Providing academic development services to high school students is intended to improve a student’s skills and in turn assist them in completing the UC preparatory coursework, which is the first step in achieving UC eligibility, enrolling in college and completing a four-year degree. This report tests the hypothesis that the academic development services offered by the University of California in a program entitled, the Early Academic Outreach Program, result in more students completing the UC preparatory coursework, the first hurdle to being eligible for applying and being admitted to the University of California. We analyzed the course-taking behavior of two cohorts of high school students in a large urban school district in California. We analyzed their student level district data from their 7th through 12th grade years, which included student demographics, language information, course-taking behavior and course grades, spanning 1994/’95 to 1999/2000. This report uses the availability of EAOP at a school to correct for the endogeneity of participation in these programs. This technique, known as difference in differences, statistically separates the effect of participation in EAOP on students’ subsequent completion of the UC preparatory coursework from the effects of other characteristics of the student or the school. Our results are definitive, and suggest that students who participate in EAOP throughout high school are twice as likely to complete the UC preparatory coursework by the end of 12th grade than do nonparticipants of EAOP.

This report presents results from the second year of CRESST’s three-year evaluation of the WebPlay program. WebPlay is an online-enhanced arts education program for K–12 students. The evaluation occurred during the three-year implementation of the program in Grades 3 and 5 in California schools; this report focused on results from the second year of program implementation, 2006–07. Results show that WebPlay participation was significantly related to positive educational engagement/attitude. In terms of California Standards Test (CST) English Language Arts (ELA) scores, despite no overall WebPlay effects, a significant difference was found for limited English proficiency (LEP) students. The results support that a well-designed, theater-based education can improve student engagement; and that it may have academic benefits in language arts content, particularly for those students who are struggling with English proficiency.

This exploratory study sets out to investigate how LA’s BEST, a non‐profit after school organization providing services for at –risk students, leverages the organizational, social, and intellectual capitals to enhance student engagement. Six LA’s BEST sites were selected to participate in this qualitative study. A grounded theory approach was employed and both interviews and focus groups were conducted with key LA’s BEST program personnel and participants, as well as day school personnel, parents, and community members. To place our findings into context with our study population, Maslow’s Theory on the Hierarchy of Needs (1954) was introduced. The findings revealed that in leveraging their intellectual, social, and organizational capitals, LA’s BEST has provided an important level of support for the students. In addition, LA’s BEST has realized that fostering and maintaining social capital is a continuous task calling for the efforts of “communities of practice.” As a learning organization, LA’s BEST has accepted this challenge and has expanded their efforts to continue learning and growing.

Policymakers and educators are committed to increasing the competitive eligibility of high school students applying to the University of California and to increasing the representation of poor and underrepresented minority students on UC campuses. The University of California's primary strategy to accomplish these goals is through School University Partnerships and academic development programs. Policymakers in conjunction with the University of California have invested substantial resources toward these common goals and programs. As a result, policymakers and educators want to know whether and to what extent the investment in School University Partnerships with supporting academic development programs is making a difference in the choices and lives of students. The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) has funded a number of research and evaluation efforts to investigate these questions.
This report is the first in a series that will evaluate the systemwide effects of School University Partnerships with supporting academic development programs on individual student-level achievement and student-level eligibility. The purpose of this report is to establish the feasibility of using a matched sampling methodology to investigate program effects and the methodology's ability to establish the matched samples of elementary, middle, and high schools whose progress on key indicators can be tracked over time. The purpose of this report is not to evaluate the effects of the program. At this time, evaluating the effects of the program is premature. Moreover, the evaluation of program effects should be coupled with information about the implementation of the program and its individual components. This report establishes the methodology and the matched samples. It has three main sections. The first (Background) summarizes the history of the UC programs. The next section (Methodology) reviews the literature on matched sampling methods and outlines the strategy used for establishing the comparison groups. The following section (Illustrative Analyses) illustrates how differences in demographic characteristics and achievement outcomes can be assessed using the established comparison groups for the UC elementary, middle and high Partner schools. Policymakers and educators are committed to increasing the competitive eligibility of high school students applying to the University of California and to increasing the representation of poor and underrepresented minority students on UC campuses. The University of California's primary strategy to accomplish these goals is through School University Partnerships and academic development programs. Policymakers in conjunction with the University of California have invested substantial resources toward these common goals and programs. As a result, policymakers and educators want to know whether and to what extent the investment in School University Partnerships with supporting academic development programs is making a difference in the choices and lives of students. The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) has funded a number of research and evaluation efforts to investigate these questions.
This report is the first in a series that will evaluate the systemwide effects of School University Partnerships with supporting academic development programs on individual student-level achievement and student-level eligibility. The purpose of this report is to establish the feasibility of using a matched sampling methodology to investigate program effects and the methodology's ability to establish the matched samples of elementary, middle, and high schools whose progress on key indicators can be tracked over time. The purpose of this report is not to evaluate the effects of the program. At this time, evaluating the effects of the program is premature. Moreover, the evaluation of program effects should be coupled with information about the implementation of the program and its individual components. This report establishes the methodology and the matched samples. It has three main sections. The first (Background) summarizes the history of the UC programs. The next section (Methodology) reviews the literature on matched sampling methods and outlines the strategy used for establishing the comparison groups. The following section (Illustrative Analyses) illustrates how differences in demographic characteristics and achievement outcomes can be assessed using the established comparison groups for the UC elementary, middle and high Partner schools.

The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA was contracted to undertake a three-year external evaluation of the Artful Learning program, an arts-based school improvement model developed from the work and philosophy of the late composer Leonard Bernstein. This is the third-year report of evaluation findings, with a primary focus on Artful Learning participants in the 2003–2004 school year. The purpose of this report is to provide information about the implementation and impact of the program at current participating school sites, as well as place these findings within the context of the overall findings from the three-year evaluation as a whole. Multiple quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were employed throughout this evaluation. Overall, the findings suggest that the Artful Learning program was a useful tool for teachers with a variety of previous teaching experience, district and state contextual demands, grade/content areas taught, and student populations. Teacher satisfaction with the professional development components of the program were high, although assessment was an area singled out as needing additional support. Recommendations, drawing from all three years of the evaluation, are also discussed.

Policymakers and educators are committed to increasing the competitive eligibility of high school students applying to the University of California (UC) and to increasing the representation of economically disadvantaged and underrepresented students on UC campuses. A core element of the University of California’s strategy to accomplish these goals is the School/University Partnership Program (S/UP) with its supportive academic development student programs. Increasing UC eligibility by increasing students’ ability to complete UC preparatory coursework is both a key programmatic strategy and a primary goal of the Partnerships. The overarching motivation of the School/University Partnership Program is to advance the rate at which students graduate from high school with a comprehensive educational background that makes them eligible for the University of California. Completion of the A-G required course pattern is the single best indicator of the accomplishment of this objective. This report establishes the A-G course completion rates and course-taking patterns for a group of urban UC School/University Partnership schools in a large urban school district in California. These data clarify the nature of the problems that must be systematically addressed and begin to identify actual baseline trends against which future goals can be realistically established. These data are crucial for Partnership, Partner school, and school district staff in understanding the basic issues and potential solutions for increasing UC eligibility and increasing UC preparatory course taking. We found that a large majority of the students in the UC Partner schools were not successfully completing the college prep curriculum. These data reveal that mobility and not taking or completing the A-G courses have resulted in very small percentages of students staying on track and attaining A-G completion by the end of 12th grade. The course-taking patterns outlined in this report provide a first step in setting the stage for gaining a set of diagnostic tools to be used both to increase the number of students on track and to keep students on track towards achieving A-G eligibility by the end of 12th grade.

UCLA has embraced the challenge to actively help high school students become competitively eligible for university with a new, comprehensive, and theory-based program that integrates the techniques of optimal learning within a service learning framework, called the Career Based Outreach Program (CBOP). It is designed specifically both to increase the academic achievement of students in K-12, so that they will be competitively eligible for UCLA, and to increase the academic achievement of those students as undergraduates, providing services to assist them in becoming competitively eligible for graduate school. This report describes the Career Based Outreach Program and its impact on 9th graders’ and university undergraduates’ academic attitudes and behaviors, study habits, desire to teach/volunteer, academic performance, and pursuit of college or graduate school.

National standards and assessments recently proposed as a strategy for improving schools in the United States have been accompanied by considerable tension between the goals of educational quality and equality of opportunity. "Proposed federal policies for implementation [of new standards and assessments] raise serious concerns about the extent to which national standards and assessments alone will help improve the quality of public education for all," write CRESST researchers Linda Winfield and Michael Woodard in their new report, Assessment, Equity, and Diversity in Reforming Americas Schools. The authors question whether or not some elements of the Goals 2000 program may "serve to deepen the already severe educational and economic cleavages that exist in this nation, especially along racial/ethnic lines." Providing a framework to review equity, diversity and assessment, the authors present a variety of research findings to support their position. Findings of a national study of promising programs in disadvantaged urban and rural schools, for example, suggest that opportunity to learn is influenced by factors such as level of implementation, budgets, staff development, and administrative support. Winfield and Woodard believe that by omitting these factors from consideration in reform measures such as the Goals 2000 program, existing inequalities will be further exacerbated by creating additional barriers and limiting upward mobility opportunities for minority students. Rather than pursue national standards and assessments, the authors suggest that reformers focus on policies and practices that have a greater probability of improving school learning and achievement, including equitable school financing, improved funding for curriculum development, and increased staff development for both teachers and administrators in content area assessments. The authors conclude: "Only when policy makers consider opportunity to learn standards as important as implementing national standards and assessment, will we ensure that those students and individuals historically disenfranchised will share in the American dream of opportunity for educational achievement and economic success."

This report describes a classroom artifact measure and presents early findings from an efficacy study of WestEd's Reading Apprenticeship (RA) professional development program. The professional development is designed to teach high school teachers how to integrate subject-specific literacy instruction into their regular curricula. The current RA study is notable in that it is the first to include random assignment in its design. The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) designed a teacher assignment instrument to address the question of whether treatment teachers demonstrate greater integration of literacy into their instructional practice than control teachers. Early findings based on preliminary data from participating history teachers indicate that treatment teachers outperformed control teachers on 6 out of 11 rubric dimensions. These dimensions address opportunities for reading in the assignment, the strategies in place to support successful reading, teacher support for reading engagement, and student feedback. Data collection will conclude at end of the 2008-2009 school year, followed by a final report.

The Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP), in an effort to have schools work more collaboratively with parents surrounding academic issues, granted funds matched by the Weingart Foundation to 29 schools in three School Families in Los Angeles County to focus on three primary areas in which parents and teachers can work together to support children's academic progress: communication, parenting, and learning at home. This effort is entitled Parents as Learning Partners (PLP). The PLP initiative recognizes that when parents and teachers share common responsibility and expectations, assist each other in providing learning experiences, and establish two-way communication, students will develop bet

This report describes goals and context of the Parents as Learning Partners (PLP) evaluation as well as provides an overview of third-grade classrooms both in the schools in which PLP is operating and in similar schools selected as comparison schools. Specifically, this report describes parent involvement goals of the schools; student, teacher, and classroom characteristics; professional development activities and voicemail usage of teachers; teacher-interactions with their students' parents including communication patterns and parent involvement at the school and in the classroom; barriers to parent participation, particularly surrounding parent education workshops; access, usage, and satisfaction with parent education and other school services; parents' habits and structure at home regarding reading and homework; and the behavior and achievement of third graders. Furthermore, the report summarizes the findings and concludes with the limitations of the PLP program and programmatic recommendations.