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Originally founded as a private means for diplomats' children to earn an internationally recognized high school diploma, today the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) serves students from a variety of backgrounds in 144 countries. The IB mission and Learner Profile--consisting of ten attributes to foster in students--suggest that development of students' citizenship is the core purpose of an IB education. In this study, in four public schools in California that offer the DP, I interviewed DP Coordinators, teachers (n = 15) and students (n = 24) to learn their perspectives about how and the extent to which the DP develops students' citizenship. I also surveyed students using items that were administered as part of other surveys to large samples of high school-enrolled 17 and 18 year olds. The results indicate that the DP's heavy pedagogical reliance on discussions, debates, oral presentations, written assignments and teamwork, enables students to develop many of the skills that are necessary for civic advocacy. Results also indicate that the DP places a strong emphasis on students' knowledge of issues related to public policy. Interview results indicate that the DP does not seem to strongly prioritize students' knowledge of U.S. government structure and functioning. The student survey results, however, show that compared to nationally representative samples of similarly aged 12th-grade students, the sample of IB students scored higher on nine of ten items that tested their knowledge of U.S. government history and functioning. The DP develops students' citizenship through promoting their awareness of political and social issues and required active engagement with a local or global issue. Most IB students and teachers feel that the DP develops students' academic civic mindedness and model citizenship to a considerably greater extent than other curricular alternatives (including California College Prep and Advanced Placement courses). Finally, teachers feel that the strongest limitation to their prioritization of students' citizenship development is their lack of clarity on how to frame the civic implications of the knowledge, skills and attitudes they seek to develop. The paper includes the following appendices: (1) Student interview protocol; (2) Teacher interview protocol; (3) Student survey; and (4) Student survey details.

With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the new English Language Development (ELD) standards, California has embarked on its third wave of major curriculum reform, continuing a process that began with the initial round of curriculum frameworks in the 1980s and that continued with the adoption of the California State Standards, the Public School Accountability Act, and "No Child Left Behind." Much about California's context has changed since the State adopted the Common Core in 2010. Each of these changes present new challenges and opportunities for districts as they design and implement a plan for implementing CCSS. With Proposition 30, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and the new categorical grant for CCSS implementation, districts are finally emerging from the one of the worst financial crises in the state's history with resources to dedicate to Common Core. The other major change in the context has been an increase in local control over how to design and implement change initiatives like Common Core. This paper discusses the need for a whole systems approach to CCSS implementation, which includes addressing design challenges. To assist districts in meeting the challenges posed by Common Core, Pivot provides comprehensive support for CCSS design and implementation, including but not limited to training and coaching. This paper provides details regarding how Pivot supports districts in this area. Districts will need to act strategically and proactively to design a new model for managing the transition to CCSS, one that enrolls site administrators and teacher leaders to play a more active role in designing and implementing change at the site level.

Using two sources of representative data: the 2005 National Household Education Survey and the 2007 RAND California Preschool Study, this paper describes child care and early learning arrangements for the approximately 2.8 million California children ages 0 to 5 who are younger than the age at which they would enter kindergarten. The focus is on nonparental care arrangements, whether they occur in a home-based or center-based setting. The paper also uses administrative data as of 2008 to calculate participation in the various publicly subsidized programs available to qualifying children and their families. (Contains 4 tables and 7 footnotes.)

While increases in remedial education (or basic skills instruction or developmental education) have taken place at several levels of the education and training system, there are reasons for thinking that the issue is particularly acute in community colleges. This introductory working paper divides the problem into two. The first is the high proportion--perhaps 60 percent for the country, and 80 percent in California--of students entering colleges who assess into developmental courses. This can be explained by the pattern of dynamic inequality in American education, where inequalities among students increase as the move through the system. The second problem arises from the evidence that students entering a remedial trajectory are unlikely to move into college-level work, so remediation has become a serious barrier to success for many students. Unfortunately, like other second-chance efforts, basic skills instructions often works under difficult conditions, and there are many hypotheses about why success rates in basic skill are not higher--most of which will be examined in this series of papers. Since developmental education is first and foremost an instructional issue, this series of papers rests on a conceptual foundation focusing on the--triangle of instruction, considering the instructor, students, and content within a set of institutional influences. The underlying research for these papers involves classroom observation, and interviews with instructors and administrators, to understand both classroom settings and the institutional setting. This framing paper then introduces the subjects for remaining papers in the series. The methodology of the study is appended. (Contains 2 figures and 17 footnotes.) [For the "Basic Skills Instruction in Community Colleges: The Dominance of Remedial Pedagogy. Working Paper, Number 2", see ED523552.]

A previous working paper argued, that, to understand basic skills education, it is necessary to observe classrooms to see what the "instructional triangle" involving the instructor, students, and content is like. This working paper presents the results of observing classes in 13 community colleges. It starts with a conceptualization of instruction, distinguishing behaviorist teaching, constructivist teaching, and hybrid teaching that combines the two (as well as several other dimension of quality), and provides various reasons why hybrid or constructivist teaching is likely to be more effective than behaviorist teaching. One notable feature of remedial classrooms is the consistent encouragement and support of students. Sometimes this takes the form of support classes or Student Success courses, but often it is simply part of common instructional practice. However, the majority of basic skills classes follow what the authors call "remedial pedagogy"--drill and practice on sub-skills, usually devoid of any references to how these skills are used in subsequent courses or in adult roles. Remedial pedagogy takes different forms in math, reading, writing, and ESL (where it is least common). Unfortunately, remedial pedagogy violates many of the precepts of effective instruction presented in the first section of this paper, so there are reasons to think that this approach is partly responsible for the lack of success in developmental education. The methodology of the study is appended. (Contains 1 figure and 24 endnotes.) [For the "Understanding the "Crisis" in Basic Skills: Framing the Issues in Community Colleges. Basic Skills Instruction in California Community College. Working Paper, Number 1", see ED523553.]

The Governor, members of the legislature and other key stakeholders have identified concerns about the State of California's approach to funding K-12 school facilities, but they have not yet formulated a consensus going forward on the state role and responsibilities for school district facilities. To inform the school facilities funding policy debate this policy brief proposes the following principles to guide policy decisions about the State of California's facility funding role and provides an analysis of school facility indicators: (1) Equity; (2) Local District Effort and Accountability; (3) Fiscal Stability and Predictability; (4) Facilities Adequacy; and (5) Program Simplicity. [For the full paper, "Guided by Principles. Shaping the State of California's Role in K-12 Public School Facility Funding. Full Policy Research Working Paper," see ED573775.]

This paper is about the funding status of teachers' retirement pension schemes. Its goal is to relate the accounting for the funding of these pension obligations to the endemic, systematic, and fundamentally fraudulent system of accounting our country uses to assess the financial positions of federal, state, and local government as well as many financial and non-financial private enterprises. Indeed, the paper argues that fraudulent accounting and misrepresentation is the defining element of Ponzi schemes and the real reason we find such schemes repugnant. Furthermore, any public or private enterprise that engages in fundamentally fraudulent accounting can fairly be characterized as running a Ponzi scheme. In this regard, it seems fully appropriate to characterize many, if not most, teachers' retirement plans as Ponzi schemes. (Contains 17 footnotes.)

The charter school movement is a lightning rod of controversy for many in the education community. The debate over these schools often appears to be driven by theory and ideology, with little information on how the reform itself is affecting students. Claims and counterclaims often leave parents, educators, and policymakers confused. This occasional paper adds clarity to the debate by consolidating the results from the RAND Corporation's comprehensive assessment of charter schools. The remainder of this occasional paper is divided into four sections. Section one describes what charter schools are and how they operate. Section two explains the debate over charter schools among educators and policymakers. Section three addresses the answers to five fundamental questions about the effects of charter schools. The final section summarizes the results and offers conclusions. (Contains 4 footnotes.) [Research included in this paper was also sponsored by the California Legislative Analyst's Office.]

Everyone knows that student achievement often suffers when children and families move, leaving behind their school and neighborhood, yet, in urban districts like Los Angeles, mobility is now encouraged by the development of mixed-markets of diverse schools, including charter, pilot, and magnet schools in. Over 60 new school facilities were opened as well during 2002-2008 period, thanks to a $27 billion construction program undertaken by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In this paper, the authors first assess how student attributes and differing school organizations, varying by type and quality, influence the rates of student exit prior the end their school's grade cycle within elementary and secondary schools. They estimate the discrete influence of student factors and school types on the likelihood that pupils leave their school, using what are known as hazard-rate models, based on 4.5 million person-period observations. They find contrasting patterns of student mobility along ethnic lines: African American and White students were more likely to exit their school, compared with Latino, non-English speaking, and foreign-born students, yet students attending overcrowded schools--disproportionately situated in low-income Latino neighborhoods--exited at higher rates. Charter and magnet school students left their schools at much lower rates, compared with peers in regular schools, after taking into account prior effects of family background. The opening of new high schools slowed student mobility substantially. Furthermore, they discuss implications for conceptualizing student mobility--especially the capacity of charter and magnet schools to slow student mobility--as diverse portfolios of schools come to characterize urban areas like Los Angeles. Various grade structures for LAUSD schools are appended. (Contains 4 figures, 7 tables and 11 endnotes.)

In this paper, we investigate the effects of teacher characteristics and school context on the timing of teachers' decisions to exit schools where they teach. The two-level discrete time survival analysis framework allows for simultaneous examinations of who exits, when, and under what conditions. Our results for a large sample of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District observed from 2002-03 to 2008-09 affirm the importance of school context such as type of school (e.g., charter) and school organizational characteristics (e.g., teacher-students racial match in some context), above and beyond individual teacher characteristics and qualifications. In addition, differences in the relationship between some factors and teacher turnover are observed between elementary and secondary teachers. Data merging process is appended. (Contains 7 tables, 3 figures and 3 footnotes.)

One of the continuing areas of controversy surrounding higher education is affirmative action. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear "Fisher v. Texas," and their ruling may well influence universities' diversity initiatives, especially if they overturn "Grutter v. Bollinger" and rule that diversity is no longer a "compelling state interest." But what lies behind a compelling state's interest? One issue that continues to require more information is estimating and understanding the gains for those attending colleges and universities with greater diversity. Most existing studies are either based on evidence from one institution, which has issues of both selectivity and limited "treatments," or focus on selective institutions, which also face issues of selection bias from college choice behaviors. In this research we use Wave 3 of Add Health, collected in 2001-02 of those then attending college. Add Health collected the IPEDS number of each college and matched these to the racial/ethnic composition of the student body. We convert these data into an index of diversity and then ask whether attending a college/university with a more diverse student body influences a variety of outcomes at Wave 4 (2007-08), including years of schooling completed, earnings, family income, composition of friends, and probability of voting. Our results provide evidence of a positive link between attending a college with greater diversity and higher earnings and family income, but not with more schooling or the probability of voting. An appendix contains two data tables: (1) Listing Carnegie Categories and Average Unweighted ELF [ethnolinguistic fractionalization] for Each Category; and (2) Results on Income and Earnings for Those Who Attended a 4-Year Institution, Controlling for Quality of the Institution.

This paper exploits a major, unanticipated reform of the California teachers' pension to provide quasi-experimental evidence on the link between pension generosity and retirement timing. Using two large administrative datasets, the author conducts a reduced-form analysis of the pension reform and estimates a structural model of retirement timing. With both methods, the author finds that the rise in the price of retirement had a positive, but relatively small effect on the fraction of people retiring later. The implied estimates of the elasticity of retirement age with respect to the price of retirement are 0.02 in the medium-run and 0.10 in the long-run. With the baby boomers reaching retirement age, public officials and private pension managers are scrambling to design policy that will reduce the burden of pension obligations on younger workers and shareholders, while still fulfilling the promises made to those nearing retirement. The proposed reforms will inevitably alter key pension financial incentives faced by members, such as the reward for an additional year of work, making the degree to which these incentives affect retirement timing central to the policy debate. (Contains 8 figures, 3 tables, and 53 footnotes.)

The ongoing debates about the future of social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare raise questions about the public's knowledge of the history of social insurance and about the impact these programs have on millions of Americans. In general, public conversations about social policies in the U.S. tend to focus on whether or not the nation can afford entitlements to social insurance rather than on the adequacy of benefits or on program improvements. Many American youth believe that Social Security will not be there for them when they grow older, a stark indicator that young people are not exposed to accurate information about the future of the program. The prevalence of this false belief about America's "most beloved" social insurance program raises questions about whether and to what extent students are exposed to information about social insurance and, consequently, how prepared they are to understand its effects on their security in later life. As an intergenerational collective of educators in and students of gerontology, the authors recognize the transformative power of education to provide students of all ages access to knowledge that allows them to more actively engage in their communities. They believe that teaching social insurance is integral to the mission of institutions of higher education to prepare students for participation in the political, civic, and economic realms of social life. Consequently, they designed two complementary research projects to assess the frequency and content of teaching social insurance in college-level, aging-related courses: the first was a survey of gerontology faculty in California and Minnesota and the second was a series of key informant interviews with noted authors from the field of gerontology who have published widely on social insurance and/or teaching social insurance education. Consequently, in the study and the presentation of the results that is provided here, they focused primarily on teaching social insurance within those classes that can be broadly described as "aging courses." In this paper, they use the results of both of these studies to argue that faculty who teach age related courses, and presumably faculty in other disciplines, need more awareness of and greater access to existing resources on teaching social insurance. A bibliography is included. (Contains 3 footnotes.) [This report was supported by AARP's Office of Academic Affairs and Community Partners.]

State revenue currently flows to California school districts through so many channels that it is difficult to determine why some districts receive more funding than others. Each revenue program also has its own restrictions on the use of funds, reducing the latitude of school districts to use state funds most effectively. An alternative, simplified school finance system has been proposed that would allocate funds to districts according to student needs and district costs, using indicators of need and cost that are external to districts. The proposal includes five basic elements: (1) Base Funding; (2) Special Education Funding; (3) Targeted Funding; (4) Regional Cost Adjustments; and (5) Hold Harmless Condition (no district would receive less revenue than it currently receives from state and local programs serving the same purposes as the new programs.) This paper simulates the proposed system under a number of assumptions about parameter values. The authors conclude that two primary areas require in-depth further investigation, both of which are indicated to impact small school districts. The first concern is that, on average, small school districts would receive less revenue under the proposed funding formula than they currently receive. The higher average revenue of small districts may be an historical accident, but it may also reflect the realities of providing an adequate education to students living in sparsely populated areas of the state. If population density is an issue in the cost of education, a school finance formula might want to recognize it. A second and related issue is the financing of county offices of education, which provide many services to small districts. Under the proposal, many of the categorical programs providing revenue for those services would be eliminated, raising the issue of whether the services ought to be continued and, if so, how they ought to be financed. Data sources are appended. (Contains 14 footnotes, 20 figures and 16 tables.) [Report developed with research support from Bree Jones.]

The paper is the second of a series of working papers developed by a project which conducted a cooperative study of existing student study team processes in nine California special education local plan areas. The working papers augment the final report by providing detailed descriptions of the methods used and the preliminary findings. This document consists of a compilation of data collection forms and includes an overview with flowchart and timeline, checklist of data collection tasks, guidelines for the selection of staff, student study teams, and students participating in the school data collection, the survey form for study team participants, the log of student study team process decisions, a list of participating districts, the individual student record data collection form, a partial listing of possible instructional modifications, and survey compilation forms. (DB)

Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California and Massachusetts. There are interesting variations among these states' formulas, which affect the incentive to retire early. We identify key factors in the defined benefit formulas that drive such patterns and likely consequences for employee behavior. We examine the efficiency and equity consequences of these systems and lessons that might be drawn for pension reform. (Contains 1 table, 8 figures and 18 footnotes.) [A previous version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Finance Association in Baltimore, Maryland.]

Despite the best efforts of thousands of dedicated people, California's secondary schools are failing to adequately educate the majority of the state's English language learners (ELs). The purpose of this paper is to present a vision for high schools that will promote greater success for these students. This vision is based on Norm Gold's 30 years of experience in the field with teachers and administrators responsible for educating English learners and immigrant students. In his words, "This experience leaves me with a growing sense that the problems in EL education are escalating. High schools do not work well for most of these students, and California must take definitive, comprehensive, and long-term action to change this situation now." Descriptions of the following tests are appended: (1) The California English Language Development Test (CELDT); (2) The California Standards Tests (CST); and (3) The California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 26 footnotes.) [Introduction by Julie Maxwell-Jolly.]

Data-driven decision making (DDDM), applied to student achievement testing data, is a central focus of many school and district reform efforts, in part because of federal and state test-based accountability policies. This paper uses RAND research to show how schools and districts are analyzing achievement test results and other types of data to make decisions to improve student success. It examines DDDM policies and suggests future research in the field. A conceptual framework, adapted from the literature and used to organize the discussion, recognizes that multiple data types (input, outcome, process, and satisfaction data) can inform decisions, and that the presence of raw data does not ensure its effective use. Research questions addressed are: what types of data are administrators and teachers using, and how are they using them; what support is available to help with the use of the data; and what factors influence the use of data for decision making? RAND research suggests that most educators find data useful for informing aspects of their work and that they use data to improve teaching and learning. The first implication of this work is that DDDM does not guarantee effective decision making: having data does not mean that it will be used appropriately or lead to improvements. Second, practitioners and policymakers should promote the use of various data types collected at multiple points in time. Third, equal attention needs to be paid to analyzing data and taking action based on data. Capacity-building efforts may be needed to achieve this goal. Fourth, RAND research raises concerns about the consequences of high-stakes testing and excessive reliance on test data. Fifth, attaching stakes to data such as local progress tests can lead to the same negative practices that appear in high-stakes testing systems. Finally, policymakers seeking to promote educators' data use should consider giving teachers flexibility to alter instruction based on data analyses. More research is needed on the effects of DDDM on instruction, student achievement, and other outcomes; how the focus on state test results affects the validity of those tests; and the quality of data being examined, the analyses educators are undertaking, and the decisions they are making.

This study uses Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that regression-discontinuity designs arrive at biased estimates when attributes related to outcomes predict heaping in the running variable. After showing that our usual diagnostics are poorly suited to identifying this type of problem, we provide alternatives. We also demonstrate how the magnitude and direction of the bias varies with bandwidth choice and the location of the data heaps relative to the treatment threshold. Finally, we discuss approaches to correcting for this type of problem before considering these issues in several non-simulated environments. The following figures are appended: (1) Rejection Rates at 5% Level (Assuming iid Errors) Using Alternative Data-Generating Processes; (2) Rejection Rate at 5% Level (Clustering SEs) Using Alternative Data-Generating Processes; and (3) Fraction of Births Recorded in 100s of Grams and Ounces Over Time.

In the last three decennia, many governments have introduced market mechanisms in education. They have done so by enhancing parental choice and encouraging school competition, through policies like abolishing catchment areas, creating voucher programmes and setting up charter schools. These market mechanisms have given rise to fierce debates in both political and scientific circles. However, most prior reviews of research literature in this area have concluded that the effects of market mechanisms in education are small, if they are found at all. This review tries to answer the question why that is the case, by analysing the causal pathways that link market mechanisms to educational outcomes and by reviewing the empirical evidence for each step along those causal pathways. The findings of this review point to the need for a nuanced and qualified discussion about market mechanisms in education. What market mechanisms mean in actual practice strongly depends on (local) contexts, while the impact of market mechanisms is related to other policies impacting on parental choice behaviour as well as actions taken by schools. Appended are: (1) Country Case Studies; and (2) Terminology. Notes are also included. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper examines whether a geographic skills mismatch exists between the location of less-educated minorities, in particular African Americans, and high-skill job concentrations, and if so, whether it contributes to the relatively poor employment outcomes of this group. It explores these questions by examining data on the recent geographic search patterns of less-educated workers in Los Angeles and Atlanta from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality. These data are combined with employer data from the concurrent Multi-City Employer Survey to characterize the geographic areas searched by respondents with respect to high-skill job requirements. The results indicate that in relation to less-educated whites, comparable blacks and Latinos search in areas with higher levels of job skill requirements. Moreover, racial residential segregation as well as blacks' lower car-access rates accounts for most of blacks' (but not Latinos') relatively greater mismatch. Evidence is also found that such a geographic skills mismatch is negatively related to employment and accounts for a significant share of the racial differences in employment. (Contains 3 figures, 5 tables, and 30 footnotes.)

Value-added modeling continues to gain traction as a tool for measuring teacher performance. However, recent research (Rothstein, 2009a, 2009b) questions the validity of the value-added approach by showing that it does not mitigate student teacher sorting bias (its presumed primary benefit). Our study explores this critique in more detail. Although we find that estimated teacher effects from some value-added models are severely biased, we also show that a sufficiently complex value-added model that evaluated teachers over multiple years reduces the sorting-bias problem to statistical insignificance. One implication of our findings is that data from the first year or two of classroom teaching for novice teachers may be insufficient to make reliable judgments about quality. Overall, our results suggest that in some cases value-added modeling will continue to provide useful information about the effectiveness of educational inputs. (Contains 10 tables and 30 footnotes.)

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to address today's claimants and focus on the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns and more dispersed constituencies. In the private sector, rules and regulations seek to tame corner-cutting and short-sighted behavior. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the self-discipline of public officials and the hope that they will not be unduly tempted by short-term electoral considerations or influential constituencies. Teacher pensions, in particular, pose two challenges for K-12 schooling. The first challenge is the political incentives that lead to irresponsible fiscal stewardship, as public officials make commitments to employees that outstrip the available funds. The second is that of electoral considerations which hinder modernization, as policymakers dance around existing structures built to serve an industrial-era workforce and ill-suited to attracting talent in the contemporary labor market. The alignment of the political stars has helped states and localities to address the first challenge, but there has been little evidence of a willingness to tackle the second. The authors examine the political control of public pensions, the influence of teacher associations, and the lack of institutional constraints on public officials to explain the severity of these challenges. Those dynamics are illustrated via discussion of fiscal crises in New Jersey, Oregon, and San Diego and the way in which those crises created opportunities for addressing enormous shortfalls in funding. The authors close by suggesting several measures that may encourage public officials to be more responsible fiscal stewards or to revisit anachronistic retirement systems in order to promote teacher quality. (Contains 124 footnotes.)

Papers concerning higher education planning and management in the 1980s that were contributed to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems competition for the Planning and Financing Program are presented. The papers, submitted by administrators, researchers, and a student, are as follows: "Faculty Reallocation: Plattsburgh State as a Case Study," (Joseph C. Burke); "Managerial Styles in University Budget Planning" (Timothy J. Delmont); "The Utilization and Financial Characteristics of Tax-Exempt Auxiliary Corporations Affiliated with the Major Public Universities in the United States" (Robert W. Gaily); "An Identification of College and University Peer Groups" (Paul E. Lingenfelter and James E. Elsass); "Evaluating College Campus Closings for the 1980s: A Case Application of an Optimization Model" (Stephen A. Hoenack and Janet K. Roemer); "Fear and Loathing Over Competition in Postsecondary Education" (L. R. Jones); "The Impact of Circular A-21 on Property Control Systems of the One Hundred Institutions Leading in Federal Sponsored Research" (Meredith Snapp and John D. Porter); "Information Systems for State-Level Decisions and the Budget" (Fred Thompson); "Indexing Tuition to Cost of Education: Implications for State Policy" (Dennis W. Viehland, Norman S. Kaufman, and Darbara M. Krauth); and "Program Review and the Enrollment Crisis" (Kenneth C. Green). (SW)

One of a series of papers resulting from a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) project to improve evaluation and planning in community colleges, this working paper presents the results of interviews with community college policymakers conducted to assess their views on matters such as non-governmental accreditation, evaluation and planning, the role of various groups in public accountability, and the specific purposes of the FIPSE project. Following introductory material on the FIPSE project and the surveys, the paper presents the results of the interviews with 10 members of the California legislature, 11 key legislative and executive branch analysts, 3 members of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, and 5 leaders of education and advocacy organizations. This section includes a summary of the ideas suggested by the group for designing and carrying out the FIPSE project, a tally of responses, and sample comments. The next section provides the results from interviews with the 15 members of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, which cover the interests and concerns of board member and statewide priorities in the areas of mission, access, governance, fiscal accountability, the FIPSE project, the state information system, comparative data, accreditation, local governance, comprhehensive planning, and accountability. The final section presents the results from interviews with administrators, faculty, and government leaders in Hawaii involved in community college affairs. (HB)

One of a series of papers resulting from a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) project, this working paper describes how a state agency data system can be used and supplemented to produce the kinds of data that are needed for effective community college planning and evaluation. First, general information is presented on efforts to design, develop, and add a planning and evaluation component to the existing California State Chancellor's Information System. This section provides information on the current system and three specific information sets to be produced (i.e., quantitiative, qualitative, and external). Next, six areas in which the FIPSE project is working to create analytical models are discussed: (1) learner outcomes, including proposals to add partial longitudinal capability to the existing student data file and the use of cross-section community surveys assessing the value of community college education; (2) comparative data for college evaluation and accreditation; (3) projected needs and programs; (4) statewide priorities for community college operations against which evaluations and planning can be conducted; (5) census data application to the evaluation of statewide priorities, comparative analyses by colleges, and projections of student demand; and (6) other data sources, such as the Statewide Longitudinal Survey, the Student Resources Surveys, and the Student Economics and Resources Survey. An information system plan proposed to the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges is appended. (HB)

Seven background papers prepared by the California Postsecondary Education Commission on student charges, student financial aid, and access to postsecondary education are presented. These papers provide information for discussions prior to the Commission's response to Assembly Concurrent Resolution number 81. Topics are as follows: the authority that can set student fees in California public postsecondary institutions; fee amounts; changes in and impacts of tuition, admissions requirements, and financial aid policy at the City University of New York in 1975-1976; evidence about the impact of fees and other variables on the demand for higher education; assessing the impact of student charges on enrollment and financial aid; alternative policies for setting student charges; the Master Plan for Higher Education in California, 1960-1975; California's multifaceted approach to the provision of access to undergraduate education since 1960; the provision of special services to disadvantaged groups to enhance their access to higher education; sources of funds for California's colleges and universities; the role of state funds in financing postsecondary education and trends in financing; and issues that pose problems for state finance. (SW)

Designed to provide a technical context for discussions of student charges, student financial aid, and educational access in California's community colleges, this report presents three papers clarifying options related to student fees and financial aid. The first paper considers three questions related to charges in the California community colleges: (1) Who should be charged? (2) How should charges be structured? and (3) How should the level of charges be determined? For each question, a number of possible options and alternative structures are discussed. The second paper examines existing financial aid programs that may be necessary, given the imposition of a general student charge in the California community colleges. The final paper reviews policies and structures for student charges and student financial aid in community colleges in six states, and discusses differences among the states as they relate to possible options for California. The Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges' statement on contingency fees and the California Community Colleges Resolution on Matriculated Students are appended. (LAL)

The paper is the fifth of a series of working papers developed by a project which conducted a cooperative study of existing student study team (SST) processes in nine California special education local plan areas. The working papers augment the final report by providing detailed descriptions of the methods used and the preliminary findings. This paper describes the procedures used by project staff in the treatment of student information collected on the California individual student record form (Form 13). The procedures are described in four sections. The first covers the examination of student records and classification into categories. The second describes procedures used to identify those student records suitable for analysis. The third section describes the coding of the narrative content of the student records and the final section describes the procedures of data entry and data analysis. An appendix contains the complete individual record survey form. (DB)

This paper is the fourth of a series of working papers developed by a project which conducted a cooperative study of existing student study team (SST) processes in nine California special education local plan areas. The working papers augment the final report by providing detailed descriptions of the methods used and the preliminary findings. This paper presents participant response totals and comments of 219 school level respondents on the survey of student study team participants. Results are grouped into three sections: responses to the survey of student study team participants, comments made by respondents to the survey, and school level responses to the survey. It should be noted that in the preliminary findings and final report, the school response was the unit of interest. A decision rule was used in which a school response to an item or a sub-item was judged present when 50% or more of the respondents at that school checked a particular response. For each question, the number of respondents answering positively or a list of comments is given for each survey section (e.g., SST purposes, processes, resources, and factors supporting effective team processes). (DB)

The paper is the third of a series of working papers developed by a project which conducted a cooperative study of existing student study team (SST) processes in nine California special education local plan areas. The working papers augment the final report by providing detailed descriptions of the methods used and the preliminary findings. This paper presents tables from survey data received from 30 schools. After introductory material and lists of common descriptors of student problems and instructional modifications, the tables present the following information: purposes of school study teams (rank ordered); student problem characteristics (rank ordered); ranked student characteristics of immediate referrals for special education assessment; SST participants (e.g., resource teacher, principal, parents, classroom teacher); resources available to SSTs rank ordered (e.g., teacher time, teaching materials); SST group processes used (e.g., individual discussion/group decision). (DB)

This document is the first of a series of working papers of a project which conducted a cooperative study of existing student study team processes in nine California special education local plan areas. The working papers augment the final report by providing detailed descriptions of methods and preliminary findings. This paper reports on a content analysis of materials relating to existing student study team practices. Results are grouped into six areas: (1) purposes of student study teams; (2) seven stages of the study team process; (3) list of study team participants (i.e., principal, classroom teacher, specialists, and others); (4) list of student characteristics (e.g., demographic characteristics, academic problem areas, behavioral areas); (5) instructional modifications (e.g., environment, materials, assignments, teaching techniques, parent contact); and (6) list of resources (e.g., teacher time, teaching aids and materials, other participants' time, assessment/data collection materials). (DB)

In its recent report, the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence proposes a major restructuring of California's school finance system, replacing most of the separate programs through which revenue now flows from the state to local school districts with a base program and a targeted program. The base program would serve the educational needs of all students. The targeted program would provide supplemental funds for disadvantaged students. Base revenue would be allocated according to the total number of students in each district. Targeted revenue would be allocated according to the number of English learners and students from low-income families. The Committee would not restrict the use of funds in these two programs, although districts would be obliged to demonstrate that targeted funds enhance the education of disadvantaged students. The Committee's proposed reform would not affect some current revenue programs, the most notable of which is special education. Overall, however, 86 percent of state revenue allocated to public schools would be consolidated into the new base and targeted programs. The Committee is not specific about every detail of its proposed new school finance system, including the level of base funding. It does stipulate that targeted revenue for each low-income student should be 40 percent of revenue per student in its base program and that targeted revenue for each English learner be 20 percent of that base revenue per student and suggests that base revenue vary with the grade attended by students, using the current funding formula for charter schools as a model. This report simulates the Committee's proposal using these parameters, comparing the revenue school districts would have received under various versions of the Committee's proposed system with the revenue districts actually received in 2004-2005 from the programs the Committee would eliminate. The simulations have been conducted imposing the condition that no district receives less revenue under the proposed system than it actually received in 2004-2005. The finance proposal of the Governor's Committee is similar to another recent proposal by Alan Bersin, Michael Kirst, and Goodwin Liu. Like the Governor's Committee, Bersin, Kirst, and Liu would consolidate a large number of current revenue programs, and large districts gain more than smaller districts under simulation. However, the two proposals differ in four primary areas: (1) Bersin, Kirst, and Liu recognize that it may be desirable to weight grade levels differently in allocating base revenue, but do not make an explicit recommendation about those weights; (2) Like the Governor's Committee, Bersin, Kirst and Liu define targeted students as English learners and students from low-income families but would use a different measure of low-income families and apply different weights for low-income students and English learners; (3) Bersin, Kirst and Lin would provide additional funds to districts with high concentrations of disadvantaged students, a factor considered by the Governor's Committee, but not recommended; and (4) Bersin, Kirst, and Liu propose to adjust school district revenue for differences in regional labor market conditions, another adjustment the Governor's Committee considered, but did not recommend. Although the differences illustrate that there are significant policy choices in implementing the direction of reform that both the Governor's Committee and Bersin, Kirst, and Liu have chosen, the choices are far less significant than the fundamental decisions the state would have to make in adopting either proposal. (Contains 20 footnotes, 9 figures and 12 tables.)

This chapter considers the design of incentive pay systems for teachers and principals and the challenges facing policy makers who seek to design them. The author argues that policy makers must direct the efforts of teachers and principals toward schools' mission--the acquisition of skills and knowledge among children--and must find ways to link the compensation of teachers and principals to the value of the educational services provided by their schools. However, the nature of the educational process creates at least three important challenges for those who design incentive systems for educators. Even when reliable measures of student achievement are available, it is difficult to value the outputs of schools and also difficult to identify whom within different schools is responsible for the observed variation in the outputs of schools. Further, the process of assessing achievement under high-stakes may create undesirable re-allocations of resources among various types of learning activities within schools. The author's goal is to explain and analyze how these challenges affect the design of incentive systems for teachers and principals. (Contains 1 table and 19 footnotes.)

California has one of the latest kindergarten entry cutoff dates in the nation, December 2, which effectively allows children as young as four years, nine months to enter kindergarten. Proponents of moving the cutoff date to earlier in the year contend that children who enter kindergarten before age five are not developmentally mature enough yet for school, and that entering at an older age should improve academic performance. The authors examine 14 recent studies on the short- and long-term effects of entering kindergarten at an older age, and their review suggests that moving California's entry age would likely have a number of benefits, including boosting student achievement test scores. It may also have the potential to increase the achievement gap among certain student subgroups. (Contains 1 figure.) [For associated Technical Appendix, see ED501557.]