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Most students at New York’s Bronxdale High School enter 9th grade achieving well below proficiency levels on standardized tests, yet they end up outperforming their peers and city averages in credit accrual, graduation rates, and enrollment in postsecondary education. Educators at Bronxdale teach the way students learn best by tightly weaving  social and emotional skills and academic mindsets with academic learning in a safe, caring and collaborative learning environment.

This report examines the commonalities among seven diverse "positive outlier" school districts in which students are achieving at higher-than-predicted levels. The seven districts are among more than a hundred California school districts in which African American, Latino/a, and White students achieved at higher-than-predicted levels, controlling for their socioeconomic status.

Supporting the achievement of all students requires a strong commitment to equity, ensuring a stable high-quality educator workforce, providing access to professional development, and a focus on deeper learning and social and emotional learning. Seven California school districts provide examples of successful approaches to this work. 

Equitable and empowering educational opportunities are increasingly important to the survival and success of individuals, economies, and societies, but today, U.S. public schools are the most inequitably funded of any in the industrialized world. Some states, however, have had some success addressing those inequities. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and North Carolina have substantially improved learning opportunities and there are lessons to be learned from their efforts.

High quality principals are essential to students' educational opportunities and outcomes, but principal turnover is an ongoing problem in the United States. A 2017 survey of public school principals found that approximately 18% had left their position since the previous year. In high poverty schools, the turnover rate was 21%. This brief includes insights, experiences, and expertise from school leaders on the challenges associated with being a school principal and strategies to address those challenges.

Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning summarizes a recent book of the same name that describes the work of pioneering teacher education programs to prepare their graduates to create personalized, inquiry-based learning for all students. They provide examples for teachers, teacher educators, and policymakers interested in making preparation for deeper learning the standard for today's teachers. The programs are also profiled separately in individual briefs which provide more detail.

Well-implemented programs designed to foster social and emotional learning (SEL) are associated with positive outcomes, ranging from better test scores and higher graduation rates to improved social behavior. This LPI study examines San Jose State University's successful teacher preparation program and a California school district's in-service program that incorporate SEL instruction in an effort to inform policymakers, practitioners, and teacher educators about the components of strong, SEL-focused teacher preparation and development systems. 

California’s Positive Outliers: Districts Beating the Odds analyzes scores of students in 435 school districts scores on California’s new assessments in English language arts and math. From this group, 156 “positive outlier” districts of significant size—where White, African American, and Hispanic students achieve at higher than predicted levels relative to their socioeconomic status—were identified. What in-school factors made the most difference in student achievement?