Our 9th Annual District Systems Survey is now live! Help us cultivate the largest public domain database of software systems used by California school districts. We are tracking over 650 different systems in 50 different categories currently known to be in use by at least one California district. This information is in the public domain and is collected from our annual survey, google searches of school district websites and board notes, as well as from vendor provided lists. You can see the results of our survey by visiting our systems pages.

PUC Lakeview Charter Academy and PUC Triumph Charter Academy & PUC Triumph Charter High are two of only 51 LAUSD schools to receive the honor. PUC Lakeview Charter Academy and PUC Triumph Charter Academy and PUC Triumph Charter High are 2024 California Distinguished Schools, announced State Superintendent Tony Thurmond. This recognition is granted by the state department of education to an exceptional group of 293 public schools across the state. Schools are recognized in one of two categories: those closing the achievement gap and those demonstrating exceptional student performance. "We are incredibly proud of our schools for being recognized as the Class of 2024 California Distinguishe...

California Department of Education News Release Release: #24-13March 13, 2024 Contact: CommunicationsE-mail: communications@cde.ca.govPhone: 916-319-0818 SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced that nine California schools were selected for the California Exemplary Dual Enrollment Award. This award program identifies and recognizes schools with exemplary dual enrollment programs and allows these schools to share the exemplary programs and practices that have contributed to their success. All Early College High Schools, Middle College High Schools, and alternative education schools with dual enrollment programs were eligible to apply for the 2024–25 award. “These programs are a beacon of excellence and equitable opportunity in California’s public schools,” said Superintendent Thurmond. “Dual enrollment programs provide a unique option for public high school students who seek to accelerate their achievement, launch their careers, and access a high-quality free college education even before they walk the high school graduation stage.” Awardees had to demonstrate excellence in several areas of program focus. Applicants had to demonstrate and provide evidence of strong, collaborative relationships among the high school, the college, families, community members, and industry partners. They also had to demonstrate and provide evidence of equity, integration of college and district plans and frameworks, dual credit for high school graduation, outcome data, pathways, and student supports. Schools receiving the California Exemplary Dual Enrollment Award will hold the title for two years. Read more at the California Department of Education California Exemplary Dual Enrollment Award web page. 2024 Exemplary Dual Enrollment Award Schools CountyDistrict/County Office of EducationSchoolCollege Partner Fresno Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School District Firebaugh High West Hills Community College Coalinga Kern Kern County Office of Education Wonderful College Prep Academy - Delano Bakersfield College Kern Kern County Office of Education Wonderful College Prep Academy – Lost Hills Bakersfield College Los Angeles Antelope Valley Union High School District SOAR High Antelope Valley College Nevada Nevada Joint Union High School District William and Marian Ghidotti Early College High School Sierra Community College Orange Huntington Beach Union High School District Valley Vista High Orange Coast College Coastline College Golden West College San Bernardino San Bernardino City Unified School District Middle College High School San Bernardino Valley College Santa Clara Santa Clara Unified School District Mission Early College High School Mission College Ventura Oxnard Union High School District Oxnard Middle College High School Oxnard College # # # # Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public InstructionCommunications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100  

Hello members!  We are making some minor tweaks to the School Data Leadership Association's website.  Please bear with us as we tweak some of the User Interface elements, add some additional functionality, and update the site.  We will be adding back any missing pages as we update them over the course of the next week or two. -Chris

A lot of energy, time, and money is being spent on state assessments, so it is proper to check in and ask how it is going. It would not make sense for us to continue to spend the effort on testing only to ignore the results. And yet, eight years into the California CAASPP system, little is known about individual-level student scores responses to the Summative tests, especially with the multiple-choice section of the test. The overall scale score each student receives does not actually break down the types of questions each student answered correctly. Over the last eight years this fact has remained – individual student level data on the Computer Adapted test is still unknown. In the las...

The School Data Leadership Association is co-presenting a webinar on September 15, 2022 at 10 AM PST.   TOPIC:  Modernizing Your Approach to EdTech: From Management to Optimization DESCRIPTION:    Schools, districts and charter networks of every size are managing increasing numbers of edtech products - often with few dedicated resources and limited bandwidth. In this webinar, we'll sit down with Christopher Moggia, EdD, to discuss best practices every district can follow to drive more value from their edtech investments. We'll cover six steps to update your approach to edtech management:1. Document which edtech tools your students and teachers are using.2. Understand dist...

K12 district information teams navigate a confusing array of data management strategies to connect, and pass data between, an ever-growing collection of applications.This webinar, led by the School Data Leadership Association, will answer the question that persists for all K12 educators and technologists: How do move towards truly connecting all of our data systems?Topics will include:What are districts' best data integration options?What is the future of data warehousing and data exchanges?What questions should data leaders ask if a district wants to achieve better cross-district data access?Presenters:Chris Moggia, Executive Director, School Data Leadership AssociationKathryn Grady, Senior...

Here's a video from the CALPADS team regarding the changes.  https://youtu.be/7hjse9TiDeQ

Hello SDLA members!We've just put the finishing touches on the 7th annual district systems survey.You can find it here: 7th Annual District Systems Survey The URL is https://www.schooldataleadership.org/ca-k-12-school-districts/2022-district-systems-surveyPlease help us compile the best single resource for systems used by California school districts by taking 5-10 minutes to complete the survey. Hint - you can print the list out and use that to review your district's systems, checking them off as you go. The list can also be used to help your district understand what OPTIONS exist within each category.Each year we review the results and update the product pages listed on our site. Our goal i...

 The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued two resource collections—one for elementary and secondary schools and one for postsecondary institutions—designed to assist in planning for a successful and equitable return to schools and campuses. The two collections include fact sheets, Q&As, letters to educators, and other materials explaining the obligations that elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools have under the federal civil rights laws enforced by OCR to provide educational environments free from discrimination. Read the Elementary and Secondary Resource Collection PDF (508K)Read the Postsecondary Resource Collection PDF (356K) As we look forward...

Kahoot! today announced the acquisition of Clever, one of the most widely-used digital learning platforms by U.S. K-12 schools, to make learning awesome worldwide. Oslo, Norway (May 6, 2021) – Kahoot!, a global learning platform company, announced today the acquisition of Clever Inc., a privately-held, California-based company that is one of the most widely-used digital learning platforms by U.S. K-12 schools. The partnership between two of the most popular platforms in education, with distinct and highly complementary offerings, will provide improved learning solutions and offerings to U.S. schools, while accelerating the global expansion of Clever's solutions. Kahoot! Group will acquire 10...

The United States Department of Education on Tuesday April 6, 2021 approved in writing a request from the California Department of Education to waive some accountablity, school identificiation, and related reporting requirements for the 2020-21 school year due to challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic.   Please note that these accountabilty requirement waivers did NOT extend reporting or testing deadlines nor did they waive the administration of any CAASPP, CAST, CAA, ELPAC, or related state tests.  In addition no extension to testing deadlines were issued. You can read the full report below: 

Jenny Rankin, whose research revealed that teachers drew the wrong conclusion from test data most of the time when using conventional reports.

In ten years, will historians look back at the 30-year effort to get teachers to interpret test data as a failure? I'm impatient. I don't want to wait ten years. Although I'm no historian, here's my verdict. Yes, it was a failure. This long push to make teachers do "data-driven decision-making" has flopped. But of all those who share responsibility for this flop, teachers are the least culpable. Evidence of its failure is everywhere. The tests most teachers favor are the ones they create. Those teacher-created tests often reveal the least about the degree to which students have mastered the subject matter they've studied. State tests are disliked, disrespected and misunderstood. Proof of how...

The California Department of Education has partnered with the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) to hold the annual California Assessment Conference on October 6 and 7, 2020, through a virtual conference platform. Details about this professional learning opportunity and registration are available on the conference website at https://www.cdecac.org.

CAASPP Update

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. New Resource! Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments Today, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced the availability of a new resource, "Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments." This informative document describes how educators can use California's approved assessments to evaluate where students are academically at the start of and throughout the school year. CALPADS and the ELPAC: Changes Beginning July 1, 2020, the California Longi...

Editor's note:  Still not sure if they understand schools or not.  Keeping students 6 feet apart from each other is clearly not a viable option in schools where 40 students are crammed into a single classroom.  Unclear what resources, if any, will actually flow to schools to enable these recommendations to lead to actual implementation.  But here they are . . . . California Releases Guidance on Re-Opening of Schools Stronger Together -  Published June 8, 2020. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/documents/strongertogether.pdf

CAASPP Update

Assessment Spotlight Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Newly Updated Smarter Content Explorer! The Smarter Content Explorer has recently been updated! Offering new features based on educator feedback, this user-friendly web tool combines the information provided in the Smarter Balanced Content and Item Specifications—key resources used in test and item development—into an easy-to-use search interface. Users can access customized content generated by a quick search by subject, grade, and targ...

It's interesting how so many news reporters, bloggers, and just average citizens can interpret the same data so wildly differently.  This short and extremely informative video explains why this is true when looking at the COVID-19 Country Data.  Interesting to project this same thinking onto K-12 school data.  Even when we collect it accurately, are we also interpreting it accurately? 

Understanding Participation and Scoring Rules for the Online 2019–2020 Summative ELPAC Dear LEA ELPAC Coordinator: Local educational agencies (LEAs) may be wondering how the transition to the computer-based ELPAC affects how English learners (ELs) count as participated and which students will be scored. English Language Acquisition Status (ELAS) has a whole new importance with a computer-based assessment. ELs will be eligible to test only if their ELAS is "EL." Please work with the LEA's California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System coordinator to ensure all ELAS data is up to date before students begin testing. To count as participated, students must log on to at least one domain in...

  This page provides information about the California Cradle-to-Career (C2C) Data System that will connect P-20 data from child care, early education, K-12 education, financial aid, higher education, workforce, and health and human services.  The 2019-2020 State Budget provides $10 million in one-time funding to plan for and develop a longitudinal data system, also known as the Cradle-to-Career (C2C) Data System. This initiative seeks to connect data from early education providers, K–12 schools, higher education institutions, employers, other workforce entities, and health and human services agencies. Three representatives from the California Department of Education (CDE) with expertise in early learning activities and educational data reporting will serve on the C2C Workgroup. The CDE will provide support of the C2C Workgroup efforts through existing work in the following areas: Data Requests The CDE enters into data sharing agreements with public and private institutions of higher education as well as non-profit researchers for student-level data consistent with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Specifically, since the spring of 2015 through 2018, the CDE has fulfilled 108 data requests from 91 unique entities, including 11 requests for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data. A summary of the requests submitted through the CDE Data Request process are available on the Archived Data Requests tab.   Early Education The CDE helps manage several child care and development programs in California. These programs are for children from birth to age twelve. They offer early learning and after-school services to babies, toddlers, children in preschool, and children in kindergarten through sixth grade. Some programs assist children with disabilities and children of migrant farm workers. Many of the programs were set up to help parents with child care while they work. California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data SystemThe California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CDE) operated by the CDE maintains individual-level data including student demographics, course data, discipline, assessments, staff assignments, and other data for state and federal reporting.