DFER-CA head Gloria Romero is quoted here:

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."

…Romero said the veto of CALTIDES funds certainly won't help California.

She said putting the brakes on the data system is a mistake that will hurt the state's low-income kids. Data must be public and transparent to close the achievement gap in California, she said.

The teacher information that would have been collected in CALTIDES is critical in the preparation and training of educators, she said.

"We have no radar screen in California," Romero said. "Just like you wouldn't fly a plane blind without radar and a tracking system. We have essentially launched the second-largest school district in the nation without information data."

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