The majority of freshmen entering California State University (CSU) system graduate, but most do not do so within four years. Graduating later has many costs--from the tuition and associated costs for extra years of schooling to forgoing years of entering the workforce--and students from low-income families as well as students of color are more…

Many educators in California are unaware of just how harmful out of school suspensions can be. When suspended students are barred from attending school, more often than not, the rule broken was some form of minor misconduct. This update of "Lost Instruction Time in California Schools" demonstrates that despite the important efforts by…

These technical appendixes accompany the study, "Getting to Graduation on Time at California State University." The study uses a combination of campus-wide and student-level data from the California State University (CSU) system to examine the relationship between course-taking and on-time graduation. The first appendix provides…

Although persisters now represent the largest group of non-graduating high school students, they have received little attention in the research literature, leaving unanswered the question of how persisters differ from dropouts in terms of demographic characteristics, academic preparation, and key life outcomes. Using statewide…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research about parenting students' experiences navigating…

The California community college system is the largest provider of publicly funded career education in the state. Community colleges are therefore critical for effective and equitable workforce training, even as the system has a governance and financing structure that creates challenges to connecting college programs to careers. Furthermore, there…

Adolescent sleep deprivation is a pressing public health issue in the United States as well as other countries. The contexts of adolescents' lives are changing rapidly, but little is known about the factors that adolescents themselves believe affect their sleep. This study uses a social-ecological framework to investigate multiple levels of…

The California Community College (CCC) system serves a large student body, diverse in backgrounds, experiences, and educational goals. This report uses data from the CCC system's records to measure variation in achievement across the state's Strong Workforce Regions. We consider a range of achievement measures, including initial enrollments,…

Policy and practice have charged forward with emphasizing the necessity to reduce school absenteeism in the fall (i.e., Attendance Awareness Month). However, no empirical basis served to bolster these efforts. This study examined whether fall versus spring absenteeism was linked to spring state exam scores for a sample of elementary students over…

This study examined the association between participation in a school-based group-mentoring program (Project Arrive) and academic outcomes in a group of ninth-grade students who had been identified as at high risk of high-school dropout (n = 239). Comparison participants were ninth-grade students with similar levels of risk (n = 980). Using…

The current economic crisis hit Californians with less education hard and brought greater attention to the role public workforce training can play in an equitable recovery. To support workforce needs and the economic success of residents, California invests heavily in access to education beyond high school. The state deployed between $6 and $7…

While the statewide trends and disparities suggest that the rate of lost instruction in California due to out-of-school suspension (OSS) is about where it was before the COVID-19 school closures, this is the first report to highlight how post-COVID suspensions in 2021-2022 have added to the pandemic's harmful impact of instructional loss,…

California state education officials have become increasingly concerned about the growing achievement gaps and low graduation rates for the state's public colleges and universities. In an attempt to lessen these gaps and improve graduation rates, the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act (Star Act) was implemented in 2011. The purpose of this…

To address lingering pressures in the aftermath of the pandemic, California public schools received record funding, largely bolstered by nearly $60 billion in federal and state one-time stimulus funds. This report takes a comprehensive look at the allocation and uses of these federal and state educational recovery funds in California.

The primary goal of the California State University's (CSU) Graduation Initiative 2025 (GI 2025) is to reduce time to degree. The results of a survey and focus groups involving students at three CSU campuses, undertaken by the Education Insights Center (EdInsights) on behalf of the CSU Student Success Network, indicate that this goal is consistent…