The California State University (CSU) announced today that California State University, Long Beach has been selected as the host site for the CSU Center to Close the Opportunity Gap: Identifying Best Practices to Ensure Student Achievement in California’s K-12 Schools. The center, set to open this spring, will focus on identifying and refining proven strategies to eliminate equity gaps at all levels of education and will share training, tools and evidence-based best practices with colleges of education across the CSU and education partners across California.
“Creating a continuous pipeline from preschool to bachelor's degree for underserved and low-income students is critical to eliminating equity gaps, ensuring that all students are afforded an equal opportunity to achieve success and elevate their lives through a high-quality education," said CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White. “Equity and educational excellence are vital to California's future, and the CSU's Center to Close the Opportunity Gap will give California's current and future educators the advanced tools and training to achieve these ideals."
Eliminating persistent equity gaps is a core component of
Graduation Initiative 2025, the CSU's university-wide plan to increase graduation rates, eliminate equity gaps in degree completion and meet California's workforce needs.
The center's goals include:
- Providing resources and assistance to local educational agencies to eliminate gaps in academic achievement between subgroups of K-12 students as identified on the Department of Education's California School Dashboard, including gaps by race, ethnicity, income, English learner (EL) and disability status
- Providing professional educator preparation throughout the CSU and serving as a resource for local educational agencies to close achievement gaps
- Creating a statewide network by inviting additional CSU campuses and their education partners to establish regional networks to incorporate and disseminate best practices
Cal State Long Beach was chosen through a highly competitive request for proposal (RFP) and committee review process.
Funding for the center was made possible through a one-time state allocation of $3 million.
The CSU's teacher preparation program is the largest in the state and among the largest in the nation, producing more than half of California's new teachers each year.
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About the California State University
The California State University is the largest system of four-year higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, 53,000 faculty and staff and 482,000 students. Half of the CSU's students transfer from California community colleges. Created in 1960, the mission of the CSU is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever-changing needs of California. With its commitment to quality, opportunity, and student success, the CSU is renowned for superb teaching, innovative research and for producing job-ready graduates. Each year, the CSU awards more than 127,000 degrees. One in every 20 Americans holding a college degree is a graduate of the CSU and our alumni are 3.8 million strong. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU NewsCenter.