Consultant: shut down CALPADS now
Posted in CALPADS
CALPADS, the new comprehensive student data system on which huge hopes for school and student improvement are riding, is hobbled by serious problems.
Acting on a consultant’s report bluntly critical of state managers and of IBM, the system vendor, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has shut CALPADS down for two months and ordered all efforts focused on fixing it. The hiatus will put data collection from the state’s 1,000 districts months, if not a year, behind schedule. O’Connell had little choice but to act quickly. After studying the system for a month, Sabot Technologies of Folsom predicted a “high probability of system failure should the project continue on the current path” as a result of “anomalies, errors and defects throughout” the system.
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Acting on a consultant’s report bluntly critical of state managers and of IBM, the system vendor, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has shut CALPADS down for two months and ordered all efforts focused on fixing it. The hiatus will put data collection from the state’s 1,000 districts months, if not a year, behind schedule. O’Connell had little choice but to act quickly. After studying the system for a month, Sabot Technologies of Folsom predicted a “high probability of system failure should the project continue on the current path” as a result of “anomalies, errors and defects throughout” the system.
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Full Circle Fund’s Rx for schools
Posted in Education Excellence Committee, Revenue and taxes, Student spending, Teacher DevelopmentMembers of the Full Circle Fund, a Bay Area philanthropy made up of socially active leaders and entrepreneurs, has joined the call for giving school districts more autonomy and taxing authority.
Granting local voters the power to pass a limited surcharge of the property tax rate is one policy recommendation of “EACH: A Vision for California’s Future.”The 11-page policy platform is the product of nine months of work by the 60-member Education Circle, one of four study groups within the Full Circle Fund.
A property surcharge would directly challenge of the limits imposed by Proposition 13. It also could create equity problems – and likely lead to a lawsuit – since rich communities would more readily pass such a measure. So the Education Circle also urges establishing a state matching fund as an incentive for low-wealth communities to raise revenue. The platform also urges bringing up California’s level of funding to the “national norm” and includes a useful graph that compares states’ per student spending relative to its teachers’ salaries.
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Granting local voters the power to pass a limited surcharge of the property tax rate is one policy recommendation of “EACH: A Vision for California’s Future.”The 11-page policy platform is the product of nine months of work by the 60-member Education Circle, one of four study groups within the Full Circle Fund.
A property surcharge would directly challenge of the limits imposed by Proposition 13. It also could create equity problems – and likely lead to a lawsuit – since rich communities would more readily pass such a measure. So the Education Circle also urges establishing a state matching fund as an incentive for low-wealth communities to raise revenue. The platform also urges bringing up California’s level of funding to the “national norm” and includes a useful graph that compares states’ per student spending relative to its teachers’ salaries.
(Read more and comment on this post)
