State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, California Department of Education, and Partners Unveil Plans to Drive Improvements in Statewide Student Performance

SACRAMENTO—On Monday, October 16, 2023, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the California Department of Education (CDE), and partners will unveil plans to drive improvements in statewide student performance. Thurmond intends to detail plans regarding proposed legislation to fund training for educators that is expected to increase student proficiency in math and reading over time. Thurmond will also highlight a deeper alignment in how billions of dollars in state education investments will be implemented to promote and measure student success.

“I am excited and hopeful as we launch new efforts and realign existing efforts to help create a statewide campaign to improve student proficiency,” said Thurmond. “We will be adding to the many efforts underway and helping our 1,000 districts link their individual approaches into a collective approach that has the promise to help us do more, serve more, and create better outcomes for youth on a statewide basis.”

While the assessment of student performance in California shows some progress, low scores recently reported in national measures such as the ACT and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicate that students across the country continue to need extensive support in learning acceleration to overcome learning gaps that have existed for decades and grew deeper during the pandemic. California is offering more resources that can help students to recover and thrive academically than any other state, including universal preschool, an investment of $500 million for reading coaches and specialists to support the needs of struggling and beginning readers, and more than $4 billion in community schools wraparound supports to address the mental health and other whole child needs of students. Thurmond and the CDE plan to provide California educators with a level of professional development never seen before in math and literacy that will lead to improved results for students over time.

Thurmond is also calling for educators, researchers, advocates, and families to join the CDE in building a cohesive, statewide strategy for driving improvement in student performance. Anyone who wishes to work with the CDE to improve statewide student performance should email CAstudentperformance@cde.ca.gov.

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Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100