With the release of Getting Down to Facts, Stanford University’s SCALE Initiative finds that school performance in California remains widely uneven. While uneven performance is a finding that shocks no one, what sets Getting Down to Facts apart is—with the help of 112 researchers across 22 research briefs—the meticulous detailing of the conditions of California’s education system and the policy changes needed to improve it.
A key finding: Although better positioned than ever before to pursue” broad and ambitious goals for students, California’s education system lacks coherence. More specifically, “Governance structures are fragmented, and policies have proliferated over time, often creating disconnected, contradictory, and burdensome guidance to schools,” writes Susanna Loeb, director of the SCALE Initiative.
This impressive work has inspired me to reflect. I spend a lot of time thinking about coherence and helping system leaders foster it. For the past 20+ years, I have taught a course on education leadership at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education focused on coherence (for a great set of resources, including district case studies, see the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) based at Harvard University). I have adapted PELP’s coherence framework to support school districts across the country—including Los Angeles, Omaha (NE), Champaign (IL), Fayette County (KY), and Washington, DC—assess needs, plan strategically, develop leadership capacity, and improve effectiveness.
