Skip to main content
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact

Search form

American Institutes for Research

  • Our Work
    • AIR Assessment
    • Education
    • Health
    • International
    • Workforce
    • ALL TOPICS >
  • Our Services
    • Student Assessment
    • Research and Evaluation
    • Policy, Practice, and Systems Change
  • Our Experts
  • News & Events

You are here

  • Home

California Collaborative on District Reform

Project

The California Collaborative on District Reform aims to inform district-level efforts to improve instruction and outcomes for all California students by bringing together practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and funders in ongoing evidence-based dialogue and collective problem solving. Central to this work is the identification of persistent and pernicious opportunity gaps between advantaged and traditionally underserved students as well as strategies for addressing and eliminating the gaps.

California Collaborative logoCore meetings: Collaborative members meet three times a year to explore particular problems of district practice and to glean lessons relevant both to those problems and to more general issues of system improvement. Recent examples include developing effective leadership at the district and school levels, closing opportunity gaps between advantaged and traditionally underserved students, transitioning to the Common Core State Standards, and preparing students for college and career through Linked Learning strategies.

Grounded in the concrete realities of a member district, the meetings provide a common basis for exploring pervasive issues of educational change, support leaders in the host system to reflect on and refine their strategies, and create exemplars of district practice from which others in California or the nation might learn.

Additional activities: Beyond building the knowledge base within the group, the Collaborative provides a coherent district voice in California’s policy dialogue and disseminates research- and practice-based insights to support district improvement across the state. To do so, the Collaborative engages in:

  • special projects that enhance the learning of participating districts, such as documenting lessons from cross-district partnerships like the Fresno-Long Beach Learning Partnership and a burgeoning collaboration between Garden Grove and Oakland;
  • activities to inform state policy, including working groups to advise on the design and implementation of state and federal initiatives in California; and
  • briefs and other publications that share the lessons learned from our core meetings and from the experiences of our districts with local and state policymakers.

Through this work, the Collaborative has built and continues to develop a deeper knowledge base on district improvement strategies; stronger, ongoing connections and networks among California practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and funders; deeper partnerships among participating district leaders and their teams; and systematic incorporation of the district perspective and district practitioner voice in the work of state policymakers, researchers, and funders.

The Collaborative is housed at, and staffed by, the American Institutes for Research (AIR).

California Collaborative on District Reform - Project Website

Related Work

3 Apr 2019
Brief

Pursuing Equity and Excellence in Mathematics: Course Sequencing and Placement in San Francisco

In 2014, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) moved away from a state-supported policy that placed all Grade 8 students in Algebra I due concerns about poor student outcomes and growing achievement gaps. A new policy and practice brief from the California Collaborative on District Reform, an initiative of AIR, explores student outcomes four years after the change.
19 Dec 2017
Report

From Combat to Collaboration: The Labor-Management Partnership in San José Unified School District

Amidst numerous issues plaguing the San José Unified School District, the San José superintendent and the San José Teachers Association president came together to find common ground and chart a new path. This report shares the lessons learned over 24 years of collaboration between the district and the union, and the path they are charting moving forward.
28 Jul 2017
Brief

Fostering Innovation: How User-Centered Design Can Help Us Get the Local Control Funding Formula Right

The Local Control Funding Formula has introduced positive and much-needed change to California’s approach to K-12 education funding, but received criticism for being archaic, cumbersome, difficult to complete, opaque, and incoherent. A new brief from the California Collaborative on District Reform and Pivot Learning, Fostering Innovation: How User-Centered Design Can Help Us Get the Local Control Funding Formula Right, describes an alternative approach to solving policy problems.
12 Jul 2016
Brief

Implementing LCFF: Communicating About District Plans

As they continue to implement the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), California educators find themselves struggling to communicate district plans to parents, teachers, and other members of the school community. This brief, the fourth in a series from the California Collaborative exploring key issues of LCFF implementation, identifies some guidelines for district leaders to make their plans more accessible.
View all
Share

Contact

Jennifer O'Day

Institute Fellow

Topic

Education
English Language Learners
District and School Improvement

RESEARCH. EVALUATION. APPLICATION. IMPACT.

About Us

About AIR
Board of Directors
Leadership
Experts
Clients
Contracting with AIR
Contact Us

Our Work

AIR Assessment
Education
Health
International
Workforce

Client Services

Student Assessment
Research and Evaluation
Policy, Practice, and
Systems Change

News & Events

Careers at AIR


Search form


 

Connecting

FacebookTwitterLinkedinYouTubeInstagram

American Institutes for Research

1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Call: (202) 403-5000
Fax: (855) 459-6213

Copyright © 2019 American Institutes for Research®.  All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap