Author: Michelle Magyar

As California looks to strengthen academic outcomes, a critical question is emerging: How do we move from identifying students who are struggling to changing instruction in ways that respond to their learning needs? A new Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) report, Learnings From CCEE’s Intensive Assistance Model After 3 Years, examines CCEE’s first-of-its-kind, three-year pilot across five California districts. Through sustained instructional coaching and structured professional learning communities, the Intensive Assistance Model sought to strengthen teaching practices, improve student achievement, and build capacity for districtwide improvement. The findings are promising: A majority of participating schools improved English language arts and math proficiency, four of seven pilot schools earned external recognition, and teachers increasingly used common assessments to coordinate instruction and targeted interventions.

The study highlights an important shift from reviewing student performance to acting on it. Teachers increasingly used common assessments to identify learning gaps, coordinate reteaching, and adjust instruction across classrooms. These practices create opportunities to better recognize and respond to common learning barriers, including processing speed, working memory, task initiation, organization and sequencing, attention shifting, and regulation load. The findings also underscore that sustained improvement depends on protected collaboration time, instructional coaching, and district leadership that supports consistent implementation.

These findings are particularly timely as California advances implementation of its Mathematics Framework, expands statewide investments in instructional coaching and professional learning, and strengthens systems of targeted academic support. In her October 2026 testimony to the Assembly Education Committee, Linda Darling-Hammond emphasized many of these same priorities: coherent curriculum, well-prepared teachers, sustained coaching, and interventions responsive to individual student needs. For superintendents, the IAM evaluation offers both an opportunity and a challenge: Having instructional improvement structures in place is not the same as knowing whether they are changing what students experience. As statewide expectations and supports continue to evolve, the findings reinforce the importance of building district systems capable of translating professional learning into responsive instruction, stronger student outcomes, and sustainable improvement.

Related References:

• Hot Topics: Pioneering Educational Excellence with the Intensive Assistance Model Pilot in California
• Accelerating Academic Achievement through CCEE’s Intensive Assistance Model
• Hot Topics: What CCEE is Learning About Deep System and Instructional Recovery
• Hot Topics: Madera Unified Schools Set the Standard in Intensive Assistance Model Pilot
• Hot Topics: Fillmore Unified’s Intensive Support and Math-Focused Initiatives
• Hot Topics: Madera Unified Intensive Assistance Model
• Hot Topics: Nishimoto Elementary Intensive Assistance Model

For additional updates, visit the CCEE website, events calendar, Resource Center, and the Statewide System of Support Website.

The California Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program is a statewide effort to rethink the middle and high school experience so that students are better known, more deeply engaged in learning, and better supported to succeed. The initiative is grounded in concerns about student connectedness, engagement, and meaningful participation, and defines redesign as more than adding new programs, it involves coordinated changes to how schools organize time, relationships, learning experiences, and support structures.

Building on an initial $10 million investment in 2025, California added $50 million in 2026 to expand the work. The initiative now connects schools, districts, county offices, and redesign partners across the state through networks, demonstration sites, working groups, and shared learning focused on areas such as deeper learning, belonging, authentic assessment, staffing, leadership, and conditions for sustainability.

The broader goal is to learn from what schools are changing, identify the conditions that make redesign possible, and use those lessons to inform practice and state policy. The initiative is moving toward a statewide learning system that can document promising approaches, surface implementation and policy barriers, and build the capacity needed to scale and sustain effective models of secondary school redesign across California.

To learn more about the initiative, click on the Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program buttons below.

For additional updates, visit the CCEE website, events calendar, Resource Center, and the Statewide System of Support Website.

California’s new statewide Individualized Education Program (IEP) template represents an important opportunity to strengthen support for students with disabilities, their families, and educators. Developed through years of collaboration, the template promotes a more asset-based, student-centered approach by elevating student strengths, voice, aspirations, meaningful participation, and ambitious goals. Its significance extends beyond the document itself: it offers the field a shared resource that can help build greater coherence in IEP practice, strengthen professional learning, and connect the IEP process more intentionally to instruction, access, opportunity, and student outcomes.

This work also aligns with the broader purpose of California’s Statewide System of Support by providing LEAs with a common resource that can support continuous improvement while remaining responsive to local context and need. The opportunity before us is not simply to introduce a new digitzed template, but to use it as a tool to strengthen practice, deepen partnership with students and families, and expand opportunities for students with disabilities across California. To learn more, please select the Digitized Student-Centered IEP Template to review the statewide IEP template and access supporting resources.

For additional updates, visit the CCEE website, events calendar, Resource Center, and the Statewide System of Support Website.

CCEE’s 2025-2026 Annual Report highlights a year of partnership, learning, and measurable progress across California’s public education system. From strengthening data practices and advancing community engagement to supporting districts through Direct Technical Assistance, school redesign, and learning acceleration, the report showcases how CCEE works alongside local educational agencies, county offices of education, and statewide partners to improve outcomes for students. Read the full report to learn how CCEE is helping deliver on California’s promise of a quality, equitable education for every student.

For additional updates, visit the CCEE website, events calendar, Resource Center, and the Statewide System of Support Website.