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The following list highlights both Irvine and non-Irvine funded reports and resources that provide information related to Linked Learning.
California Department of Education, Sacramento 
This analysis expands the evidence that Linked Learning successfully prepares students for college and career.
This report outlines a bold vision for transforming high schools in California and endorses Linked Learning as the central strategy to accomplish that transformation. The report recognizes the successes already achieved by the Linked Learning field and provides a road map to expand this promising approach across the state.
California Dropout Research Project, University of California, Santa Barbara
The California Dropout Research Project was established in December 2006 to produce new and useful research to inform policymakers, educators and the general public about the nature of the dropout crisis in California and help the state develop a meaningful policy agenda to address the problem.
California Partnership for Achieving Student Success
This report examines whether 11th grade California Standards Test (CST) results and course grades can be predictors of the levels of a student’s first attempted community college math and English courses and the subsequent grades in those classes.
Campaign for College Opportunity
Practices with Promise is an initiative undertaken by the Campaign for College Opportunity to recognize exemplary efforts to improve college access and student success.
Career Academy Support Network, University of California, Berkeley
This analysis expands the evidence that Linked Learning successfully prepares students for college and career.
College Tools for Schools is a comprehensive website designed to show high schools how to increase college-going rates, with more than 100 linked documents and websites.
Career Ladders Project, Foundation for California Community Colleges
Career Advancement Academies establish pipelines for underprepared, underemployed young adults to careers and additional higher education opportunities. The CAAs address foundational skills in reading, writing and mathematics, in the context of particular career pathways of importance to the regional economy. All CAAs build on partnerships between local community colleges, employers, workforce boards, social service agencies and community based organizations. These partnerships are instrumental in designing and implementing broad-based outreach and providing individual support, case management and employment links to businesses and labor, including apprenticeships.
Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning
The Status of the Teaching Profession, The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning; California State University; University of California, Office of the President; and WestEd (December 2009).
Given the centrality of teachers to improving student achievement, a relevant policy issue is whether high school improvement efforts adequately address teacher capacity. That is, as high schools change, are teachers prepared for the changes? This research answers that question through a multimethod study that includes a statewide survey, a review of current policies and practices, in-depth case studies, and analysis of secondary data sources.
Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University
Based on more than five years of research on work-based learning in high school and community college programs across the country, Working Knowledge explores the potential for using work-based learning as part of a broad education reform strategy.
This report is intended to inform educators, policymakers, administrators and researchers about current policies and practices that shape dual enrollment in California. The report clarifies current policy and shares examples of existing programs that are successfully providing college credit opportunities to California high school students. It draws from lessons learned in the development of the Concurrent Courses initiative.
Dual Enrollment Students in Florida and New York City: Postsecondary Outcomes, Karp, M. K., Calcagno, J. C., Hughes, K. L., Jeong, D. W. & Bailey, T. (February 2007). New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.
This brief assesses the effectiveness of dual-enrollment programs in promoting high school graduation and postsecondary achievement. The report examined the influence of dual-enrollment program participation on students in Florida and in New York City, with a specific focus on career technical education (CTE) students. The study provides evidence suggesting that dual enrollment is an effective strategy for encouraging postsecondary success for all students, including those in CTE programs.
ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career
This manual provides a roadmap for planning, developing, and implementing a multidisciplinary, career–focused, and integrated high school curriculum—one key element of a Linked Learning pathway.
This 8-page summary describes key principles behind the Linked Learning approach and the core components that make up a pathway. It also lists 10 major areas needing attention to expand access to pathways across the state.
A summary report of the March 2007 examination of data from California’s 290 Partnership Academies.
This policy paper defines Linked Learning, offers evidence for its effectiveness, and outlines policy and implementation recommendations for expanding high quality programs in California. ConnectEd hopes the paper will spark ideas and discussion about how to move from its general policy recommendations to more specific programmatic and legislative ideas for expanding pathways.
Education Development Center
The Education Development Center is working with ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career, with support from the Irvine Foundation, to develop a curriculum for career sector academies in California public high schools. This project focuses on the arts, media and entertainment sector.
In collaboration with EDC’s Education, Employment and Community Programs, the Center for Educational Resources and Outreach promotes and supports the Ford PAS program. Ford PAS includes an interdisciplinary high school curriculum that challenges students academically and develops their problem-solving, teamwork and communication skills.
EdSource
California’s Continuation Schools, Austin, G., Dixon, D., Johnson, J., McLaughlin, M., Perez, L., and Ruiz-de-Velasco, J. (May 2008). Mountain View: EdSource, Inc.
More than 10 percent of California’s public high school students attend some kind of alternative program. This 8-page brief summarizes the initial research study from the California Alternative Education Research Project, which examines continuation schools specifically.
California's nearly half-million African American students often get lost in the state's policy debates about improving student achievement, in part because they represent less than 8 percent of the K–12 student population. This 24-page report asks: How are African American students in California's public school system doing? What do we know about how and where these students are succeeding academically?
This report focuses on where California’s K-12 and community college systems meet and explores some of the potential opportunities currently under discussion for building better bridges between them.
These cards provide fingertip access to the latest information about California’s education system.
The Institute for College Access and Success
This report exposes wide variations in financial aid policies and practices at the state’s community colleges, which can have a major impact on students’ access to available aid.
Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, California State University, Sacramento
This report is the third in a series of reports analyzing the performance of California higher education in the areas of preparation, participation, completion, affordability and benefits. It presents data related to these categories of performance by region and by race/ethnicity, and discusses key issues and policy recommendations for each category. It also describes California's performance relative to other states as presented in the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education Measuring Up 2008 report card.
This report finds low completion rates among degree-seeking students and identifies several areas of state policy that inadvertently create barriers to student success. It offers general recommendations for how changes to state policy in these areas can increase student success.
This report provides detailed analyses of factors related to student success, connects those factors to state and institutional policies, and offers recommendations for policy reforms. It includes a qualitative analysis of the California community college assessment and placement process.
This report analyzes the degree to which state finance policies for the community colleges align with state education priorities, such as access, completion and affordability. It concludes that there is considerable misalignment; therefore, funds are not invested as well as they might be to accomplish state goals. Alternative approaches to finance are explored, and a new approach is suggested to replace traditional (and ineffective) performance funding with "investing in success."
Institute for Democracy, Education & Access, University of California, Los Angeles
This book introduces multiple pathways (now known as Linked Learning), an approach to high school reform that rejects the century-old divide between college preparatory academics and vocational education and the practice of tracking students into one or the other.
Institute for Research on Education Policy & Practice, Stanford University
Effects of the California High School Exit Exam on Student Persistence, Achievement, and Graduation, Reardon, S., Atteberry, A., Arshan, N., and Kurlaender, M. (April 2009). Stanford, Calif.: Institute for Research on Education Policy & Practice.
This study, released April 21, 2009, provides the most detailed analysis of the effects of the California High School Exit Exam to date. The study finds that the policy has lowered the graduation rates of low-achieving students of color and of girls by 15–20 percentage points. Moreover, the policy has had no positive effect on students' academic achievement.
MDRC
Eight-year findings on Career Academies — a popular high school reform that combines academics with career development opportunities — show that the programs produced sustained employment and earnings gains, particularly among young men. Career Academy participants were also more likely to be living independently with children and a spouse or a partner.
MPR Associates
This report presents six views of transfer rates based entirely on students’ course taking. The study shifts the focus from students’ stated intentions about transfer, which are often uncertain, to their actual behavior in pursuing an educational path that would make transfer possible. Its purpose is to provide data to inform ongoing policy analyses and discussions about transfer.
This research brief describes important aspects of financial aid use by community college students in California, with a focus on Pell grants, Board of Governor’s (BOG) fee waivers and federal aid (FAFSA) applications.
This brief investigates transfer students, focusing on the large majority who do not follow a traditional “articulated” transfer pathway, defined as completing two full-time years of coursework and transferring to a four-year college as a junior. Instead these “bridge transfers” take many fewer courses and presumably transfer as lower-division students. The report compares bridge and articulated transfers with respect to their educational goals, credits earned, socioeconomic characteristics and the types of institutions to which they transfer. In addition, the report includes an analysis of students who complete the minimum requirements for transfer but who do not transfer.
National Academy Foundation
The National Academy Foundation sustains a national network of career academies that support America's young people in high school, higher education and throughout their careers. NAF Academies represent business/school partnerships that prepare young people for future college and career success through a combination of school-based curricula and work-based experiences. With the Irvine Foundation’s support, NAF is currently expanding its career-themed academies throughout the state of California.
This document identifies a set of "gold standards" for high school internships and offers strategies for achieving them. NAF believes that agreed-upon standards will clarify expectations that youth, school personnel and employers should have when creating, implementing and evaluating internship experiences.
The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
This report examines the effectiveness of statewide policies in assisting the California community colleges in meeting their mandate for affordability, and makes recommendations in light of today's public needs.
This report examines the math and English expectations for high school students entering California's community colleges. It reveals the degree of alignment between what students master in high school versus what is expected for college-level work.
Policy Analysis for California Education
This report explains why California must do more than expand access to community college if our state is to prepare the workforce needed to remain economically competitive in the 21st century. Fewer than half of the young high school graduates who entered California community colleges with the goal of transferring to four-year colleges in 1998 made it through their first semester with their goals intact.
The American Diploma Project seeks to bring value to the high school diploma by raising the rigor of high school standards, assessments and curriculum and aligning them to the demands of postsecondary education and careers.
Public Policy Institute of California
California's community college system is the largest postsecondary education system in the country—with more than 2.5 million mostly part-time students enrolled in more than 100 campuses. This issue of California Counts takes an in-depth look at this population.
The PPIC Statewide Survey provides policymakers, the media and the public with objective, advocacy-free information on the perceptions, opinions and public policy preferences of California residents. This survey is part of a series covering K-12, higher education, environment and population issues. It includes the responses of 2,502 Californians.
This report finds that California’s education-skills gap could be cut in half by modest investments in programs aimed at expanding college attendance rates, increasing transfer rates from community colleges to four-year institutions and boosting graduation rates at four-year institutions.
Public / Private Ventures
With funding from the James Irvine Foundation, P/PV is managing and evaluating the College and Career Connections Fund. This fund supports partnerships between community-based organizations and community colleges in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in California to help disconnected, low-income youth, ages 16 to 24, reconnect with employment and postsecondary educational options. In addition to designing the initiative, P/PV is providing technical assistance to grantees and conducting a formative evaluation of the project.
The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges
Basic Skills as a Foundation for Student Success in California Community Colleges, Boroch, D., Fillpot, J., Hope, L., Johnstone, R., Mery, P., Serban, A., Smith, B. and Gabriner, R. (July 2007). Berkeley: Center for Student Success of the Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges.
This literature review highlights effective practices for basic skills programs at California community colleges.
WestEd
The California State Plan for Career Technical Education, approved March 2008 by the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, establishes the vision, goals and essential elements of a world-class career technical education system for California.
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