Publications

LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA IN CALIFORNIA: HOW TO MONITOR PROGRESS AND LEARN FROM THIS GRAND EXPERIMENT

This brief sets out the central empirical questions arising from key moving parts in the Local Control Funding Formula in California (LCFF) implementation efforts. It details how eight districts are approaching the reform, and describes the program models on which those eight districts will rely in Year 1 of implementation. It also defines emerging goals for research and evaluation.  Most importantly, the paper outlines a tentative division of labor for multi-year monitoring of LCFF and Common Core implementation, including identification of promising practices at each level. This brief reflects feedback from participating researchers, as well as advocates and others. The brief is authored by Bruce Fuller, Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley and Fellow with Partners for Each and Every Child and  Laura Tobben, Student at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley.

For the brief, click here.

THE MAKING OF FERGUSON: PUBLIC POLICIES AT THE ROOT OF ITS TROUBLES

When Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager, Warren Institute Senior Fellow Richard Rothstein began to investigate how Ferguson became the segregated black suburb it is today — where student performance is inadequate in the town’s segregated schools, where poverty rates are high, where half the homes have “underwater” mortgages, and where black men and youths are frequent subjects of police harassment, and worse. If you have comments or questions that you would like to put directly to Richard Rothstein, you can write to him here, at rrothstein@law.berkeley.edu.

For the report, click here.

For a shorter, article-length version, click here.

MT. HOLLY AMICUS BRIEF FILED IN U.S. SUPREME COURT, DISPARATE IMPACT RELEVANT TO CLAIMS OF DISCRIMINATION UNDER FAIR HOUSING ACT

The Warren Institute, in collaboration with the U.C. Berkeley Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and with the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, has submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, explaining why evidence of “disparate impact” should be considered relevant in deciding discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act. The brief argues that entrenched patterns of residential segregation, established in considerable part by government policy, structure the housing opportunities of African Americans to the present time. In a case like the one being considered by the Court, a redevelopment project that displaces African Americans could violate the Fair Housing Act if provision is not made for the relocation of displaced residents into integrated middle class communities nearby.

A full list of amici appear at the end of the brief, including Christopher Edley, Jr., Faculty Director of the Warren Institute; john a. powell and Stephen Menendian, Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of the Haas Institute; and Richard Rothstein, Senior Fellow at the Warren Institute and Research Associate of the Economic Policy Institute.

Many distinguished scholars have joined the amicus group, including Elizabeth Anderson, John Brittain, Nancy Denton, James Kushner, Ira Katznelson, Myron Orfield, Jr., Gregory Squires, and others.

For amicus brief, click here.

FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS, SEGREGATION THEN, SEGREGATION SINCE, EDUCATION AND THE UNFINISHED MARCH

By stressing racial integration as the most important instrument of education improvement, the 1963 March on Washington had it right. It is appropriate not only to commemorate this resolve, but to renew it. We have little hope of closing the achievement gap as long as low-income African American children are concentrated in racially isolated urban schools, located in racially isolated urban neighborhoods.

Click here for the report.

WHY CHILDREN FROM LOWER SOCIOECONOMIC CLASSES, ON AVERAGE, HAVE LOWER ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT THAN MIDDLE-CLASS CHILDREN

In Prudence L. Carter and Kevin G. Welner, eds., Closing the Opportunity Gap. What America Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance. Oxford University Press, 2013, Chapter 5.

Click here for the book.

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP, “WHY OUR SCHOOLS ARE SEGREGATED.”

In this article in Educational Leadership, “Why Our Schools are Segregated,” Senior Fellow Richard Rothstein shows how continued racial segregation of schools places insurmountable barriers to student success, that this segregation cannot be addressed without desegregating neighborhoods, and why policies to undo residential racial isolation are hampered by our misunderstanding of how neighborhoods came to be segregated in the 20th century.

To download the article, click here.

EXCLUSIONARY SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: AN ISSUE BRIEF AND REVIEW
OF THE LITERATURE

Each academic year, millions of U.S. public school students are suspended or expelled from school.  Yet, research now demonstrates that when students are removed from school settings for disciplinary reasons, the odds increase dramatically that they will disengage from school, dropout, or become involved in the juvenile justice system.  These negative consequences disproportionally affect boys of color.   As awareness of these trends grows, educators are increasingly looking for alternative strategies to increase student discipline skills in order to support youth engagement in school and improve their health and academic outcomes.  In this brief, lawyer and Warren Institute research associate Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon reviews data on the major trends in school discipline practices with a focus on out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. Her review then describes the most widely used alternatives to out-of-school (exclusionary) suspension and expulsion in California and assesses the relevant research to gauge the potential of each to improve school and student level outcomes.

To view the brief, click here.

FINAL REPORT AND POLICY PLATFORM FOR STATE ACTION (2012-2018) ASSEMBLY SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF BOYS AND MEN OF COLOR IN CALIFORNIA

The leadership of the California Assembly established the Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color (BMoC) in January 2011. The bi-partisan committee’s primary focus over the last year and half has been to seek advice to better understand what is needed to improve the outcomes for boys and men of color in California.

The Warren Institute provided research support to the Select Committee under a grant from The California Endowment.

Click here to download the Full Report.

Click here to download the Executive Summary.

WHAT THE FORMER CHANCELLOR OF NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS’ SLEIGHT OF HAND TELL US ABOUT EDUCATION REFORM

A new article by Richard Rothstein, “Sleight of Hand,” appears in the November-December issue of The American Prospect.  It describes how federal, state, and local housing policies, including the public housing program, were designed a half-century ago to segregate our major metropolitan areas, and how the residential patterns created by public policy at that time persist to this day.  The article does so by way of describing the childhood of Joel Klein, former New York City schools chancellor and now CEO of a Rupert Murdoch company selling technology and software to public schools. Klein has often used his life story to prove an educational theory—that poor quality teachers are the cause of disadvantaged children’s failures.  “Sleight of Hand” shows that, indeed, in no meaningful sense can Klein be said to have had a deprived background, comparable to that of children from the projects today. It shows that in no sense can Klein accurately attribute his success, not to an advantaged middle-class family, but only to his teachers.

To download this article, click here.

RAISING THE BAR: BUILDING CAPACITY: DRIVING IMPROVEMENTS IN CALIFORNIA’S CONTINUATION HIGH SCHOOLS

This report summary findings and recommendations from a multi-year study of continuation high schools in California.  It is the second in series of reports from the on-going California Alternative Education Research Project, conducted jointly by the John W. Gardner Center at the Stanford University School of Education, and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

To download the executive summary, click here.

To download the report, click here.

CHANGING PLACES: HOW COMMUNITIES WILL IMPORVE THE HEALTH OF BOYS OF COLOR

The data on nearly every measure of health and well-being make clear that boys and young men of color face a uniquely daunting set of barriers that inhibit their chances of becoming healthy, contributing members of society.  Edited by Dean Christopher Edley Jr. and former Director of Education and Associate Director of the Warren Institute Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, this collected volume details how these racial / ethnic and gender disparities in community health, education, and economic outcomes develop, how they persist over time, and how they come to have profound, long-lasting effects on American families and on national and community life. Using a multidisciplinary lens, the authors hed light on how we might build healthier communities across the nation hrough a focus on young men and boys of color.  If we take the right actions now, the work presented in this volume suggests a promising prognosis—these investments in communities, systems, and institutions will help not just these young men and boys achieve a brighter future, but enable all of us to realize a more just, productive nation. The volume is available for purchase in hardcopy from the UC Press. Individual chapters can be downloaded for free at http://www.boysandmenofcolor.org/about-the-book/.

CIVIL RIGHTS RESEARCH ROUNDTABLE ON EDUCATION INFORMING CHANGE

This October 2010 Roundtable convened national civil rights leaders and their senior education staff with researchers and policy analysts to work on the most pressing issues in education reform.  Roundtable briefs are highlighted below.

From College Access to Completion: State and Federal Policy Levers

This research brief examines the available research and evidence to paint a picture of college completion in America and shed light on both the major causes of and promising policy solutions to the enormous mismatch observed between aspirations and actuality—particularly among low-income students, students of color and non-traditional students.  The brief is available here.

Warren Institute Examines Common Core Standards

This brief examines the available research to better understand how the adoption of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an effort led by governors and state school leaders to promote universal adoption of “fewer, clearer, higher” academic standards, might affect students of color and English Language Learners (ELL).  The brief is available here.


 

POLICY AND AMICUS BRIEFS

 

 

RESEARCH BRIEFS AND REPORTS