Welcome to the California Student Success Project!

Mission Statement

CSSP will focus attention on the immediate policy window to actively engage policymakers, business leaders, educators, labor leaders and civic leaders in the need to design and implement a comprehensive change framework that is aligned to higher student and educator outcomes and has the resources needed to dramatically improve the future for California's children and the state.

 

California Educational Information Survey

The State is in the process of gathering information to make recommendations to the state legislature and governor concerning the establishment of a statewide educational information system that will give policy makers, the public and educators better tools to improve the education all students receive. This survey is made available for those who wish to participate in giving input into this effort. Thank you.

Please take our survey.

To download and view the PDF versions please click on one of the links below:
Parent or Guardian
Interested Community Member
Teacher, Principal, Administrator, Non-Teacher Educator
Professional Researcher
Student
Padre o Guardián en Espanol

GCEE Report is Released

The Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence released their report on March 14, 2008. To view the report please click the link below:

Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence’s Report

 

Office of the Secretary of Education hosts “A Community Dialogue on Education Reform”

*THIRD MEETING*

Secretary of Education David Long is hosting an open discussion forum to receive feedback on the release of the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence (GCEE) report.
Please join Secretary Long, Chairman Ted Mitchell of the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence, and the Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools Dave Gordon in a dialogue aimed at answering questions about and providing further information on the Committee’s report.

Date
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Time
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Location
Sacramento City College Auditorium
3835 Freeport Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95822
916-558-2304
Parking - $1 in multi-story structure and visitor/student lots

The Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence report was released on March 14, 2008. To read the report and for more information on the Committee, please visit www.everychildprepared.org.

The California Student Success Project Releases New Data/Information Systems Video

More Than A Number: Education Information Systems in California

“Data can be used as a hammer or a flashlight,” says Dr. Laura Schwalm, superintendent of the award-winning Garden Grove Unified School District in Southern California. Education data, in other words, can be used to identify and punish teachers and principals based on a single high stakes test, or data can be used to engage principals and teachers in a process of continuous improvement of instruction.

Too often, teachers and principals are provided data that they view as meaningless because the data come from a single, multiple-choice test that was administered the previous school year (when the students had different teachers) and that was developed to hold schools accountable for meeting general standards.

What teachers and principals need—according to those interviewed for this video—are data that come from tests given throughout the current school year, are given to them in a timely fashion and in an environment that values collaboration and problem solving, and allow them to adjust instructional strategies. It is only in this way, they argue, that significant gains in student achievement will be realized.

Garden Grove Unified School District and other districts across the state have developed systems and environments in which this continuous improvement process takes place. It needs to take place, however, on a much wider and systematic basis. For it is only in this way that data become “more than a number”—data become the “voices of children telling us what they need.”

 

See what others are saying about the video