: Transparency, Alignment, and Accountability in California Education
… tools, coherent regional support, and enough capacity to translate statewide goals into consistent local practice. This research brief synthesizes evidence from Getting Down to Facts III studies of California’s public accountability system, …
This brief examines how California can strengthen education governance by improving transparency, alignment, and accountability to better support systemwide improvement and student outcomes.
Research Brief
High School as a Launch Point: Opportunity, Development, and Redesign in California
This brief examines California high schools as a critical launch point for opportunity, highlighting the need for redesign to better support student development, engagement, and postsecondary pathways.
Research Brief
Improving Instruction in California: Capacity, Coherence, and State Support
This brief explores how California can strengthen instructional improvement by building educator capacity, improving system coherence, and providing more effective state support for schools and districts.
Research Brief
Leadership Stability in California: Capacity, Continuity, and System Coherence
… implement policy coherently, and build organizational capacity. This brief draws on Getting Down to Facts III research to examine trends in school and district leadership in California and their implications for system stability and … over time. 3. Principal turnover remains high and is associated with weaker school conditions and outcomes. Research consistently links principal turnover to increased teacher turnover and declines in student achievement, …
This brief examines leadership stability in California schools, highlighting how capacity, continuity, and system coherence affect school and district improvement efforts.
Research Brief
Mathematics in California: Gaps, Capacity, and Implementation
This brief examines mathematics education in California, highlighting persistent achievement gaps and challenges in instructional capacity and implementation across the state.
Research Brief
Meeting Students Where They Are: The Challenge of Differentiation in California Schools
This brief examines the challenge of differentiation in California schools, emphasizing the need to better meet students where they are through more responsive and personalized instruction.
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.
Research Brief
Student Outcomes in California: Progress, Uneven Recovery, and Persistent Gaps
This brief analyzes student outcomes in California, showing uneven post-pandemic recovery and persistent achievement gaps across student groups and regions.
Research Brief
Student Well-Being in California’s Current Context: Policy, Conditions, and Supports
This brief examines student well-being in California, focusing on current policy conditions and available supports while highlighting gaps in addressing students’ mental health and overall needs.
Research Brief
Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities in California School Finance
This brief examines California’s school finance system, highlighting key successes while identifying ongoing challenges and opportunities to improve equity, adequacy, and transparency in funding allocation.
Research Brief
Supporting California’s Multilingual Learners: Progress, Persistent Gaps, and a Path Forward
… kindergarten, and accountability systems have been enacted with that goal in mind. A synthesis of longitudinal research documents genuine progress: successive cohorts of kindergarten MLEs have shown improvements in English language … with disabilities, and those concentrated in schools with fewer qualified teachers. This brief draws on five recent research reports to examine where California’s progress has been strongest and where critical gaps remain. These reports … designed with sufficient specificity to reach the students who need it most. The sections that follow describe what the research shows and what it suggests about where California’s policy attention might most productively go. Key Findings 1. …
This brief examines how California supports multilingual learners, highlighting progress in instructional and policy efforts while noting persistent achievement gaps and the need for stronger, more consistent supports across schools.