ML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> font size="+2">Traditional approaches to teaching and learning have been based on a variety of research and assumptions that have subsequently proved to be inaccurate. Such assumptions as that the brain’s development is dependent on the genes a child is born with, that early childhood experiences have a limited impact on a child’s later development, that brain development is fundamentally a linear process, and that a toddler’s brain is less active than that of a college student have proven to be substantially in error. Recent research on how the brain develops indicates that children are born ‘wired to learn’ and development of the brain is a complex interaction between genes and early childhood experiences. A child’s experiences from birth to age three not only shape the context for future learning, but also have a decisive impact on the architecture of the brain and on the nature and extent of adult capacities.[24] Brain research also documents that brain development is a non-linear process; there are prime times for children to acquire different kinds of knowledge and skills.

Building a solid foundation for learning requires focused attention to developing the social, cognitive, and physical competencies of infants and toddlers. Each child must develop satisfying social interactions with other children and adults, since that experience builds the capacity to engage in true cooperation and sharing relationships. Research indicates that infants have the capacity during their preschool years to begin developing the skill of symbolic representation that, in combination with improved memory, helps young learners develop more logical thinking, increased language skills, and the ability to categorize objects by attributes.[25] Learning theory reinforces the importance of children’s developing the ability to express ideas and feelings through symbolic representation, noting that skill’s association with development of mathematics learning and significant gains in knowledge and cognitive development.[26] Providing learners with opportunities to engage in creative activities such as dramatic play, or manipulation of objects in their environment like blocks, dolls, clay, or plants is a valuable teaching strategy to promote the cognitive development of students.

Though much of the research on brain development and learning focuses on infants and toddlers, the basic findings are applicable to learners of all ages. It is important that teachers and education institutions focus on development of the whole person, including development of social, physical, and cognitive skills. Positive relationships and interactions with adults and advanced learners can be extremely influential in promoting learning among students. Because every learner brings a unique combination of personal attributes, childhood experiences, and styles of learning, it is important for education institutions to not limit their assessment of intellectual potential to assessments of language and mathematical skills. Such a focus is too narrow and fails to recognize the multiple strengths that each learner brings to the teaching and learning process. A focus on student learning, therefore, requires that multiple strategies be developed to promote learning, including supplemental learning support in less well developed cognitive areas.

Assessment of Student Learning Needs and Achievement

Support should be available to meet student learning needs at every grade level. Most important, supplemental support programs, at every level from pre-kindergarten through university, must focus on having all students ’keep up’ rather than having to ’catch up.’ Well constructed and sensitively used assessment is an effective way to ensure that students receive the learning support they need when it is most useful and before they fall into a cycle of failure. There are several critical transition points at which teachers and faculty should be most attentive to student needs as they progress through California’s education system. These include the following:

Pre-K to grades 1-3. Children begin their lives with endless possibilities. They enter school enthusiastic, motivated, and hoping to succeed. However, many students, especially in low-income neighborhoods, enter a disjointed education system that is ill equipped to meet their needs. Students who struggle in the first grade quickly become unmotivated and do not participate in the very activities they need most. These children begin a pattern of continued academic frustration that usually continues throughout their education. After the 3rd grade, a child’s academic achievement level appears to remain remarkably stable throughout the school years. If students are not at grade level in reading and math by the third grade, that status continues throughout their education.

From the 3rd to the 4th grade and throughout the upper elementary years. Educators have created a benchmark that students should read at grade level by the time they reach 4th grade. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, however, reports that less than one-third of the nation’s 4th graders are proficient in reading. In California, less than one-quarter of 4th graders are proficient in reading. When students fall behind in the first three grades, schools often hold them back. In some inner city schools, as many as one-fourth of the primary children repeat a grade. Unfortunately, research on grade retention consistently finds that students’ attitudes often worsen and their skills do not improve when they are retained, particularly when there are no improvements in the teaching and learning strategies used.

Into and through middle school to high school. Middle school organization and curriculum varies from school district to school district, ranging from departmentalized course offerings to integrated core curricula. Whatever structure a district selects, it must support students to learn the content standards; and it must avoid separating students into different curricular paths with different expectations for learning – an outcome that becomes increasingly likely with the transition from a single to multiple teachers for each student. All middle schools should strive to help students take charge of their own learning and become independent learners and thinkers, and to develop the confidence that they will graduate from high school qualified for college admission. This confidence must be realistically based on students’ clear understanding of the necessary academic preparation, financial requirements and support, career exploration, and other elements necessary to ensure their success in high school no matter what post-high school option they choose.

High school graduation and beyond. It is common to see students as having two options upon graduating from high school: graduates will go either to work or to college. Although it is true most students eventually ‘wind up’ in one of these places, it is inaccurate to say that many have a genuine choice. In our K-12 education system, the choice of immediately joining the workforce or attending college is usually made far before high school graduation, typically via course choices made by students with incomplete information. To discourage students from foreclosing postsecondary education options, California’s education system must change the common perception that less is expected of students bound for the workplace or community college than of those who intend to go to a baccalaureate degree-granting college or university. California high schools and colleges must be understood as components of one education system.

To ensure that students’ needs are assessed properly and that they are provided learning support in a timely manner, we offer the following recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 21

To target learning support adequately and complement state testing, the State should establish as standard practice the use of classroom-based diagnostic assessments that specifically link to interventions aimed at enabling students to meet California’s academic standards and college entrance and placement requirements. The State should continue the use of both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests that enable us to determine how well students as a whole are mastering the academic content required to be taught in compliance with state standards and that enable us to compare the achievement of California’s students with the achievement of students in other states.
Appropriate learning support cannot be provided effectively in a system that relies solely on norm-referenced tests to determine who needs support and the type of support needed, since such measures provide little substantive information about students’ academic strengths and gaps. Neither can support be provided effectively if the system delays that support until just before or after a student fails a ‘high stakes’ assessment that carries negative consequences for the student. Diagnostic assessments allow educators to pinpoint the specific assistance students require, and they point to interventions that best respond to particular learning needs. Interventions must not be of the type traditionally used in remedial programs – for example, stand-alone programs focused on basic skills. Rather, they should consist of additional time and instructional support in a curriculum that is matched to course standards and college preparatory courses.
We have reviewed staff analysis and other credible studies[27] and are convinced that measurement matters. Organizations can only manage what they frequently measure, and student learning is of such importance in our opinion that it must be better managed than available data indicate has been the case to date. Learning must not be left to chance nor can instructional strategies remain unfocused or focused on the wrong things. Unfortunately, emphases on high stakes tests that aim to invoke greater accountability in education have overshadowed the importance of classroom assessments to monitor student achievement and adjust instructional strategies. Classroom assessments are far more likely to be aligned with the curriculum being taught than are other standardized tests and, therefore, more useful as a tool for monitoring student progress and effectiveness of instruction, which is the essence of the education process.
We are aware of the number of tests to which public school students are exposed, particularly those that strive to meet the admissions requirements of highly competitive colleges and universities, hence our concern that the schools use tests that can serve multiple purposes whenever possible. We also understand the dangers of making high stakes judgments about students on the basis of a single norm-referenced test. Because we believe that assessment should first inform teachers and faculty of the learning support needed to promote the achievement of all students, and second be one of multiple measures that inform decisions about student progress, we further recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 21.1 – The State should charge local districts with developing their own assessment systems for providing information about and guiding instruction of individual students.

RECOMMENDATION 21.2 – The State should encourage schools and postsecondary institutions to develop end-of-course assessments that can serve the dual purposes of measuring what a student has mastered at each grade level and of the student’s readiness to successfully undertake learning at the next grade level.

RECOMMENDATION 21.3 – Schools, colleges, and universities should use authentic assessments that measure students’ school accomplishments, including work samples and portfolio entries, in relevant academic subjects that would allow the student to move through a variety of coordinated delivery systems, regardless of the provider.

RECOMMENDATION 22

California’s colleges and universities should work collaboratively to develop a means of assessing the learning of students enrolled in public postsecondary education. Unlike the K-12 schools, postsecondary education has no commonly accepted academic content or skills that should be taught to all enrolled students. Yet, we believe there is, or at least should be, a value added to the lives of college-educated citizens beyond the economic benefits of higher lifetime earnings. All reputable colleges and universities require undergraduate students to complete general education requirements that can serve as a foundation for a consensus on a common body of knowledge and skills that should be taught to every undergraduate student. Based on existing requirements, it seems reasonable that these standards would include proficiency in oral and written communication, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving, interpersonal skills, and democratic principles. We suggest skills in the application of technology should be added to this list. Californians are no less interested in whether public education is working for all students when the focus shifts from public schools to public colleges and universities. Moreover, various segments of the state’s economy are dependent on postsecondary education’s doing an effective and efficient job of producing prospective employees with the skills needed by industry, particularly in our science and technology dominated fields.

We understand and appreciate the complexity and challenge of this recommendation, particularly given the differences in the missions that have been assigned to our three public sectors of postsecondary education and differences in the requirements of particular majors and program accrediting bodies. Staff analysis has also revealed several additional obstacles to the development of a system for assessment of student learning at the postsecondary education level. They include the following:
These are significant questions that deserve careful consideration by faculty and measurement experts. However, we consider them obstacles to be overcome rather than prima facia evidence that measuring student learning in postsecondary education is impossible. We have confidence that the expertise exists among our talented faculty to make significant progress in this area. California’s taxpayers deserve nothing less than our best efforts.

Course Alignment and Articulation


A cohesive system of education requires a coherent curriculum, with courses that are aligned with each other and in which course content at one level provides the foundation skills needed for success at the next level within the same discipline. California should set its sights on ensuring course alignment throughout its education system, from preschool through university, so that any student demonstrating mastery of course content offered by any education institution has the confidence that s/he is ready to successfully take on learning at the next level. Substantial steps have been taken to achieve this goal within public schools with the adoption of common content standards. However, the initial curricular disjuncture occurs as children progress from pre-school to kindergarten when the standards for those two levels are not aligned, resulting in disruption for the student. Within K-12, there is still work to be done to ensure that all teachers are fully capable of teaching to the standards and have access to instructional materials that are aligned to them. In addition, the academic content in career technical courses at the high school level must be aligned with not only the content taught in more traditional academic courses, but also with the knowledge and skill sets desired by business and industry.

Course alignment and articulation at the postsecondary education level remain problematic. No mandate exists for academic content that should be taught to all students enrolled in postsecondary institutions. Faculty concurrence has been difficult to achieve on the comparability of courses taught at different institutions, even those intended to be transferable, in part because of differences in academic calendars and in part because of faculty commitment to the freedom to design courses in unique ways. Considerable improvement is needed in this area to ensure that students do not encounter avoidable problems that result in less, rather than more, efficient progress, as they elect to enroll in multiple institutions to achieve the educational goals they have set for themselves.

As a result of this non-concordance, a considerable amount of attention is given to improvement and expansion of specific course articulation between individual pairs of community colleges and baccalaureate degree-granting institutions, resulting in literally thousands of such agreements. A number of initiatives have been expanded to facilitate transfer or to assist students in navigating their way through the various articulation agreements that exist. This committee considers that these several efforts do more to meet needs of education providers than they do to facilitate simplicity and ease of transfer for students. Our focus on students leads us to recommend that the following actions be taken to better align and articulate courses:

RECOMMENDATION 23

Membership of the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates (ICAS) should be augmented with faculty from California’s K-12 schools. The resulting new K-12/postsecondary intersegmental faculty body should be charged with reviewing and recommending changes, if needed, in the alignment and coordination of curricula, assessment, admissions, and placement. ICAS is a voluntary organization consisting of representatives of the academic senates of the three systems of public postsecondary education in California. ICAS has responsibility for initiating academic programs and policies that are intersegmental in nature, with specific attention to transfer issues, articulation, general education requirements, and educational quality. We believe California should take advantage of voluntary professional bodies such as ICAS to advance its vision of a cohesive, student-focused education system as a promising alternative to state-created entities with their attendant regulatory environment.

RECOMMENDATION 24

The Legislature should mandate the development of transparent and sustainable articulation and transfer processes to provide students with clear curriculum guidance on the transition between high school and college and between and among two- and four-year colleges and universities that avoids the complexity of campus-by-campus differentiation. Historically, K-16 education institutions’ collaboration has not been sufficient to result in aligned curriculum and academic content, admissions procedures, and expectations for students. One of the consequences is that students who manage to graduate from high school, even those among the top third of graduates in the state, are not adequately prepared for college. The high level of demand for remedial instruction in the CSU and UC serves as a graphic indicator of this misalignment in California. Most efforts in other states to develop alignment strategies have tried to pull together features of external systems, such as standards, assessment, curriculum, and teacher preparation.[28] The real problem is that different parts of the same system – elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools – seldom communicate with each other about educational goals and purposes.

The same relationship exists with respect to relationships between K-12 and postsecondary education systems. They operate independently of each other, each with their own governance and financing mechanisms, their own politics, goals, and objectives, and even institutional cultures. In California, where the admissions requirements of the CSU and UC have a significant influence on high school course offerings, little opportunity is afforded for postsecondary faculty and K-12 teachers to collaborate on better alignment of their respective educational goals, curricula, and assessments. We need to connect all levels of education if we are to smooth students’ transition through their educational experience and adulthood.

Within our community college system, as noted previously, there is considerable activity underway to articulate courses between community colleges, CSU, UC, and independent colleges and universities. We again note our concern that these efforts seem to be more attentive to the needs of education providers than they are to the needs of students. Accordingly we offer the following additional recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 24.1 – The governing boards of the University of California, California State University, and California Community College system should establish an intersegmental group of faculty to devise system-wide articulation agreements that will enable students to transfer units between and among public colleges and universities in California.

RECOMMENDATION 24.2 – The University of California, California State University, and California Community College systems should establish an intersegmental group that includes faculty and students, to consider what steps need to be taken to establish a transfer Associate’s degree, within the existing Associate degree unit requirements, the attainment of which will guarantee admission, and course transferability, to any CSU or UC campus for students successfully completing the transfer degree program.

RECOMMENDATION 25

Require the development of articulation processes to provide students with clear curricular and career guidance about the transition from high schools, colleges, and universities to employment. Historically, collaboration among schools, colleges, and universities has been insufficient to ensure successful transition from formal education to employment. Arguably such collaboration has worked best for high school students enrolled in vocational education and postsecondary education students enrolled in professional graduate programs, and least well for students enrolled in traditional academic or liberal arts programs. High school graduates without specific career technical skills often find themselves in competition for low-wage jobs rather than career positions that place a monetary value on the cognitive skills that have been acquired by the time of graduation. This reality reflects a low perception of what high school graduates know and can do, a higher valuation of the utility of specific career technical skills as distinguished from academic knowledge, a need for more highly developed cognitive skills than are commonly taught in high schools, or some combination of the foregoing. With certain notable exceptions (like engineering, business, and computer sciences), the prospects for college graduates are only marginally better, with many bachelors degree recipients accepting positions that require little of the knowledge and skills they have acquired in college. Employers report that even among college graduates, they frequently have to provide additional education and training to ensure that new employees are able to fully carry out the responsibilities of their positions. A sobering reflection of the disjuncture between what education institutions provide to students and what employers require is the fact that business-sponsored education programs are now a multi-billion dollar enterprise nationally.

A common component of career technical programs in high schools and professional programs in postsecondary education institutions is the importance attached to creating structured linkages with related businesses/professions that enable students to build relationships with professionals in the field and develop an understanding of how specific knowledge and skills are applied in a real-world context. The growing emphases on career academies in high schools and service learning throughout all education sectors reflect the value of this connection. Rather than leaving such connections to the initiative of individual teachers and institutions, California should encourage all education institutions to forge ongoing relationships with business and articulate both curriculum and teaching strategies with business needs.

Teacher and Faculty Preparation and Professional Development

If the State of California is to fulfill its obligation to provide a high-quality education that enables students to prepare for entrance to and success in any public education institution, and successful transition to work, then postsecondary faculty and K-12 leaders must agree on the content knowledge and specific competencies required of teachers and faculty at the junctures of critical student transitions in the educational continuum. We have affirmed our commitment to guarantee Californians access to qualified teachers and faculty as one of the essential components of a quality education. However, the diversity of Californians, their varied learning styles, new and emerging technology, revised approaches to instructional delivery, and other factors, such as expanded community partnerships, require that we carefully consider that which constitutes adequate preparation for teachers and faculty in order to ensure student achievement. We believe the following actions should be taken to ensure all teachers and faculty have the preparation and skills necessary to promote the achievement of all learners, including adult learners.

RECOMMENDATION 26

The State should support ongoing professional development of all staff in technology applications, to ensure they have the skills to help students develop the technology skills and knowledge needed for lifelong achievement and success. Evidence has shown that when students are actively engaged in self-driven learning projects, they learn more and remember it longer. Organizing and supervising such projects has become increasingly challenging, if not impossible, for teachers at all levels, as they struggle to manage large classes. Technology transforms the learning environment, so that it is student-centered, problem and project centered, collaborative, communicative, customized, and productive. It provides a tool that enables teachers and faculty to support such activities far more efficiently than has been possible in the past. Software now allows students to change the parameters of an experiment in a virtual way – substantially enhancing an otherwise abstract and relatively impersonal class. Strategic use of technology simply can make learning far more interesting, even exciting, than what many students have encountered in their educational experience.[29]

For the advantages of technology to be realized for all students, it will be necessary to ensure that all students have ready access to computers, software, and the Internet, regardless of the school, college, or university in which they happen to be enrolled. The Commission on Technology in Learning is developing a plan that includes specific recommendations for providing students and teachers access to technology. This plan should serve as a foundation for the recommendations contained in this Master Plan. It will also be necessary to consistently communicate the basic assumption that all students (and teachers) are smart enough to learn to use technology effectively and to develop a common language to communicate high expectations: a way to communicate to each student that it is possible to get beyond any bar that has been set for him/her.[30] An additional advantage of technology is that it is non-judgmental; it does not communicate lowered expectations if a student fails to give a correct answer. It simply says, ‘go back, you made a mistake,’ and often encourages students to be even more focused the next time. This feature provides students with a built-in way to assess their own progress rather than being completely dependent on feedback from teachers – an effective way to engage them actively in their own learning. Technology can also provide significant benefits for special need students, including students with disabilities and low-achieving, special education, and gifted students.[31]

It will not be enough to ensure that technology is available to students in schools throughout the state. Teachers must also have access to and be proficient in the use of the technology that is available to their students. The potential that technology holds for improving instruction, assessment, and learning cannot be realized if instructors do not know the range of available resources, how to use the technology to its fullest, or how to integrate it into the classroom and instruction. Success in integrating technology into instruction is influenced by the instructor’s attitude and comfort level with technology application. The need for professional development changes as the teacher becomes a learner him/herself and becomes more sophisticated and interested in controlling how technology is used in the classroom. The benefits that teachers can realize by incorporating technology training in their professional development include:
RECOMMENDATION 27

Responsibility for coordination of K–12 professional personnel development activities should be placed with the Office of the Governor. Despite significant new initiatives and substantial new funding, the State does not have a visible and clearly identified structure in place to provide for effective coordination of professional personnel development programs. Currently, several state agencies have major responsibility for development of the professional education workforce. There should be a centralized mechanism through which the professional skills most closely correlated with effective teaching and learning are identified and communicated to all of California’s education providers. This function would enable local districts and schools to assess these best practices against the strengths of their local workforce and to ensure that available professional development resources are used effectively. Such collaboration with a centralized coordinating office could also ensure that all teachers and faculty attain skills in:


Table of Contents
Introduction Access Achievement
Accountability Affordability Conclusion