Recognizing the critical need to strengthen staffer professional learning in California, the Hewlett Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) to conduct a landscape analysis of the professional learning opportunities available to education policy staffers in the California legislature. Together, they worked closely with Capitol Impact, a Sacramento firm that currently leads the California Legislative Staff Education Institute, to conduct this landscape analysis and make meaning of preliminary findings.
The landscape analysis seeks to achieve the complementary purposes of:
- Informing potential future approaches for the funding partners related to supporting professional learning,
- Understanding the ways in which the California Legislative Staff Education Institute can be a resource for staffers,
- Contributing to the knowledge base around the professional learning needs of legislative education staffers, to be shared with the broader California legislature.
Data in service of addressing these purposes were collected and analyzed via virtual interviews and focus groups with a range of stakeholders, including education policy staffers, legislative leaders, and field leaders, as well as a survey of education policy staffers. SPR also collected perspectives from families that are affected by education policy to add to and triangulate findings from staffers, legislatures, and field leaders.