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Clovis Unified School District (USD) serves about 43,000 California students, with sizeable groups of Latino/a and Hmong students and 40% of all students being eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Clovis USD’s unique culture and its specific approaches to supporting student learning have made it one of California’s “positive outlier” districts in which students performed better than predicted on California state tests from 2015 through 2017.
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Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) is California’s largest elementary school system with over 30,000 students, 90% of whom are students of color and over one third of whom are English learners. CVESD has made significant investments in capacity building and focused on continuous improvement, making it one of California’s “positive outlier” districts in which students performed better than predicted on California state tests from 2015 through 2017.
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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.
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A recent LPI study identified more than a hundred California school districts in which students across racial/ethnic groups are outperforming similar students in other districts on new math and reading assessments that measure higher order thinking and performance skills. Many of these districts also are closing the gap on a range of other outcomes, including graduation rates. The critical question is: How did they do it?”
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Both students' learning and their overall health and well-being are improved when schools adopt "whole child" supports and practices. Multi-disciplinary research identifies four main ingredients of school success that allow us to care for and nurture the potential in all children: a positive school climate, productive instructional strategies, social-emotional development, and individualized supports. In this post, LPI Senior Researcher Lisa Flook identifies the steps schools and school systems can take to foster students’ social and emotional well-being.
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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 Lakewood Elementary School'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.
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Social and emotional skills, habits, and mindsets—such as self-awareness, self-regulation, communication, compassion, and empathy—can set students up for academic and life success. A new case study by the Learning Policy Institute looks at a preservice and inservice programs preparing teachers to integrate social emotional learning into instruction.
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Thanks to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states are beginning to develop accountability systems that are focused on multiple measures of student success, including one key driver of inequity—the overuse of suspension, particularly for students of color, as a discipline tactic.
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Across the country, more than eight million students are chronically absent, meaning they miss nearly one month of school each year. ESSA creates an opportunity for states and districts to monitor and address chronic absences as a key strategy for creating greater educational equity. This blog, part of the Realizing ESSA’s Promise series, provides examples and guidance on how states can equip districts, communities, and schools to take a comprehensive approach to improving attendance.
Stephen KostyoJessica CardichonLinda Darling-Hammond
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A positive school climate supports student learning and success. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides opportunities for states to address it and other non-academic indicators that affect student success. This brief describes how states can use data on school climate and what some states are doing, and suggests policies to improve it. It is part of the report Making ESSA’s Equity Promise Real: State Strategies to Close the Opportunity Gap.
