The James Irvine Foundation Expanding opportunity for the people of California
Publications » By Topic » Education »

In this Section

 Publications: Education Publications  

Overview
New Publications
By Topic
Irvine Quarterly
Annual Reports
Irvine Brochure


Click a title to jump to that publication:

Investigating the Alignment of High School and Community College Assessments in California

This study examines the extent to which tests used for placement by community colleges match the content that California high school students are expected to master. The study found that while there was a fairly good match for English language arts, there were substantial gaps in math. In other words, students who take and score well on high school exams in math might not be fully prepared for math classes at a community college. A summary of the Irvine-funded study was published by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose.

Download Report (March 2008) (PDF, 490 KB)

What Matters, What Works: Advancing Achievement After School

This brief underscores the potential of after-school programs to advance children’s academic achievement. It shines a light on what matters most for programs that strive to promote academic success — namely, program quality and youth engagement — and it suggests what works by linking these program attributes to academic benefits. Based on the full outcomes report "Advancing Achievement," by Public/Private Ventures, the brief draws lessons from the Foundation’s Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative. CORAL was an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Download Report (February 2008) (PDF, 832 KB)

Advancing Achievement: Findings from an Independent Evaluation of a Major After-School Initiative

This report presents full outcomes research on CORAL, an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities. Findings in this report demonstrate the relationship between high-quality literacy programming and academic gains, and they highlight the potential role that quality programs may play in the ongoing drive to improve academic achievement. Commissioned by Irvine, this report was written by Public/Private Ventures.

Download Report (February 2008) (PDF, 770 KB)

Supporting Success: Why and How to Improve Quality in After-School Programs

This report, commissioned by Irvine and written by Public/Private Ventures, examines the program improvement strategies, step-by-step, that allowed the Foundation’s CORAL initiative to achieve the levels of quality needed to boost the academic success of young students. The report also makes specific policy and funding suggestions for improving program performance. Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) was an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Download Report (February 2008) (PDF, 554 KB)

After-School Toolkit: Tips, Techniques and Templates for Improving Program Quality

This toolkit, commissioned by Irvine and developed by Public/Private Ventures, offers program managers a practical, hands-on guide for implementing quality programming in the after-school hours. The kit includes the tools and techniques that increased the quality of literacy-focused programming and helped improve student reading gains in the Foundation’s Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative — an eight-year, $58 million after-school endeavor to improve education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Download Report (February 2008) (PDF, 820 KB)

Gaining Ground: Supporting English Learners Through After-School Literacy Programming

New research has found English learners achieving reading gains comparable to those of their English-proficient classmates. This brief, commissioned by Irvine and written by Public/Private Ventures, presents findings that demonstrate a relationship between key approaches in CORAL — the Foundation’s eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative — and the academic progress of English learners. In addition to presenting findings, the brief suggests important considerations for any policymaker and funder interested in the success of English learners as a growing student population.

Download Report (February 2008) (PDF, 370 KB)

Midcourse Corrections to a Major Initiative: A Report on The James Irvine Foundation's CORAL Experience

This report, commissioned by Irvine and written by Gary Walker, President Emeritus of Public/Private Ventures, draws lessons from the reorientation of the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) Initiative. CORAL was a $58 million, eight-year initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities. The report outlines the inherent challenges to making midcourse corrections to major initiatives. It also reveals lessons that foundations and nonprofits can learn from the CORAL experience, including the importance of midcourse reviews for multiyear initiatives and the value of setting clear and measurable interim outcomes.

Download Report (May 2007) (PDF, 1.7 MB)
Download one-page summary (PDF, 487 KB)

Using Multiple Lenses: An Examination of the Economic and Racial/Ethnic Diversity of College Students

This report reveals that broad efforts to diversify the student body are not resulting in greater economic diversity at a set of 22 private colleges and universities in California. As part of the Foundation’s Campus Diversity Initiative, the report analyzes enrollment data separated by race and ethnicity and by Pell Grant status, a federal assistance program for low-income students. It finds that increasing enrollment of underrepresented minority students does not necessarily increase the number of low-income students. The study underscores the importance of looking at both factors to inform campus diversity policies and practices.

Download Report (July 2006) (PDF, 2 MB)

Building Capacity: A Study of the Impact of The James Irvine Foundation Campus Diversity Initiative

Irvine established the Campus Diversity Initiative to increase college access and success for underrepresented minority students in California. From 2000 to 2005, the Foundation invested $29 million to assist 28 independent colleges and universities to strategically address issues of diversity on their campuses. This final evaluation report describes the outcomes of the CDI and highlights practical lessons about building capacity for diversity and evaluating campus diversity efforts. The review finds considerable variation among the participating campuses, with some common themes for the most successful schools.

Download Full Report (May 2006) (PDF, 1 MB)
Download Executive Summary (May 2006) (PDF, 262 KB)

Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform: Lessons from Research on Three Reform Models

This report offers lessons for how to improve low-performing high schools, which is the focus of increased concern by federal, state, and local policymakers. The nonprofit research organization MDRC evaluated three reform models — Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development — that are being implemented in more than 2,500 high schools across the country. Each model has been shown to improve some measures of student success, and the MDRC analysis looks at which aspects of each intervention made them effective. This is the first in a series of reports for policymakers, practitioners, and others who must make hard choices about improving high schools. It was supported by The James Irvine Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Go to publication overview and PDF download. (May 2006)

The Revolving Door for Underrepresented Minority Faculty in Higher Education

A report commissioned through Irvine’s Campus Diversity Initiative looks at efforts at 27 private colleges and universities in California to increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their faculty. The report reveals that underrepresented minority faculty — faculty who are African American, Latino/a and Native American/Alaska Native — are leaving almost as fast as they can be hired. During the study period of 2000 to 2004, underrepresented faculty increased from seven percent to nine percent. Nearly three of every five newly hired underrepresented minority faculty were simply replacing other underrepresented minority faculty that had left the institution, the report shows. The report also notes that the lack of greater progress in faculty diversity represents a significant missed opportunity, given that faculty hired during large hiring waves in the 1960’s are at or near retirement age. The campuses in the study hired a full one-third of their total faculty during the study period.

Download (April 2006) (PDF, 304 KB)

"Unknown" Students on College Campuses: An Exploratory Analysis

This exploratory study, resulting from research undertaken through Irvine's Campus Diversity Initiative (CDI), looks at the increasing number of students falling into the "race/ethnicity unknown" category of postsecondary demographic data. The study findings suggest that a sizeable portion of students in this category are white, in addition to multiracial students who may have selected white as one of their categories. These findings might alert campus leaders of the need to attend to this growing segment of the student population, and to how the United States is diversifying in more complex ways than ever before. The brief concludes with recommendations for future research and for both campus and federal data collection and use.

Download (December 2005) (PDF, 256 KB)

The Campus Diversity Initiative: Its Status and Future

This report provides an overview of the CDI as of March 2004, foreshadows the work to be done in the remaining years, and includes a glimpse at what is being learned.

Download (March 2004) (PDF, 80 KB)

The Campus Diversity Initiative: Impact Study Design

Campus diversity has been an ongoing commitment of The James Irvine Foundation for the last 15 years, "helping institutions to prepare all students for leadership in a diverse society and promoting the success of underrepresented student populations." After a review of the first 10 years of grantmaking in 1988–1998, Irvine affirmed its emphasis on diversity in its higher education program and developed a five-year initiative, the Campus Diversity Initiative (CDI), in 2000. The Foundation also committed to strengthening the evaluation component of its efforts. The evaluation component has become increasingly important to The James Irvine Foundation for many reasons, including general concerns in the philanthropic community about accountability and good stewardship. However, primary among these reasons is the Foundation's need to know the impact of its investments on its goal to extend educational opportunities to underrepresented populations through institutional change. This report outlines the evaluation design to examine the overall impact of the Campus Diversity Initiative (CDI) and explores the process of institutional change at the campuses involved in the initiative.

Download (November 2003) (PDF, 203 KB)

Five Cities One Vision: CORAL

This report introduces Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL). An initiative of The James Irvine Foundation, CORAL is a 10-year effort working with five California cities to support high-quality, out-of-school educational programs for K–12 youth. Five Cities One Vision is the first in a series of publications on the initiative and provides information on the project and some of the lessons that are emerging.

Download (Fall 2001) (PDF, 1.6 MB)

Educating Teachers for California's Future

Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University authored this report in preparation for the Summit of California College and University Presidents on Teacher Preparation, organized by Irvine in December 1999. The report explores the California teacher workforce, outlining what matters and what works in teacher education,
supply-and-demand issues, and strategies for sustaining high-quality teacher education in California.

Download (December 1999) (PDF, 1.4 MB)

Toward a State of Learning: California Higher Education for the 21st Century

Comprised of individuals from the public and private sector, the California Citizens Commission on Higher Education began its work in 1996 with a mandate to help preserve and extend California's goal of educational opportunity. The Commission is independent of both state government and California's institutions of higher education. The Commission was concerned that California lacked a long-term and realistic plan to enroll the surge of new students projected to seek admission in higher education. This report represents the specific policy recommendations set forth by the Commission to meet the new challenges facing California.

Please call 415.777.2244 to request a hard copy. (March 1999)

The California Higher Education Policy Center: An Assessment

In 1992, The James Irvine Foundation established the Higher Education Policy Center as part of its long-term commitment to higher education in the state of California. The Foundation was concerned that the state was not preparing adequately for huge increases in enrollment demand that were projected for the turn of the century. Adding to this concern, the state seemed adrift in terms of policies and increasingly deficient in allocating resources to higher education. In an attempt to address these issues, the Foundation established the Center with the charge of developing and promulgating new thinking, working independently of special interests, and outside of any particular higher education institution. This report contains essays by Dennis A. Collins, former President and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation, Michael Usdan, President of the Institute for Educational Leadership, and Patrick Callan, President of the Higher Education Policy Institute. It represents their reflections on the work of the Center and its future legacy.

Please call 415.777.2244 to request a hard copy. (March 1998)

top of page

  
©1998-2008 The James Irvine Foundation • Contact •