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We are excited to share with you Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation’s 2016 Community Report. This community report is an opportunity for our organization to share the exciting work that we have undertaken this past year, as well as celebrate some of our achievements. When we take on a new project, we look to see how we fit in as convenors, communicators, and catalyzers of new strategies and how our past experiences, relationships, and successes can be brought to bear on the outcomes of the initiative. This year, we highlight three projects--the Accountability and Continuous Improvement Task Force, the California [...]

CDE Foundation Receives $2.25 Million to Accelerate the Development of Digital Tools for Teacher Learning and Collaboration REDWOOD CITY, CA—On Tuesday, November 2, the Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation (CDEF) announced it has received a $2.25 million award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to support teacher collaboration and resource sharing across California. Last August, CDEF partnered with the California Department of Education (CDE) and technology company Declara to launch the Collaboration In Common (CiC) platform and support the state's #GoOpen campaign. CiC provides a social network for professional learning communities that provides tools and resources to promote sharing and collaboration between [...]

After two years of exploration and learning, as as part of the work to successfully implement the state's updated standards, we are excited to announce that Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation is working with Declara, in partnership with the California Department of Education, to launch Collaboration in Common (CiC), California's new collaboration, professional learning, and resource sharing platform. CiC represents the next phase of California's remodeling project to improve our K-12 public education system. You can learn more about CiC and California's participation in the U.S. DOE's #GoOpen Initiative, which CiC helps make possible, in the State Superintendent of Public Instruction's [...]

SACRAMENTO – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today congratulated the educators, school administrators, and labor leaders who participated in the Spring 2016 Labor-Management Initiative symposiums. The final Spring session was held last week for districts in the South Bay Area and San Jose, following earlier sessions in Southern and Central California. More meetings are planned for the next school year. A total of 98 school districts and county offices of education have participated since the first symposium in May 2015. “I want to thank all the outstanding teachers, administrators, school board members, and other education leaders who came [...]

On January 20, 2016, several leaders of the CA LMI presented on labor-management collaboration at the California Educator Excellence Summit, an event designed to help local education agencies improve their professional learning systems. The panel, titled The Power of Labor-Management Collaboration in Transforming Districts, Schools, and Teaching, focused on how labor-management collaboration can help advance educator excellence in California. Echoing messages shared by partners at the May 2015 Symposium, Wes Smith, Executive Director of the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), and Eric Heins, President of the California Teachers Association (CTA) talked about their organization’s commitment to labor-management partnerships and why [...]

Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation commits to advancing goal of recruiting, preparing, and retaining 100,000 science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers by 2021. Redwood City, CA—100Kin10, a national network coordinating and accelerating efforts to bring 100,000 new excellent science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers into schools by 2021, announced today that Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation (CDEF) has been accepted as a partner. “We are thrilled to join this incredible network of organizations dedicated to growing the number of STEM educators in the country,” said Shelly Masur, CEO of CDEF. “California is experiencing a shortage of teachers, particularly [...]

The Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation (CDEF) recently took over management of the website Embrace the Core. Below, you can read the message that was sent out to subscribers of the weekly e-newsletter. A little over a year ago, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation launched EmbracetheCore.org to fill a key information gap among educators. The goal was to help teachers and administrators share ways to explain California’s new Common Core State Standards to parents and community members. With your support and feedback, Embrace the Core (EtC) has become a one-stop destination for CCSS news and resources among both funders and [...]

In the popular movie “The Martian,” astronaut Mark Watney’s remarkable scientific knowledge and ingenuity allow him to survive alone on the inhospitable, dusty Red Planet until he can be rescued. While fictional, the story is inspiring – and it illustrates the power of science, technology, engineering and math education. Do I expect the kids of today to grow up to be space travelers? A few, certainly. But more importantly, I expect all of California’s 6.3 million K-12 students to eventually finish school and compete for jobs and careers in a dynamic modern economy driven by those skills and disciplines. Today, [...]

Thanks to Sonoma State University, everyone can be a maker at the California STEM Symposium! Attendees will have the chance to tinker in a makerspace and experience with what it means to think with your hands and learn by doing. This new feature will give educators the opportunity to rethink their classrooms and create makerspaces that allow students to explore through play, inquiry, and iteration. The maker movement has found its way into the classroom by creating opportunities for students to address a challenge with their hands and collaborate with others. Through this method of learning, students focus on the process, work [...]