Veto of funding for student tracking system irks educators
The governor's recent veto of $6.8 million to fund a statewide student-tracking system doesn't sit well with some local educators and law enforcement officials.
Earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the remaining funding for the Department of Education's CalPADS from the 2010-11 budget, as well as $3.5 million for CalTIDES, a planned data system to track teacher information.
Data submissions to California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System are likely to stop next month because federal funding for user and technical support will run out.
"It is very important for districts to be able to see longitudinally how their students are performing academically and in other areas, and how they compare to other like districts," said Rick Wiersma, director of student information services with the Ontario-based Chaffey Joint Union High School District.
"In the past, districts would provide the (Department of Education) a snapshot of their students and information once a year, and CalPADS changed that to submitting information on an ongoing basis to better monitor students in California."
The system tracks all K-12 students in the state using statewide identifiers that have been assigned to all students and maintains data of students.
More than 90 percent of districts and charter schools have successfully submitted data through CalPADS.
With one more year of data, California, for the first time, will be able to provide a four-year graduation rate based on student level data, said Jack O'Connell, state Superintendent of Public Instruction.
CalPADS has been online for one year and despite some initial operational challenges, the system, built by IBM, is working, and student-level information is being collected in the state, school officials said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, criticized the system, saying it was a "significant factor in California's loss of federal Race to the Top Funding, and enough is enough."
"I am concerned that the resources allocated for this purpose lack necessary accountability to ensure the citizens of California receive a high quality longitudinal education system," Schwarzenegger said in a statement on the veto on Oct. 8.
O'Connell called the governor's veto for the ongoing development and support for CalPADS "shortsighted, ill-informed and hypocritical" and even if the state received all points for a data system they would still have lost Race to the Top funding.
In a teleconference last week, O'Connell said California lost points in the Race to the Top because the state's K-12 longitudinal data system is not expansive enough as it does not link to pre-kindergarten, higher education or the work force.
"Even if CalPADS was fully implemented, we would still have lost those points in Race to the Top. The Legislature has not authorized the development of CalPADS to expand beyond K-12," O'Connell said.
The elimination of CalPADS funding also prevents the goals of the 400-plus members of the California office of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, which is made up of police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys and violence survivors.
Fight Crime supports Senate Bill 1357 -- by Sens. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose -- that would help the state's schools identify students most at risk of dropping out of school while there's still time to steer them right.
"S.B. 1357 is a huge first big step, if we want to tackle the (dropout) problem, we need to find out what is the problem," said San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos.
Ramos is a member of Fight Crime who supports the bill that was approved by legislators in August.
"CalPADS would help in getting good data on where the chronic absences are, the veto will hinder in the big picture locally and across the state."
The organization's research, published last year, found 35 murders and nearly 1,200 aggravated assaults could be prevented in the San Bernardino County each year if local high schools managed to increase their graduation rates by 10 percent.
S.B. 1357 would require the CDE to collect students absence data in CalPADS.
The veto means it's up to state legislators to make a decision about whether to restore funding for the data system.
"The program could be treading water for quite a while until the Legislature takes action," said Keric Ashley, director of the state Department of Education's data-management division.
Districts often have questions about the data they are required to submit or encounter issues fitting their data into the standardized way required by CalPADS.
Without such support, it will be difficult for all 1,500 districts to submit and certify all required data to the state, which includes their 2010-11 student enrollment data, staff assignment, student course enrollment data, and 2009-10 graduate and dropout counts.
Without this data, California will fail to meet the September 2011 reporting deadline for the federal education indicators, according to the Department of Education.
"It's going to create delays for school district in terms of getting needed information for a variety of categorical programs, including federal funding," said San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Gary Thomas.
"California has really needed a robust people data system and the work being done in CalPADS was our hope to have that student data system statewide.
"The mobility of students and policies governing boards make hinges on quality information on how students are doing."
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report
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