Bay Area Council Sends Letter to State Leaders Pleading for Education Data Systems to Be Saved
The Bay Area Council today sent a letter to Governor Jerry Brown and the Legislature requesting that two programs be spared as part of his May revise budget: CALPADS, the state student data system which allows for the tracking of student performance over time, and CALTIDES, the state’s teacher database.
“In these difficult times, as school administrators, principals and teachers are struggling to manage funding cuts, we believe that the promise of a data system to improve student performance and effectively use scarce public dollars is too great to turn back now,” said Jim Wunderman, President & CEO of the Bay Area Council. “Our education crisis is a human tragedy and a looming economic disaster. The Bay Area Council resolutely refuses to accept this crisis as our state’s fate.”
Out of the state’s $88.8 billion general fund budget, CALPADS and CALTIDES comprise only $3.5 million dollars, and the funds are allocated by the federal government, which means that the funds won’t help balance the state’s budget shortfall in the long term.
