Report & Recommendations of the California Advisory Task Force on Alternative Schools: Building Knowledge and Consensus to Improve Education Outcomes for California's 350,000 Alternative School Students

This report summarizes the deliberations and recommendations of the California Advisory Task Force on Alternative Schools (Task Force). The Task Force is a public service project of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford University and is convened in collaboration with the California Department of Education (CDE). A central Task Force objective is to provide independent advice to the CDE and the State Board of Education (SBE) as they develop an accountability system and performance data dashboard for alternative schools, known as the Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS). The Task Force also aims to build system knowledge and consensus among policymakers, practitioners, and equity advocates about state and local accountability levers that would best incentivize instructional innovation and improve outcomes for students in alternative schools. Task Force leadership is distributed across three workgroups whose efforts are reflected in the organization of this report. One workgroup led deliberations over the approach policymakers should take regarding statewide accountability measures on the DASS. A second workgroup focused on developing additional recommendations for Local Education Agencies (LEAs) regarding alternative school performance measurement (local indicators). A third workgroup led Task Force deliberations on broader policy considerations that address system capacity for innovation and continuous learning and improvement on behalf of the more than 355,000 children and youth enrolled in California's alternative public schools.