News
Spotlight on Placerville: Building Precision and Rigor through PLCs
As part of the CA Ed Partners P3CC Collaboration, the Placerville School District Team at Schnell is making notable progress in strengthening the math instructional system through a clear, standards-aligned approach. By carefully analyzing how their newly adopted curriculum aligns with the depth and rigor of the California Common Core State Standards, the team is […]
Let Me Count The Ways: The Importance of Early Math
Third-grade proficiency starts in preschool. Districts often don’t realize how far behind some of their students are in math until third grade, when standardized tests kick in. The solution is not to put the best teachers in third grade to get children caught up. The solution is to begin early to make sure they don’t […]
Building Capacity and Coherence in Napa Valley USD
The educators and administrators of Napa Valley Unified School District (NVUSD) embarked on an essential dual mission when they joined the On Track collaboration two years ago: to dramatically expand college readiness by strengthening the A-G pipeline, and simultaneously building an internal system that could learn, adapt, and drive continuous improvement. Their ultimate aspiration was […]
Grades Reinforce Learning as Process, Not Event
When it comes to getting students on track for post-secondary opportunities, it’s important to inspect the role played by our grading practices. How do we actually measure and grade learning? We support teachers to ask questions like ‘Are my grading mechanisms sophisticated enough to capture when a student goes from not understanding to understanding? If […]
Collaboration, Curiosity, and Student Thinking Take Center Stage in Ukiah
The Ukiah PK-3 Coherence Collaboration (P3CC) is leading an exciting shift in how math is taught and experienced across their schools. Their goal is to make math a subject students celebrate and enjoy, where every learner feels confident sharing their reasoning and engaging in meaningful mathematical conversations. This transformation began with teachers’ willingness to try […]
Building Systems for Coherence and Rigor: The On Track Program Journey
One of the big gaps that we see over and over again is that students are not consistently exposed to grade-level appropriate material nor are they expected to perform at grade level. This not only compounds their chances of failure throughout high school, it also dramatically reduces their opportunities after they leave. Students who do […]
From Common Sense to Common Practice
I’ve been working with and in public school districts for a long time, 55 years to be exact, and I get to speak with dozens of superintendents every month. When I can support a district leader in staying focused on student learning, it is the best part of my day. I often find myself saying […]
Modesto City Schools on a Mission
Casey Peterson recognized a concerning trend when he began working in Modesto as an intervention specialist with struggling students. When ninth graders struggled at the beginning of their high school career, their challenges continued and compounded in subsequent years. Now, as a participant in Modesto’s California Education Partners On Track Improvement Team, Peterson has time […]
Lamont Leverages Improvement Teams to Learn and Scale
The Lamont Improvement Team is celebrating two years of powerful collaboration, learning, and growth that is shaping the future of math teaching and learning across their district. Their district’s Framework for the Future and their participation in Ed Partner’s PreK-3 Coherence Collaborative (P3CC) are guiding their strategy. From the very beginning, the team committed to […]
The Wisdom of District Improvement Teams
At California Education Partners, we’ve found that lasting improvement happens when solutions are designed collaboratively—bringing together the perspectives and experiences of educators, administrators, and district leaders. That’s why we structure our collaborations around cross-organizational district teams. By bringing together teachers, coaches, school site leaders, and district leaders, we ensure that multiple levels of the system […]