Country Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson

Country Superintendent of Public Education Tom Torlakson

Gov. Jerry Chocolate-brown included $1.25 billion in this year's country budget for implementing the new Common Core standards. State Superintendent of Public Teaching Tom Torlakson is calling on the governor and the Legislature to match if not enhance that amount next year – and throw in additional dollars to help districts cut educatee absence and intermission rates.

With the Legislative Analyst'due south Office projecting a surge in Proposition 98 revenue for Yard-12 schools adjacent year, Torlakson advocates channeling at least $1.v billion – nearly $240 per student – for school districts to choose how best to prepare students for both the Common Core English language arts and math standards and the new Adjacent Generation Science Standards that the Country Lath of Education adopted in September.

"There is some feet as you talk to teachers because tough budgets accept non allowed professional person development over the past three years. And there'southward a technology gap (to administrate computer-based Common Core tests). Only administrators and school boards are welcoming a chance for more training. The state should step up," Torlakson said in an cease-of-the-twelvemonth interview.

The state has given districts the choice of spending their share of the $ane.25 billion to purchase computers and technology, train teachers and administrators, or purchase instructional materials. A survey by the California County Superintendents Educational Services Clan indicated districts are spreading the money effectually. Nevertheless, it's been hard to gauge how well prepared districts are to teach the new standards besides as to administrate the field test in the new standards in spring 2022 and to implement the outset bodily Mutual Core test a yr later on. Less than one-half of districts responded to an all-encompassing survey past the country final spring on engineering science readiness. So Torlakson called on all districts to take the survey, called the Technology Readiness Tool.

"We're emphasizing to superintendents and school boards that they demand to identify what their needs are," he said. "What is the gap (in engineering to administer the new tests)?"

Without the results, it will be harder to make a case to the Legislature for more coin, he said.

Torlakson said his other priority for ane-time state coin would be to railroad train teachers in alternative forms of discipline to suspension. Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, has sponsored bills the past two legislative sessions to restrict suspensions based on "willful defiance" of schoolhouse government, a catch-all phrase in state law. Two years ago, Brown vetoed the bill; this year, Dickinson pulled back his bill, pending further work, and expects to reintroduce it in 2014. Torlakson said that regardless of the status of Dickinson'southward bill, in that location is a need to train teachers in strategies to defuse situations that would lead to school suspensions.

Schoolhouse districts will be required to pay more than attention to reducing pause and absentee rates when creating their Local Command and Accountability Plans, an annual requirement under the state's school financing arrangement, the Local Control Funding Formula. Setting goals to amend schoolhouse climate and pupil engagement are among the priorities that districts must address. Torlakson said that through regional symposiums, the country Section of Education can assistance districts identify early on patterns of chronic absenteeism and, through partnerships with social service agencies, intervene with parents through domicile visits. "It's important to go knock on doors," he said.

Torlakson discussed other issues also.

Conflict with federal officials on testing: Torlakson said that he expects a response from the federal Section of Educational activity early on adjacent month on the state's application for a one-year waiver from federal standardized testing requirements. U.Southward. Secretary of Teaching Arne Duncan has agreed to allow twenty percent of students in a country to have a field test in the Common Core standards in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 in lieu of  a land standardized examination. However, a new state law, AB 484, which Torlakson sponsored, requires all districts to administer an abbreviated version of the computer-based field test to all students, and discontinues nigh all California state standardized tests.

Torlkason and the Country Board of Education fence it makes no sense to go along to give standardized tests on state standards when students need to transition to Common Core standards. There'due south no assurance that Duncan volition concur to the state's plan, and federal officials have threatened to withhold tens of millions of federal Championship I dollars. Discussions with federal officials have continued, Torlakson said, without hinting at a possible outcome.

However, heads of seven California nonprofit organizations take stepped upward pressure on Duncan to prepare conditions for a possible land waiver. In a Dec. 23 letter of the alphabet, they asked Duncan to require that districts brand public the results of the Mutual Cadre field or practice test, including by pupil subgroups.

"It is clear that parents, teachers, principals, superintendents and voters in California believe it is of import to examination students and provide that data to assistance schools improve," they said. Signers include Bill Lucia, president and CEO of the advancement organization EdVoice; Arun Ramanathan, executive director of Instruction Trust-Due west; and Rick Miller, executive managing director of the California Office to Reform Pedagogy, a nonprofit serving 10 school districts.

State officials have argued that the field test volition not produce valid and reportable results for districts and student subgroups. Its primary purpose, they said, will be to aid the examination developer, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, perfect its cess for 2015.

Accelerated development of new tests: AB 484 requires the Department of Education to present a master programme for introducing new standardized tests in subjects not covered by Common Cadre standards by March 2016. However, Torlakson said that he plans to meet with Land Board of Education President Michael Kirst and Executive Manager Karen Stapf Walters to talk over a faster timeline for tests in some subjects. High school math tests, including Algebra I, and tests in the new science standards would be priorities for quicker test development.

Action on teacher dismissals and evaluations: Faced with potential ballot measures rewriting country laws on teacher dismissals and teacher evaluations, Torlakson said the Legislature should act on those issues. For two straight years, the Legislature deadlocked on a bill that would make information technology simpler and less expensive to fire teachers accused of sexually abusing students. A proposed initiative sponsored by EdVoice would put the outcome to voters in November 2014.

Earlier this calendar month, a consultant affiliated with Sacramento-based StudentsFirst submitted a proposed initiative to the chaser general for blessing that would rewrite the land'southward teacher evaluation constabulary and eliminate teacher dismissals based on seniority. Torlakson said he has not reviewed the two initiatives, which have yet to authorize for the ballot, but encouraged the Legislature to act this session on its own. The initiative would impose a teacher evaluation construction that Torlakson said should exist collectively bargained.

In September 2012, a task force that Torlakson appointed released a study, Greatness by Blueprint, that recommended a more comprehensive approach to instructor evaluations than required past the current law, the Stull Human activity. Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford and current co-chair of the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing, co-chaired Torlakson'due south chore force.

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