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Research

K-12 Educational Equity


School Desegregation after Seattle/Louisville

The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity has begun to develop a major new set of projects for policy-oriented research and advocacy around the issue of school desegregation. This research and policy initiative is connected to a nation-wide collaboration of legal scholars, social scientists, and policy advocates who seek to understand the implications of the 2007 United States Supreme Court decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. To this end, the Warren Institute will concentrate its efforts in California, a state where only 34 percent of white students attend multiracial schools despite the fact that non-white children constitute 70 percent of the state’s K-12 public school enrollment.  Our desegregation research initiative has two components: 

          1) Researching two local school districts that are currently utilizing desegregation plans that speak directly to the eattle                 and Louisville school cases - the Berkeley Unified School District and the San Francisco Unified School District.

          2) Examining racial segregation in California’s suburbs with a focus on the racial-ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic                     diversity that is unique to the state.


Getting Beyond the Facts: Systemic Reform of K-12 Education Policy in California

"Getting Beyond the Facts" is a Warren Institute effort to provide research-based policy recommendations to reform California's K-12 school finance system. It builds on the new research generated by the Stanford Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice in the "Getting Down to Facts" (GDTF) studies released in March 2007. Informed by the GDTF studies, Getting Beyond the Facts has produced concrete, politically-viable education policy recommendations.

With Governor Schwarzenegger's declaration that 2008 will be a "Year of Education Reform," there is speculation that a unique window of opportunity has arrived to alter the direction of K-12 public education in California. The hard work of further policy design and political compromise lies ahead, and the Warren Institute aims to contribute its expertise at the nexus of education research and policymaking on two critical issues addressed by the GDTF studies:

          1) School finance
             · View the Warren Institute's April 2008 Issue Brief on school finance reform

          2) Educational challenges facing English learners


NCLB: Using Implementation and Reform of NCLB to Design Policy and Practice for Vulnerable Youth

This initiative was made possible thanks to the generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.


The Warren Institute is leading a research initiative entitled No Child Left Behind: Using Implementation and Reform of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to Design Policy and Practice for Vulnerable Student. The goal of the effort is to develop and advance research-based proposals for creating educational accountability systems at the federal, state and district levels that advance the twin goals of educational attainment and achievement. We seek to improve the capacity of civil rights and educational advocacy organizations to engage effectively in public and legislative debates about reforming NCLB's accountability mechanisms. We also aim to increase public awareness and advocacy group focus on policy measures that promise to expand incentives for school officials to more effectively prepare students for college and work and improve on-time graduation rates for all students, with a particular emphasis on helping minority and other vulnerable and at-risk students; and, increase the ability of high schools undergoing effective reform to successfully deliver services to at-risk and vulnerable students without undue interference from federal and state governments.

As part of this three-year research initiative, the Warren Institute has developed a set of recommendations for improving the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, while attempting to maintain its focus on underserved students. Completed in July 2007, these recommendations were developed by Co-Director Dean Christopher Edley, Jr., and former-Warren Institute Policy Analyst Jill Morningstar. They can be accessed in full by following the link below.

Key Reforms Under the No Child Left Behind Act---The Civil Rights Perspective: Research-Based Recommendations to Improve NCLB

The No Child Left Behind Act: How Does It Affect High School Reform, October 14, 2005

Robert Balfanz, et al.- No Child Left Behind and Reforming the Nation’s Lowest Performing High Schools: Help, Hindrance, or Unrealized Potential?
Darling-Hammond, Linda - No Child Left Behind and High School Reform
No Child Left Behind and High School Reform Executive Summary
Hawley, Willis D. - NCLB and Continuous School Improvement
NCLB and Continuous School Improvement Executive Summary
Rumberger, Russell W. - The Limitations of the No Child Left Behind Act as a Strategy for Improving High School Graduation Rates

Key Reforms Under the No Child Left Behind Act: The Civil Rights Perspective, November 16-17, 2006

Koretz, Daniel - The Pending Reauthorization of NCLB: An Opportunity to Rethink the Basic Strategy
Kornhaber, Mindy L. - Beyond Standardization in School Accountability
Linn, Robert L. - Toward a More Effective Definition of Adequate Yearly Progress
Liu, Goodwin - Interstate Inequality in Educational Opportunity
Snow, Catherine, et al.- Promises and Pitfalls:Implications of No Child Left Behind for Defining, Assessing, and Serving English Language Learners
Sunderman, Gail L. and Gary Orfield - Massive Responsibilities and Limited Resources: The State Response to NCLB
Mintrop, Heinrich - Low-performing Schools Programs and State Capacity Requirements: Meeting the NCLB Educational Goals


Rethinking Rodriguez: Education as a Fundamental Right

Rethinking Rodriguez: Education as a Fundamental Rights was made possible thanks to the generous support from the Rosenberg Foundation.

Background and Purpose: Education as a Fundamental Right

As one of its 2004-05 events, the Warren Institute convened an interdisciplinary working group entitled “Rethinking Rodriguez: Education as a Fundamental Right.” Growing out of those discussions, for 2005-06 we will commission research and research-based policy papers to explore four clusters of inquiry that our working group deliberations have identified as centrally important.

Our purpose has been to probe rigorously and creatively into what it would mean to make education a fundamental right today—that is, a right belonging to all children, protected by an enforceable guarantee of “adequacy” or “equality” or both. We have not focused narrowly on mapping alitigation strategy for overruling San Antonio v. Rodriguez, the 1973 Supreme Court case declaring that education is not a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution. Instead, we have considered how to give meaningful content to the concept of education as a fundamental right, and we have examined how it can serve as an organizing principle for novel constitutional, legislative, and policy initiatives not limited to overruling Rodriguez, and considered as a goal for research and advocacy at the national level, at the state level, or both.

Rodriguez Research Studies
Research Abstracts
   


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