Policy and Programs and other departments help CSBA drive the public education agenda
Williams: ‘Working together for our members is the future of CSBA’
Published: June 26, 2012
CSBA’s mission is nothing less than to define and drive the public education agenda in California. Its underlying reason for existence is simpler, but even more fundamental: to provide the services its members need to create the conditions that lead to student success.
Progress on those related goals is evident in several recent events:
- CSBA’s May 19-20 Delegate Assembly
- The June 12 webcast for districts in qualified or negative fiscal certification
- The receipt of several foundation grants to advance specific objectives: Linked Learning, summer learning, and obesity prevention
The association’s newly organized Policy and Programs Department has been at the center of these initiatives, building on the work of the former Policy Analysis Department that preceded it and working collaboratively with every department in the association and its California School Boards Foundation.
Delegate Assembly hones CSBA focus
The recent Delegate Assembly helped sharpen the association’s focus. Input that delegates provided in intensive and extensive breakout sessions has now been studied by staff to help refine CSBA priorities in these cash-strapped times, Policy and Programs Assistant Executive Director Angelo Williams explained recently.
In a presentation to the full Assembly, Williams described how the eight critical issue areas in CSBA’s Delegate Assembly-approved Policy Platform can be analyzed in terms of four high priorities: closing the academic achievement gap; focusing on conditions of children; strengthening effective K-12 governance; and fighting for fair and adequate education funding. Each breakout group then discussed two of those four areas. Staff review of those discussions has shown that the delegates’ most immediate concerns center on two areas: funding and finance reform and closing the achievement gap.
“The delegates have given us our marching orders,” Williams said. While work on all of the critical issues continues, CSBA will give special emphasis to how it can support funding reform efforts statewide and in local advocacy efforts, and to how it can help boards increase student achievement.
It comes down to a fundamental question: What is one of the most essential tasks governance teams are responsible for?
“Among other important tasks, they create the conditions that support student success in their district,” Williams said, adding that CSBA provides the services, information and advocacy they need to accomplish that task.
Meeting member needs
For example: CSBA’s Governmental Relations Department helps shape the legislation that will establish the legal environment under which schools operate; Policy and Programs works with the State Board of Education and other agencies to shape the policy environment within which the legislation is implemented; and CSBA’s Member Services Department develops tools to help school districts and county offices of education put those laws and policies to work at the local level.
“Organizationally we strive to align our services to directly support governance teams to create the conditions in their districts and counties that support student success,” Williams explained.
For Policy and Programs, the new Governing to the Core policy briefs are a case in point. The first edition, published last month, laid the groundwork for subsequent briefs that will support local boards throughout the implementation of Common Core State Standards and the assessments that will measure students’ mastery of those new benchmarks for achievement in English language arts and math.
Governing to the Core will serve as an information resource that boards can use to organize their work around the Common Core, Williams said. Regular deliveries of updated information through future policy briefs will lead to discussions at the Delegate Assembly and workshops at the Annual Education Conference and Trade Show.
‘The future of CSBA’
“Cross-association teams working together for our members is the future of CSBA,” Williams said, and this approach carries over throughout the association. The recent initiatives for districts in qualified or negative fiscal status offer another example, with CSBA drawing on its own policy, communications and information technology experience as well as the expertise of a county office expert and School Services of California, a strategic partner of CSBA.
“This webinar is an example of resources that can be of continuous benefit to our members,” Williams explained.
Grants help finance CSBA’s work
Speaking of collaborative work, both the Policy and Programs Department and the California School Boards Foundation continue to attract backing from national philanthropies to support CSBA’s work. CSBA has recently been awarded $175,000 from The California Endowment for work on obesity prevention and school discipline; $50,000 from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation for work on summer wellness and learning; and a previously announced $400,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation for CSBA’s Linked Learning Task Force, which is working on effective strategies to ensure that all student graduate from high school college- and career-ready.