The Center for Applied Policy in Education (CAP-ED), led by Executive Director Christina E. Murdoch and Faculty Director Megan Welsh, was established in 2006 to bridge the work of education researchers, practitioners and policy makers in the state of California. We focus on building leadership capacity to develop a more equitable and high quality education system statewide. Our driving  vision is an education system in which district and school leaders create the conditions so that all students can learn, grow and thrive. 

Our work is grounded in empirical research and informed by the field with 19+ years of partnerships between education researchers, district and school leaders and policy makers. We have served more than 20% of California’s superintendents in annual cohorts engaged with luminaries in education research and system improvement. Included among these, are Charles Payne, Meredith Honig, Richard Elmore, Michael Fullan, Peter Senge, Patricia Gandara, Davis Campbell, Steve Ladd, David Cohen, Anthony Bryk, Mike Kirst, James Popham, Marguerite Roza, Larry Cuban, Carl Cohen and Norton Grubb. Our Collective Inquiry Network Model builds the power of inter-district and inter-school collaboration for a robust, coherent education system. The California Superintendents’ Collaborative Network and 21CSLA Principals’ Collaborative Support Network support and develop district and school leaders across the state. 

CAP-Ed’s programs are aligned with California’s Quality Professional Learning Standards (QPLS), which may be downloaded here.

Data

Quality professional learning:

1. Uses formative and summative student achievement data, disaggregated by race, gender, English language learner status, special needs, foster youth, and/or poverty indicators, to identify critical student needs that require improved instruction, support, and leadership.  
2. Incorporates disaggregated school climate data to identify student social, emotional, and health and safety areas requiring increased educator knowledge or skill.
3. Utilizes family and community information to assist educators in meeting students’ needs.
4. Includes staff, community, family, and student opinions as perception data to inform decisions.

Content and Pedagogy

Quality professional learning enhances educators’ expertise to increase students’ capacity to learn and thrive.

1. Focuses on learning the content required in meeting state and district outcomes for students.
2. Deepens and extends subject-matter knowledge within educators’ own discipline and across other disciplines.
3. Builds educators’ capacity to use curriculum frameworks, instructional materials, equipment, and technology that support the teaching and learning of subject-matter content. 
4. Increases educators’ use of universal and linguistically and culturally responsive materials. 

Pedagogy

1. Builds educators’ repertoires of evidence-based instructional approaches for various content areas and diverse student learning needs.
2. Creates multiple opportunities, in different settings, for educators to practice and receive feedback on new skills.
3. Uses instructional technique and strategies that educators then use with students.
4. Develops educators’ abilities to use formative and summative assessment information to plan and modify content and instruction.

Equity

Quality professional learning focuses on equitable access, opportunities, and outcomes for all students, with a emphasis on addressing achievement and opportunity disparities between student groups.

1. Uses summative and formative achievement and perception data, disaggregated by gender, race, language, special needs, foster youth, and poverty indicators, to identify critical student needs that require improved instruction and support.
2. Enables educators to plan and implement evidence-based instructional strategies that are responsive to students’ diverse backgrounds and needs.
3. Helps educators understand that building on students’ abilities, perspectives, and potential contributes to increased student learning.

Design and Structure

Quality professional learning reflects evidence-based approaches, recognizing that focused, sustained learning enables educators to acquire, implement, and assess improved practices.

1. Focuses on clearly identified purposes and needs related to educators’ capacity to increase students’ learning outcomes.
2. Is ongoing and requires consistent effort.
3. Requires dedicated time, within the school schedule, for educator learning, practice, reflection, and collaboration.
4. Leverages extended time opportunities for educator learning, practice, reflection, and collaboration.

Learning that Is Embedded in Practice

1. Utilizes real problems of practice as a base for new learning.
2. Clarifies how to apply and use learning.
3. Incorporates deliberate practice of new learning with frequent reflection, feedback, and support, so that knowledge and skills become fully integrated.

Collaboration and Shared Accountability

Quality professional learning facilitates the development of a shared purpose for student learning and collective responsibility for achieving it.

1. Establishes professional communities of practice to support mutually agreed-upon student learning goals and outcomes.
2. Sets clear purposes, goals, and working agreements that support the sharing of practices and results within a safe and supportive environment.
3. Integrates a common understanding of the terminology and group process skills involved in establishing and sustaining a professional community of practice.
4. Structures collective learning around an evidence-based cycle of continuous learning and improvement, maintaining a consistent focus on shared goals.
5. Supports educators in making practice more transparent, through peer observation, common planning, and experimentation with feedback.

Resources

Quality professional learning dedicates resources that are adequate, accessible, and allocated appropriately toward established priorities and outcomes.

Human Capital

1. Recognizes the leadership capacity of internal staff to present, facilitate, or coach targeted professional learning.
2. Capitalizes on flexible staffing arrangements that allow for peer-to-peer learning.
3. Engages external expertise when necessary.
4. Requires external professional learning providers to be vetted against rigorous criteria.
5. Includes parents, community members, regional partnerships, institutions of higher education, county offices of education, and others as professional learning providers and partners.

Time

1. Requires that time for collaboration and learning is made available in an ongoing and systematic way.
2. Develops a cycle of activities spaced over time, including theory, demonstration, practice, feedback, reflection, and coaching.
3. Necessitates that current educator schedules increase time for collaboration and learning.
4. Uses time within the school day for practice-embedded learning, but also provides release time when needed.

Alignment and Coherence

Quality professional learning contributes to a coherent system of educator learning and support that connects district and school priorities and needs with state and federal requirements and resources.​

1. Uses local goals and state direction in following federal laws and guidelines to improve individual and collective educator and student performance.
2. Frames educators’ development through preparation, licensing, induction, and continuously improving practice.
3. Extends educators’ capacity to implement content and pedagogy that prepare all students for national, state, and local curricula and assessments.
4. Offers learning and practice activities that are directed toward meeting educators’ professional and performance standards.