The teaching profession requires continuous learning, and in 2014, a new model of professional learning was introduced in California by the Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC), a group of expert teachers who organize local professional development to spark iterative changes in practice. In the four years following its launch, the ILC connected…

Clovis Unified School District (USD) serves about 43,000 students in a city just northeast of Fresno. The district is diverse, serving sizeable groups of Latino/a and Hmong students, and 40% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The district's proportion of English learners is below the state average, but students are…

This brief summarizes lessons from "positive outlier" districts in California that have excelled at helping African American, Latino/a, and White students achieve at high levels on new assessments of academic standards in English language arts and mathematics, after accounting for students' socioeconomic status. Drawing on case studies…

U.S. education has experienced many waves of reform in responding to rapid changes in knowledge, technologies, and the economy. It is now widely accepted that, to succeed in the future, all young people must have the opportunity to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication competencies--often referred to as…

The Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC) is a California collaborative teacher professional learning project in which expert teachers organize local professional development to spark iterative changes in practice. Launched in 2014, ILC is a joint effort of the California Teachers Association (CTA), the National Board Resource Center (NBRC), and…

The Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC) is an innovative professional learning project in which teacher leaders in California collaborate to lead sustainable professional development to support implementation of new student standards within their districts. Over more than 4 years, the ILC has served over 100,000 teachers. The responses of these…

Gridley Unified School District serves just over 2,000 students across five schools in a small rural town in the upper Sacramento Valley. The median annual household income in Gridley is just over 60% of the state average. Gridley Unified is one of seven districts studied by researchers at the Learning Policy Institute in a mixed-methods study…

Sitting just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) supports teaching and learning in California's largest elementary school system. Across its 47 schools, CVESD educators serve over 30,000 students each day, 90% of whom are students of color and over one third of whom are English learners. CVESD is one…

Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) has been nationally recognized as a consistently high-functioning district for more than 2 decades. The district educates approximately 72,200 students, from preschool to high school, in its 86 schools. Almost 90% are students of color, with 57% Latino/a and 12% African American, while 65% are from…

The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) supports teaching and learning in California's second-largest school district, educating students from preschool to high school each day. Nearly three quarters of SDUSD students are students of color, including 47% who are Latino/a and 9% who are African American. Almost 60% of students are…

Located just southeast of Fresno in California's Central Valley, Sanger Unified School District (USD) serves approximately 12,000 students in 20 schools. Sanger USD students are predominately from low-income families (73%); most are Latino/a (70%), and about one in five (18%) are English learners. During the accountability era of No Child Left…

For some time now, it has been evident that the policies pursued by the United States to elevate the academic performance of students, particularly those who are most economically disadvantaged, have not produced the results that were promised or hoped for. This paper analyzes the efforts of schools and school districts to improve academic…

Serving a working-class suburb of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the Hawthorne School District (HSD) is a small district with 11 schools: seven elementary schools, three middle schools, and one dependent charter high school. HSD's students are predominantly from low-income families (87%). Most students (71%) are Latino/a and about fifth (21%)…