Students are not learning to read well in California public schools. This is particularly true for students in special education. If more of California's students in special education are to demonstrate literacy skills to state and national standards, it will require more of their teachers teaching those skills. With the plurality of California…

Emerging evidence demonstrates that integrated programs, which combine academic and socioemotional supports and bridge boundaries between academic and student affairs, can improve college success rates for low-income, first-generation college students. This article explores the organizational value of integrated transition programs across several…

Project Tomorrow and BrainPOP have collaborated on the development of this new "Education Leadership Brief: Examining the Evolving Digital Responsibilities of School Principals" to examine specifically the evolving digital responsibilities of the school principal today resulting from the sudden shift to digital learning. This examination…

La Sierra Charter School was established in 2000 in an effort to provide a tuition-free school of choice for students who were not experiencing success within the local public schools, yet remained committed to "honor, leadership, postsecondary ambition, and service" (Tulare County Office of Education, 2020). La Sierra's programs are…

The purpose of this qualitative, multiple case study was to illuminate the prevalence and configurations of peer mentoring programs at Central California Community Colleges with emphasis on how the programs impacted student retention. The study's sample was drawn from ten campuses and five centers that operate within five California Community…

Background/Context: High school mathematics attainment has significant consequences for postsecondary and labor market outcomes (Altonji, 1995; Dougherty et al., 2017; Goodman, 2019; Kim, 2018; Long et al., 2012) yet enrollment in advanced courses (i.e., those requiring completion of Algebra II) is starkly stratified by race, class, and ethnicity…

The importance of principal preparation in special education has increased since the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975. There are significant financial reasons for preparing principals in the area of special education. Recent research also shows that all children learn better in an inclusive environment. Principals who…

As they prepared for the 2016-2017 school year, administrators and teachers at Design Tech High School ("d.tech"), a public charter school in Northern California, decided they needed a deeper understanding of how students learn. According to Nicole Cerra, Director of Learning, "Obviously you need to get to know students…

California's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program (BTSA) is a high stakes induction program; a new teacher's completion of a BTSA induction program leads to the California clear credential. The cornerstone of the BTSA induction program is the mentor, also known as a support provider. Mentors provide a variety of services to new…

This study describes core dispositions of school district superintendents who have been identified as technology savvy leaders by a prominent educational technology newspaper. The superintendents in this study described how they accomplished their technology initiatives and offered suggestions for other superintendents who aspire to be more…

The goal of this research study has been to develop, implement, and evaluate a school reform design experiment at a continuation high school with low-income, low-performing underrepresented minority students. The complexity sciences served as a theoretical framework for this design experiment. Treating an innovative college preparatory program as…

This study examines the impact the California School Boards Association's (CSBA) Masters in Governance (MIG) training program has on effective school board governance practice. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a relationship exists between effective school boards and a commitment to seek and attend school board training. This…

Over the past few decades, partnerships between school districts and post-secondary institutions have increased. The primary purpose has been to create and deliver dual enrollment programs for high school students. This case study focused on one partnership between a large school district in California and a private four-year non-profit college.…

During the course of this study, I examine the effective uses of professional learning communities in relation to building leadership capacity among teachers. The literature reviewed illustrates and addresses the need for teachers to see themselves, not only as professionals, but as leaders. This study addresses the effects of this much needed…

Concerned about the persistently high dropout rates from big-city secondary schools, education leaders are trying a new approach to increasing the graduation rate--multiple pathways to graduation. Multiple pathways initiatives are relatively new and far from proven. Even the most advanced examples face significant issues, i.e., the need to…