CEL Projects

Current Projects

Overview September 10, 2018

College and Career Readiness Among California High School Students

In partnership with the California Department of Education, the California State University Chancellor’s Office, and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, our work examines the college and career readiness patterns across the state following the adoption of the Common Core Standards and their aligned assessments. Topics include, but are not limited to, dual enrollment, A-G course requirements, high school math course-taking, the role of assessment, defining college readiness, and college-going patterns.

Current and Past Funders
Institute of Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
College Futures Foundation
Stuart Foundation
Stupski Family Foundation
Tipping Point Community

Community College Policy and Practice

In partnership with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, our research explores and describes the enrollment, persistence, certificate/degree completion, and transfer patterns of the nearly 2 million community college students in California, including specific student subgroups (e.g., parenting students, Latinx students). Our work in this area also examines the extensive and ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on student enrollment and outcomes, and how this varies by subgroup.

Current and Past Funders
College Futures Foundation
Lumina Foundation
Tipping Point Community

Career Technical Education

In collaboration with the California Department of Education and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, these projects investigate the outcomes of high school and community college students enrolled in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses and programs. Specifically, this work aims to establish and refine how to best identify CTE students, understand their course-taking patterns, and examine the outcomes—college enrollment, certificate or degree completion, and earnings—of students who participate in CTE.

Current and Past Funders
Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment
Institute of Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education
The James Irvine Foundation

Student Financial Aid

In collaboration with the California Student Aid Commission and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, this work examines how college students in California are financing their postsecondary education. Specifically, we explore student take-up of financial aid across aid programs and various student subgroups, the relationship between financial aid and enrollment, as well as institutional policies/practices and differences by campus. Additionally, we evaluate the impact of changes in the state Cal Grant program on eligibility and award amounts and long-term student outcomes. Since the pandemic, this work has expanded to consider how COVID-19 has impacted students’ financial constraints, well-being, and college plans.

Funders
Institute of Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education
College Futures Foundation

California’s Public School Students & Schools

Through this research, we describe the landscape of California’s public schools (including traditional, charter, alternative, and community schools) and their students statewide, with a close lens on specific geographic locales and demographic characteristics.

Funders
Stuart Foundation
Ball/Frost Group

Student Success and Persistence in College: The Role of Faculty

Along with partners at California State University, our work examines the role of faculty on student outcomes, including the frequency and personalization of faculty engagement with students on the impact of interactions between faculty and students in a postsecondary setting.

Funders
College Futures Foundation

Intersegmental Partnerships and Alignment

Our research in this area aims to deepen understanding on intersegmental partnerships by surveying community and education leaders across the state to identify best practices. As these partnerships include the collaborative efforts of stakeholders from educational, workforce, and community sectors to improve student outcomes, we examine partnerships’ goals, data use practices, and capacity in key areas as well as detail additional resources to support the development of similar partnerships. Presently, we continue to interrogate the role of such partnerships in supporting students’ pathways to college through our work with the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives on behalf of UC Davis.

Funders
College Futures Foundation
State of California through K-16 Regional Partnerships

Online Instruction in Community Colleges

The purpose of this project is to understand how comprehensive professional development training focused on online pedagogy affects student engagement and outcomes in California community colleges.

Specifically, we seek to answer the following research questions:

How do instructor practices in online courses change as a result of taking comprehensive PD Programs?

Does that PD experience translate into changes in online student engagement and outcomes?

CCC Student Financial Aid

CCC Pandemic-Period Enrollment

A-G: Inequality in Academic Preparation for College

Career Technical Education

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Faculty Profile December 15, 2009 EMPHASIS AREA: SOEP. Education policy; Educational program evaluation; Educational stratification and equity; K-12 school desegregation

Michal Kurlaender

Chancellor’s Leadership Professor

Michal Kurlaender investigates students’ educational pathways, in particular K-12 and postsecondary alignment, and access to and success in higher education. She has expertise on alternative pathways to college and college readiness at both community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. In addition to working with national data, Kurlaender works closely with administrative data from all three of California’s public higher education sectors—the University of California, the California State University and the California Community College systems.

UC Davis, School of Education Building, Room 127, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616

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(530) 752-3748

Staff Profile May 24, 2016 California Education Lab

Sherrie Reed

Executive Director

Sherrie Reed serves as Executive Director for California Education Lab. In this role, Sherrie is managing and directing the research efforts of numerous federal and foundation grants and supporting the faculty Principal Investigators. These projects represent unprecedented collaboration among the primary public education segments in the state of California, including formal partnership between the University of California, Davis and the California Department of Education, and collaboration with the California State University Chancellor’s Off

(530) 752-8030

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Staff Profile May 9, 2024 Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research

Robbie Linden

Research Fellow, Wheelhouse

ralinden@ucdavis.edu

Staff Profile May 9, 2024

Alexandria Hurtt

Research Fellow

Profile February 29, 2024

CASSANDRA M.D. HART

Professor, UC Davis School of Education

Staff Profile March 19, 2019 California Education Lab

Elizabeth Zeiger Friedmann

Research Fellow

Betsey Friedmann is a research fellow at Wheelhouse and the California Education Lab. She received her Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in School Organization and Educational Policy from the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on issues related to college access and success, including financial aid and transfer pathways from community colleges.

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Staff Profile March 28, 2024 California Education Lab

Jacob Jackson

Director of Research Partnerships

jsjackson@ucdavis.edu

Staff Profile November 22, 2023 California Education Lab

Karina Jimenez

Administrative Assistant

Karina Jimenez is the Administrative Assistant for the California Education Lab and Wheelhouse. She assists with research and administrative activities across the two centers. Before working for the School of Education, Karina worked as a Peer Advising Counselor and Special Projects Assistant for the UC Davis Center for Educational Opportunity Program. Karina holds a B.A. degree in History and two minors in English and Latin American and Hemispheric Studies from the University of California, Davis, and graduated with High Honors.

kajimenez@ucdavis.edu

Staff Profile March 28, 2024 California Education Lab

Kramer A. Dykeman

Research Fellow/Data Manager

kakramer@ucdavis.edu

Staff Profile May 8, 2024

Mayra Nuñez Martinez

Research Fellow

Faculty Profile October 2, 2014 EMPHASIS AREA: SOEP

Paco Martorell

Professor and Chair of the Graduate Group in Education

Francisco (Paco) Martorell joined the School as an assistant professor in July 2014. Martorell completed his PhD in economics at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining the School, he was an Economist at the RAND Corporation and was a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School since 2006. He has broad research interests in both higher education and K-12 policy. Current projects cover areas including developmental education in colleges, the effects of grade retention, the returns to for-profit colleges, the impacts of school facility investments, and community college tuition subsidies.

UC Davis, School of Education Building, Room 129, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616

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(530) 752-3353

pmartorell@ucdavis.edu

Graduate Group in Education Faculty February 24, 2017 EMPHASIS AREA: SOEP

Scott Carrell

Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics

Scott Carrell is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the UC Davis Economics Department and a Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary area of research is in the economics of education. Professor Carrell is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow at Institute for the Study of Labor, and a Faculty Fellow at the Civitas Institute at UT-Austin. He spent 10 years as an active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force, retiring from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2015.

Strengthening the Road to College

California’s College Readiness Standards and Lessons from District Leaders

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CEL Projects

CCC Student Financial Aid

CCC Pandemic-Period Enrollment

A-G: Inequality in Academic Preparation for College

Career Technical Education

Michal Kurlaender

Sherrie Reed

Robbie Linden

Alexandria Hurtt

Elizabeth Zeiger Friedmann

Jacob Jackson

Karina Jimenez

Kramer A. Dykeman

Mayra Nuñez Martinez

Paco Martorell

Scott Carrell

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CEL Projects

College and Career Readiness Among California High School Students

Community College Policy and Practice

Career Technical Education

Student Financial Aid

California’s Public School Students & Schools

Student Success and Persistence in College: The Role of Faculty

Intersegmental Partnerships and Alignment

Online Instruction in Community Colleges

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