The State Board of Education’s (SBE) May 12-13 meeting included the long-awaited adoption of a California Portrait of a Learner, as well as changes to the 2026 California School Dashboard including the integration of student growth data for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics, and continued discussion around redesigning the state’s Differentiated Assistance and Direct Technical Assistance eligibility criteria to more effectively identify and prioritize LEAs with the greatest need.
Dashboard updates
The board approved trends in student performance at all levels for ELA and mathematics on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment and California Alternate Assessment to be displayed on the Dashboard, as well as technical changes, such as updating the term “Distance from Standard” to “Distance from Proficiency.”
Other adopted Dashboard changes involve the inclusion of reclassified students as an additional level within the English Learner Progress Indicator (ELPI) for long-term English learners (LTEL), as well as updating the teacher assignment data reference from “Clear” on the Dashboard to “Fully Credentialed and Properly Assigned” on the Teacher Assignments card and on the Local Indicators Dashboard page. Those viewing the Dashboard will now also be able to compare Fully Credentialed and Properly Assigned teachers at schools within a local educational agency.
Several changes to the College/Career Indicator (CCI) were also approved. These include adding the State Seal of Civic Engagement as a measure to be combined with other measures in the CCI; adding the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery as a “plus measure” to the Leadership/Military Science measure; approval of the Cambridge International exams and courses as a measure in the CCI; modifying the International Baccalaureate (IB) measure to include completion of an IB course with a C- or better; and including high-quality work-based learning as a measure combined with other measures in the CCI.
“This whole process of updating the Dashboard … has kind of been built by patchwork over time,” said Board President Linda Darling-Hammond. “For now, I think we’ve really broadened the vision for the College/Career Indicator.”
New definitions were also approved for work-based learning internships, student-led enterprise and simulated work-based learning. (The Dashboard changes discussed by the board are detailed in-depth in attachments to the agenda item beginning on page 20.)
CSBA Legislative Advocate Carlos Machado highlighted during public comment several issues that impact small and rural LEAs, as well as schools with Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) such as court schools, that still need to be ironed out.
“We appreciate the intent to make the CCI more accessible for DASS schools. However, time remains a significant barrier for our juvenile court and community school programs,” Machado said. “With enrollment ranging from mere days to months, students often lose CTE [career technical education] progress because no system exists to track or transfer that work back to home districts. We are eager to partner with the state to develop a system where CTE progress follows the student across educational settings, ensuring their efforts toward readiness are recognized.
“Regarding teacher assignments, we support the shift to the term ‘Fully Credentialed and Properly Assigned’ to increase transparency. However, we urge the board to prioritize governance coherence and consider the severe recruitment and retention challenges LEAs face,” Machado continued. “We must ensure that new metrics do not inadvertently mis-assess the economies of scale impacting our small and rural districts. We ask for greater contextualization in the Dashboard to reflect the complex factors LEAs navigate while working to staff classrooms and improve student outcomes.”
The board also continued discussions around potentially moving the Science Indicator — which measures performance on both the California Science Test and the California Alternate Assessment for Science — to full indicator status. California Department of Education (CDE) staff noted that doing so would allow the performance categories to be included within the Differentiated Assistance (DA) criteria, and that the SBE would need to modify the Every Student Succeeds Act state plan to include performance on these indicators within Comprehensive Support and Improvement, Additional Targeted Support and Improvement, and Targeted Support and Improvement.
Substantial changes to the DA criteria are expected to be adopted at the board’s July meeting, at which time CDE staff said they will bring forward an action item to discuss the addition of the Science Indicator as full indicator on the Dashboard, along with any additional actions necessary to align it within the updates to DA criteria.
Portrait of a Learner
The board adopted a statewide Portrait of a Learner — defined as a collective, community-defined vision for student success that outlines the specific skills, competencies and character traits students need for college, career and life.
Currently, 18 states and many local educational agencies throughout California have created portraits that emphasize skills like critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity. The adopted SBE portrait will serve as a “North Star” to guide the board’s decision- and policymaking in key areas such as curriculum, assessment and accountability.
The portrait adopted by the SBE includes the following seven competencies:
- Empowered learner — Demonstrates mastery and application of academic competencies; understands how to learn independently and with others; takes initiative and adapts to change with flexibility; embraces challenge and perseveres through difficulty; able to grow through effort and reflection while drawing on personal strengths and goals to navigate school, career and life.
- Critical thinker and problem solver — Builds on a strong academic foundation to ask critical questions, carefully analyze information and develop creative solutions to complex challenges using imagination and problem-solving skills; develops financial, environmental, data and digital literacies, including AI literacy, to evaluate information and make informed decisions in a rapidly changing world.
- Dynamic communicator — Listens carefully and communicates clearly and purposefully through speaking, writing, visual media, the arts and technology; engages diverse audiences with intention, adapting communication to context, purpose and audience needs.
- Multilingual/multicultural learner — Develops proficiency in multiple languages while deepening understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and expanding the ability to connect across communities.
- Person of character — Acts with honesty, kindness, empathy, compassion and care for others; demonstrates strong character by treating others with fairness, dignity and respect, and values varied perspectives through understanding of others’ feelings, needs and experiences.
- Effective collaborator — Collaborates effectively with others to reach shared goals by building positive relationships, actively listening to and understanding diverse perspectives, and contributing to the efforts of the group; demonstrates leadership by both taking initiative and enabling others to do so, drawing on the strengths of each to accomplish larger goals.
- Community contributor — Contributes to the common good through active engagement in civic responsibility, improving the welfare of others by attending to the needs of people and their shared environments; participates in democratic processes and takes positive action to support the health, sustainability and well-being of communities and ecosystems, locally and globally.
The board has made clear that any portrait adopted by the SBE would not create new requirements for LEAs.
Differentiated/Direct Technical Assistance
The board continued its ongoing discussion about redesigning the state’s DA and Direct Technical Assistance (DTA) eligibility criteria to more effectively identify and prioritize LEAs with the greatest need. The goal, as detailed during prior study sessions, is to update criteria in a way that will reduce the year-to-year instability in identification and better align supports with the time needed for meaningful, sustained improvement.
The American Institutes for Research (AIR) presented a summary of the process and initial findings from DA input sessions conducted across California. Focus areas from these sessions included the number of years of eligibility; the separation of Dashboard indicators from Local Control Funding Formula priority area; treatment of the Growth Indicator and the Science Indicator; inclusion of an “All Students” student group; DTA; specific eligibility design considerations for DASS and county offices of education; and other design features (e.g., California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System [CALPADS] DA, timing considerations).
CDE staff then presented findings from its data analyses, which included examinations of how different criteria design choices for DA eligibility affect the number and types of LEAs identified for assistance, as well as an overview of DTA performance criteria and potential options for updating DTA alongside the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, given its statutory role with the Statewide System of Support.
During public comment, Machado and others representing local education leadership and equity groups requested the CDE release additional disaggregated data broken down by student group, indicator, LEA type and size prior to the June California Practitioners Advisory Group meeting. The data is necessary to ensure CSBA’s feedback is grounded in evidence and representative of all student populations as the state works to ensure the criteria equitably identify the LEAs most in need.
“Furthermore, we request clarity on how the proposed DA and DTA criteria would change both with and without the authority granted through the pending budget trailer bill,” Machado said. “We are deeply concerned that the trailer bill proposes to eliminate the current emphasis on student subgroup performance. It is vital that the focus on student groups remains codified in statute rather than shifted to a more generalized identification process. With the revision deadline approaching, the field needs clear guidance on these two paths to ensure our feedback protects the students who need the most support.”
Final action will likely be taken during the SBE’s July meeting.
The next State Board meeting is scheduled for July 8-9. View the full meeting calendar.
