OAKLAND, CA (May 26, 2010) Last Friday, California learned that it lost yet another critical opportunity for federal funds to support education reform— this time $20 million for data systems.  According to the California Department of Education, securing a grant from the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) would have supported the state’s effort to further develop and implement a longitudinal system linking data across time and databases, from early childhood into career, including matching teachers to students while protecting student privacy and confidentiality.

Funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the stimulus package included $250 million for competitive grants to support Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS).  In 2006, California received $3.3 million from this grant program to fund the development of CALPADS, and $6 million in 2009 to fund the development of CALTIDES.

However, this year, it was not one of the 20 states to win an SLDS grant.

“California losing this grant signals the need to rethink our strategy around data systems that support student achievement,” stated Arun Ramanathan, executive director of The EdTrust—West, a leading policy, research and advocacy organization that works to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement pre-kindergarten through college for students of color and students in poverty.  “Our existing state data system, CALPADs, has had performance issues that have made it difficult – if not impossible—for districts to submit data to the system.  It is possible that the U.S. Department of Education did not want to continue expanding a system that is not currently working.  With or without funding, the state must now find a way to make this critical system work.”

Failure to competitively secure a new grant places the future of our longitudinal student data system in jeopardy as California grapples with a $19.1 billion dollar state budget shortfall and consecutive years of devastating cuts to education.  California was relying on winning a 2010 grant to fund a number of the different initiatives that formed the backbone of the state’s education reform efforts in the area of data systems.

These initiatives included:

• Expanding existing systems to include preschool students, college and career indicators, and a renovation of the California State University (CSU) data system that would link it to K-12;
• Building a high-quality P-20 Longitudinal Data Warehouse in order to link and report education data from preschool through postsecondary;
• Producing high-quality research and training on data use that impacts student achievement; and
• Improving college and workforce readiness tracking.

Many local school districts around the state have tremendous data systems in place that provide timely, relevant information while informing instruction in compelling and innovative ways.  “California must foster a statewide ‘culture of data’ by drawing upon these promising local practices to strengthen our statewide system while simultaneously making data meaningful for educators and policymakers alike,” said Ramanathan.

The EdTrust—West calls on California to be bolder and more innovative in its thinking about what state data systems are and should be able to do.  If CALPADS and CALTIDES remain merely mechanisms for compliance and do not meet the data needs of districts, the quality of the data and its usefulness to the people who use it will forever be compromised.  California can, and must, do better than compliance as addressing the achievement gaps that separate students of color and children in poverty from their peers depends on it.

###

About The EdTrust—West

The EdTrust—West works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, kindergarten through college, and to forever close the achievement gaps separating low-income students and students of color from other youth. Our basic tenet is this— All children will learn at high levels when they are taught to high levels.