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California’s Education System 100% Demystified

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THE CHANGE-MAKER’S TOOLKIT

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Hello!

Carrie Hahnel

Opportunity Institute

Thanks. Privilege to speak with students.
OI is an organization is committed to improving opportunities for young people, from birth through career. We focus on advancing social, economic, and racial justice by improving what happens in our schools and communities. If you like what you hear today, please look us up or reach out to me after this presentation. We’d love to hear from you.
At the OI, I conduct research, advance policy, and collaborate with education advocates and leaders to generate and spread ideas about how to improve equity in California and nationally. I’m also a research fellow with Policy Analysis for California Education, a research center at Stanford. I’m a data geek, so I’m excited to talk to you today about education data and other resources that will help you get smarter and go deeper on what’s happening in your schools.

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Let’s start with a short video.
I shared this because I love Abbott Elementary. But also because it shows a few things. One, education data is an important part of showing or understanding how schools are doing. And two, data can be twisted to our purposes. It can even be a front behind which decision makers hide. In this case, the Abbot team is trying to figure out what story to tell in order to secure more funding from the district. If you’ve seen this episode, you know that ultimately, they’re successful. But they could have done better.
But what they got right: any good advocate comes armed with their data. That brings me to today’s session. Public schools are accountable to the public, including you - the students. But to be an engaged and informed advocate, you’ve got to do your homework.
As a student leader, you want to lift up ideas that can help improve your school, district, or community. But you want to pair those ideas with data and evidence-based solutions.
Today, we’re going to talk about where and how you gather this information. You’ll be introduced to what we’re calling the Change-Makers Toolkit. We’re going to get super practical for the next 40 minutes or so.

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The Change-maker’s Toolkit

Get Data

Find the Policy

Read the Plan

Seek Promising Solutions

Ask Questions

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Journal

What is one change you would like to see in your school or community?

@Alvin, what are some of the changes that you've seen students organize to do something about?" [mention college counseling in list]

Alvin [after the conversation with Carrie]: "Everyone, please put your 'one change you'd like to see' in your Journal, and also in the chat. We'll collect them up and you'll have an opportunity to discuss this topic in the breakout this afternoon.

[If needed] It can be something specific or it can be something big picture. For example, maybe you want your school board to create a seat for a student board member. Maybe you want your district to adopt an ethic studies graduation requirement. Maybe you want it to reduce the presence of police on campus. Or maybe your idea is more general at this point - perhaps you want your school campus to feel more inclusive, with stronger educator to student relationships. We’ll come back to this idea.

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Get Data

About:

Students
Staff
Educational opportunities
Educational outcomes
Equity and disparities
Finances
Facilities
And more!

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Let’s say you’re interested in your school offering more college counseling.

What data might help me make my case?

Relevant data might include:

A-G completion rates
College matriculation rates
Course-taking patterns
Counselors per student
Student perspectives on college preparation

I’m going to use a few examples as we go through this, rooted in a few specific school districts. These are just illustrative. First, let’s suppose My Idea is that I want to improve college counseling at my school. Maybe I want more college counseling, since I hear many students are meeting with their counselor too infrequently. Or maybe I want better counseling, because many students are receiving inadequate advice or support. Maybe I’m concerned that not all students have a fair chance to go on to postsecondary education, or that some students are falling through the cracks. First, figure out what data is relevant to the issue, since data will help you make your case.

Ask Alvin: What data might help me make my case? (discuss). Then share my list.

Then, figure out where you can get the data. You can always ask your school or district leaders for the data. They may have the most complete information for your school or district. But they may lack data on other schools or districts - important if you want to make comparisons. Want to find the data yourself? Let’s look at some possible sources.

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https://www.ed-data.org� Charts and graphs Fairly easy to interpret Great fiscal data Official California school data	https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest Detailed data tables and downloads Sometimes harder to find/use Official California school data	caschooldashboard.org Shows performance on a scale, from red (low) to blue (high) Used for accountability Official California school data
https://ocrdata.ed.gov � Data on disparities & equity Federally required data on schools	https://www.kidsdata.org� Data on children’s health and wellbeing (more than just education data) Data from dozens of public and private trusted sources

Here are a few websites that will be go-to resources for you. They all serve up different data and serve somewhat different purposes. You might want to take a picture of this screen.
Let’s look at some of these to see if we can find the data points about college readiness and counseling that we looked at in the previous slide.
Let’s do this for a sample district, West Contra Costa. This is just an example - I have no particular relationship to or deep knowledge of what this district is doing in this area.
The first site I’m going to show you is Ed-Data (switch to live nav). Explain what Ed-Data is (CDE, FCMAT, EdSource). Drill down into College and Career Readiness. See A-G.
Notice that on Ed-Data I see charts by school and district, but it’s hard to see every school at once. Ed-Data is one tool, but there’s another one called
DataQuest (switch to live nav). Point out that here you can see data by school site. See college going rates by school by PSE type. Then, go to CA Healthy Kids Survey. Review TOC then go to College and Career Planning section. Then show pupil personnel by type by school (we have to go back to 18-19).
Now, I want to show you the California School Dashboard. Explain what it is. While Ed-Data and Data Quest are good at giving you raw data, they don’t really tell you if those figures are “good” or not. For that, we have the CA School Dashboard.. College/Career indicator.
Go to CRDC. Show staffing (counselors vs security guards) and also calculus/chemistry items. Talk about disproportionality.
Now let’s go beyond California education data. Show KidsData live and explore by topic for Contra Costa County (just show what’s there).
As you saw from these sites, there is a ton of information to explore. We didn’t talk about much of it. For instance, you can find good fiscal data on Ed-Data, and great test score data by starting in DataQuest.

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TO DO:

Search for data about your school or district.

Can you find data that relates to your priority issue? What is one thing you learned that surprises you or makes you want to dig deeper?

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The Change-maker’s Toolkit

Get Data

Find the Policy

Read the Plan

Seek Promising Solutions

Ask Questions

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Find the Policy

Tools:

School district policies, available through a California School Boards Association tool called GAMUT�http://gamutonline.net
State laws, California Education Code�https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/

Your next step needs to be to understand your district’s current policy. First, let’s talk about what a policy is and who sets it. A policy is a rule or law or procedure adopted by a set of decision makers. Alvin, what are the policies that students are most familiar with in the schools in which you work? (A)

(if needed) A dress code, for example, is a policy.

Who sets policies? Your school, your district, the state board of education, the state legislature, and congress all set policies. ALL of these apply to your school and district. That can make it complicated! Let’s focus on one that’s likely to be most relevant to you, and that’s your school district’s policies.

There’s a great tool called GAMUT, made available through the CSBA, that lets you view all the board-adopted policies for your district. You should be able to login. For WCCUSD, when I searched on their website for board policies, it told me the public login information. If you’re not sure, ask your district.

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Read the Plan(s)

Tools:

LCAP - Local Control and Accountability Plan
In 2021-22, a Learning Continuity & Attendance Plan
A plan for how to spend federal relief (ESSER) funds
SPSA - Single Plan for School Achievement
Grant program plans

So, next, I need to learn about the district’s plan. Does it already have a plan in place to improve college counseling and college and career readiness more generally? Or maybe you are focused on expanding ethnic studies courses or providing students with mental health services. Does it have a plan for those things? The best place to start is by looking at the district’s LCAP. Or, if you are focused on a single school site, that school’s plan - called the SPSA. Some districts also have a strategic plan.

Over the last two years, the state has also made many new investments in categorical programs. Think of categoricals like gift cards: they are funds that can only be spent on specific things. For instance, many districts are now receiving funding to implement new expanding learning programs in the afterschool hours for elementary and middle schools. Or to implement new community schools. When the district gets those funds, it often has to create a new plan. This means that depending on what you’re looking for, you may need to read multiple plans. But best practice should be to include all major goals and strategies in the LCAP. In fact, you could encourage your district to do just this. Ask them to include all new programs and investments in the LCAP so that everything is in one place. Not only does this make it easier for community members to see the plan, it also supports more coherent planning.

(By the way, these things don’t have to happen sequentially)

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What these plans can tell you

What are our goals and priorities?
What are our programs and activities?
How are we differentiating services for different student groups?
How does our spending align with our priorities?

Dig deeper!

https://ed100.org/blog/lcap-hub

Includes a great checklist to help you think about and influence your LCAP

So what can an LCAP plan, ideally, tell you?

These plans are all a little different, but they each contain information about the following. A lot of times the district will put out “community friendly” versions of the LCAP - infographic or flyer versions. That’s great, and you should look at those. But you may also want to dig deeper into the details. Warning: they can be 100s of pages long.

Alvin, what are some things you or the students you worked with have noticed in LCAPs? (or, in what ways have you or the students you worked with helped influence what’s in the LCAP?)

Now, admittedly, sometimes you need to see a more local plan than the LCAP. Maybe you’re interested, for example, in expanding student leadership offerings at your school site, and the plan for doing so has nothing to do with district plans or policies. Here, you need to ask the appropriate teacher leader or administrator what the plan is for the program. If they ask what you mean, you could ask the kinds of questions you see on this slide.

Live nav West Contra Costa LCAP. Point out CCR investments. https://www.wccusd.net/domain/961

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TO DO:

Search for your district’s plan.

Bookmark it for future use.

Hint:

You can often just Google LCAP + your district’s name, or you can go to your district’s website and look for it on the homepage. It should also be on the website of your county office of education.

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Seek Promising Solutions

Where to look:

Other schools or districts
Ask your district
Ask other experts
What Works Clearinghouse
WestEd
Public Policy Institute of CA
Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE)
Education Trust - West

Now that I understand more about how my school or district is doing, I’m may be starting to think about solutions. Policies or programs that can help. This is where you have to be a bit of a detective. Google the issue. Can you learn from friends, teachers, administrators, or colleagues what other districts or schools are doing? Ask experts for recommendations on reports and presentations. Even better, ask experts to come speak with you or a group you’ve organized. Read white papers, reports, and briefs, and look at the citations for more. Look for descriptions of promising practices, especially those that have been successfully implemented in other school districts. You can even reach out to educators, students, administrators, or parent leaders in those districts to learn more.

Alvin, can you tell us about how the students you work with find promising solutions and examples to share with their school and district leaders?

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Ask Questions.

Source: XQ That’s a School Board Thing

https://xqsuperschool.org/school-board/how-to-get-involved-in-my-school-board

Sometimes you have a concrete solution to offer. For example, perhaps you are asking for your school to create a specific program. But sometimes you may simply know there’s a problem and are asking your education leaders to offer solutions. Whether or not you have a promising solution to offer, you can raise questions and put the ball in their court.

When school board members are trained on effective governance, one of the things they learn is to ask questions. They aren’t supposed to direct the school district to do specific things, but rather to ask for information and clarification. They hold their district accountable. You, too, should ask questions of your district - and also of your school board.

I’ve learned that one of the students presenting at this conference got the state PTA to pass a resolution that all California schools should offer plant-based food options. To make something like that actually happen, school boards will need to decide to change their policy. That can start by asking a question at a school board meeting.

My favorite question on this list is the last one: How are we measuring that? Regardless of the topic, your school district should have a plan for monitoring impact.

[Now let’s be real. A lot of times, the things that matter to you are not the things that your school, district, or the state are measuring. Or, they are measuring it but not necessarily sharing the data back out with students. There is a LOT of data your school should be gathering and using to make real-time adjustments and address student and family needs. Ask your school and district leaders for that data!

And if you can’t tell what their plan is - I mean REALLY what their plan is from the LCAP or other documents they’ve put out, ask them. A lot of times the language is dense and difficult to understand. It’s their job to explain it to you and to make sure it resonates with stakeholders - including YOU.]

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The Change-maker’s Toolkit

Get Data

Find the Policy

Read the Plan

Seek Promising Solutions

Ask Questions

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Presenting What You Know

Combine facts with examples and anecdotes
Offer solutions if you have them, but don’t hesitate to ask for answers and solutions
Remember that YOU are the stakeholder!

The reality is, facts will only get you so far. They’re critically important, but “we are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it has been wrapped in a story.”
Bring your data, but also share your story or the story of other students. Folks may hear that 50% of students are ready for A-G and not feel too concerned. They might assume only half of students wanted to go to college. What if you told them the story of your friend who didn’t find out until senior year that he was not eligible to apply to a CSU or UC because he missed a critical course? That might make decision-makers see the data in a different way.
Offer a solution if you have one, but don’t hesitate to ask questions. As a stakeholder, you aren’t expected to have all the answers. You should bring evidence and examples to your district leaders and ask them to bring you answers or work with you to find solutions. Be sure to connect with local organizations and campaigns that are working on the issue you care about.

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Thanks!

Any questions?

You can find me at:

@CarrieHahnel

carrie@theopportunityinstitute.org