Calif.’s loss of teacher data grant could affect federal funding
By Diana Lambert, Sacramento Bee
Five years ago, California education officials jumped aboard the data bandwagon.
Nudged by federal mandates and competition for federal school dollars, California applied for and won a $6 million competitive federal grant to develop a data system to track teacher information, similar to a system the state is developing to track student information.
Last week federal officials stripped the state of the entire three-year grant for the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System, or CALTIDES, after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed $2.1 million in funding for it in this year’s budget.
The consequences of that action are far-reaching, according to Gloria Romero, California director of Democrats for Education Reform, saying it will hurt the state’s chances of receiving millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds.
That money, Romero said, “will be sent to the states willing to open up the books in compliance with federal law.”
The state already has failed twice in securing those funds. So, what happened?
In this case, the governor’s veto message said the data system wasn’t critical. Elizabeth Ashford, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Brown wanted assurances that the information collected by the system would be useful at the local level.
