California stands at an inflection point for education. The state is spending more than ever before on its schools, yet student outcomes, particularly in mathematics, remain stubbornly below expectations. At the same time, a cadre of new education leaders will assume their posts in the coming year. Longstanding education governance problems and recent signs of an appetite to tackle them make this a particularly ripe time to explore how the state currently supports mathematics improvement and how those supports might be strengthened.
This study, part of the Getting Down to Facts III project, examines the state's role in supporting school districts' capacity to improve TK–8 mathematics instruction. We center districts because, in California's local-control system, they function as the primary engines of instructional improvement: interpreting state policy, making consequential local decisions, and shaping the conditions under which teaching and learning occur; they also can create the conditions under which students can have a coherent mathematics learning experience across multiple grades TK–8 and beyond. At the same time, we look up to the state level and down to classrooms, incorporating the perspectives of state leaders and teachers alongside those of district leaders. In doing so, we trace how intentions formed at the statehouse travel through districts and land in practice, and we assess whether the system, as experienced across its levels, makes it possible for teachers to provide students consistent, high-quality TK–8 mathematics instruction. Our evidence draws on interviews with 94 district leaders from a representative statewide sample stratified by region and district size; interviews with 32 state agency leaders, county office of education leaders, external providers, and policy experts; and one-day site visits to 12 purposefully selected districts from our representative sample. We focus on TK–8 mathematics because a strong foundation in the early grades is a prerequisite to high school readiness, and because high school mathematics introduces complexities we could not do justice with the time available to us. We organize our report around four main findings.
