Integration and Diversity

Research in this section explores the impacts and benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in education, as well as resegregation trends and remedies in our nation's public schools.

Extreme Segregation and Policy Inaction in California Schools

California’s schools remain deeply segregated by race and class, sustaining stark educational inequities. This report presents multiple measures of segregation in California’s public schools using the most recently available data. We examined double segregation by race and class, compared segregation in magnet and charter schools, and explored racial inequalities in high school graduation rates and course enrollment patterns. Our findings reveal stark contrasts between White and Asian students and their Black and Latinx peers.

California’s Geography of Opportunity: Intergenerational Mobility in the Golden State

In anticipation of the next twenty-five years of civil rights policy in California, this work investigates social mobility in the Golden State between the last two generations to gain insight into which groups could be best served by civil rights policy interventions.

California’s Demographic Future: Ethnic & Racial Change in the School-Age Population

What should schools and educators across California expect over the coming decades? How is the school-age population (ages 5-18) expected to change with respect to its ethnic and racial composition, generational status, home language, and educational attainment? Employing an innovative microsimulation model, the authors project a small increase in the number of California’s school-age children in 2050 and very little change in ethnoracial diversity due to the current state of heterogeneity across the state.

From Institutions to Individuals: A Paradigm Shift for California's Master Plan for Higher Education

This essay outlines a new Master Plan for a unified, student-centered higher education system. It emphasizes the principles of ensuring equitable access and support for all students, streamlining processes to minimize barriers for students, enabling affordable enrollment without excessive debt, aligning programs with career opportunities and personal development, and creating a system that can successfully evolve with changing student needs and societal demands.

The Case for a Right to a Racially Just Education

This paper examines how, at its core, the California statewide education system has constructed educational pipelines that perpetuate and expand stark inequities based on race, income, and immigrant status.

Academic Disparities in California’s Central and Imperial Valleys

This report focuses on the racial and ethnic academic disparities in California’s Central and Imperial Valleys (CIV). Using a decade’s worth of data on K-12 students, the authors examine standardized test scores in mathematics and English language arts (ELA), absenteeism, and graduation rates while controlling for student-level demographics and school district characteristics.

Segregated by Teacher Experience in California

Given the importance of teacher experience and possible changes to the racial distribution of experience in recent years, this policy brief examines the distribution of teacher experience across segregated schools in California. The authors analyzed 7 years of the most recent publicly available data from California’s public schools, focusing on the relationship between student race and teacher experience.