Getty Images

Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell

When advocacy groups took the state of California to court this week to seek the restoration of billions of dollars in public education funding, the lawsuit swept back into the spotlight a glitch-ridden, $200 million digital initiative that has languished in Sacramento for nearly a decade.

In 2002, the California Senate authorized the creation of the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, or CALPADS, a computer database that would track enrollment and standardized testing information for every student in the state from kindergarten through college. By collecting student data over time, the project's proponents said, educators could identify which teachers, schools, programs or methods were effective and determine more accurate dropout rates.

But a slew of problems have plagued the program, which the California Department of Education promised to roll out a year ago, leading to a mess of finger-pointing and failure that education experts say is symptomatic of the broader dysfunction in California education.

The release of yearly dropout data, which is typically expected in May or June, has been pushed back to September at the earliest due to delays related to the system.

A study conducted in 2009 by the Data Quality Campaign on how far states had progressed toward a streamlined data system found that California scored 0 points out of 10 — a score only shared by four other states: Alabama, Idaho, Montana and the District of Columbia. What is more, state education officials openly concede that California scored poorly during the first round of the federal Race to the Top grant competition in large part because its data system is so poor.

For years the state’s finance and education departments have squabbled over whether the program’s woes should be attributed to inadequate funding or simple ineptitude. As far back as 2006, Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent for instruction, criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Department of Finance for not funding the program sufficiently.

In the lawsuit filed this week in Alameda County, Californians for Quality Education, et al. v. California, the plaintiffs argued that inadequate state funding was to blame for the problem.

“The funding system is not necessarily set up to deliver the most effective use of dollars,” the lawsuit stated. “The system suffers from an inadequate data system that would ensure dollars are spent on programs and policies that have the most impact.”

Keric Ashley, the education department’s director of data management, said that education officials at the district and state levels are increasingly pressed to supply more and more data as the tide of education reform trends toward more quantitatively based analyses of student and teacher performance.

Every year, the federal government “asks for more data,” Ashley said, but the state has sharply cut education funding, especially during the recent budget crisis.

“We don’t have enough bodies to give a thorough look” at he documentation for the CALPADS software, Ashley said. “The superintendents in the last four years have proposed to legislators more resources for school districts because data aren’t free.”

But finance officials argue that at this point, the funding argument has worn a bit thin.

“It was supposed to be up and running last year,” said H.D. Palmer, the finance department spokesman. “Any delay in getting that system up and running is not related to a lack of money.”

Palmer estimated that a total of $210 million has been put into the data system since it was first authorized by the Legislature.

“We have approved and put forward any and all requests for funding,” Palmer said.

John Fensterwald, an education policy expert who writes a blog funded by the Hewlett Foundation, said the truth lies "probably somewhere in between" the two sides of the inter-departmental beef.

“They don’t have enough money and they don’t have enough good managers even if they had enough money," Fensterwald said of the education department.

Last month, in his proposed budget, Schwarzenegger signaled that if the system is still not fully operational by the end of the year, he may simply pull the plug.

Finance officials shrugged. “All the administration has said was that if the department can’t get the system in place this year, there may be other ways to get the district’s data,” said a finance department official, who preferred not to be quoted by name. “It’s incumbent on the education department to get the thing working.”

Indeed, that long tradition of antagonism seemed soundly intact this week. 

When asked for an update, Ashley said that “the system is running smoothly.”

When asked the same question, finance officials working on the project said they had received no indication that the system was operational.

Arun Ramanathan, executive director of policy nonprofit The Education Trust – West, said the state was due a comprehensive update and accountability report.

“All they’re doing is just running around and blaming each other,” said Ramanathan of the situation in Sacramento. “There’s a whole policymaking culture of gridlock.”