The California State Board of Education (SBE) kicked off 2026 with a Jan. 14 meeting that included a review of the 2025 California School Dashboard and 2024–25 Data Release, approval of the 2026 Accountability Workplan and a study session on the College/Career Indicator (CCI).

As part of its annual review process for the California School Dashboard — which requires the board to evaluate state and local indicators and performance standards to identify and implement updates guided by newly available data, research findings, legislative changes and stakeholder input — the SBE approved the 2026 Accountability Workplan.

CDE staff noted that some of the items in the workplan may be impacted by separate but parallel policy considerations pursuant to Assembly Bill 121, which requires the State Board to update performance criteria, “taking into consideration the findings and recommendations from the state-funded evaluation of the state’s differentiated assistance (DA) system and its implementation” by July 15.

In the meantime, the approved workplan followed discussion on nine key topics outlined in attachment one of the agenda item. Topics included:

• Consideration of the student-level growth model for grades 4-8 in English language arts and mathematics as a full indicator
• Consideration of the Science Indicator as a full indicator
• Continued analysis of the long-term English learner (LTEL) student group

CSBA Legislative Advocate Carlos Machado said during public comment that CSBA is “advancing proposals to better connect programs and remove barriers that hinder LEAs from closing achievement gaps.”

With that in mind, he expressed CSBA’s appreciation for the board’s focus on LTELs, and the effort to strengthen English learner progress indicators.

“Adding LTELs to the Dashboard brings needed visibility to the group facing persistent challenges,” Machado told the board. “As governance teams work to close achievement gaps, we encourage a careful review of this indicator to ensure it accurately reflects disparities across student groups and drives meaningful improvements within the Statewide System of Support as the board reviews the criteria for differentiated assistance.”

Additional discussion centered on the release plan for the 2026 Dashboard; components of the CCI; application-based Dashboard Alternative School Status criteria; integration of Priority 1 teacher assignment data on the Dashboard; review of the participation rate grace periods for academic indicators and science; and potential modification of academic indicator language and information.

“As you can see, there are a lot of areas on there for us to explore,” SBE Vice President Cynthia Glover Woods said. “We have a very important decision to make as it relates to the eligibility criteria for differentiated assistance as well.”

Echoing CSBA’s call for a cohesive state operations and support plan, Glover Woods said it’s imperative that the board look at how its decisions are braided together. She cited the importance of “understanding the implications and domino effect as we look at each of these areas here on the work plan and how it plays in our accountability system, and also how it overlays within that system for differentiated assistance support and direct technical assistance support as well.”

Prior to the approval of the 2026 Accountability Workplan, the board held a study session that helped to frame and provide context around the proposed changes to the CCI in the workplan. CDE staff provided an overview of each of the measures included in the CCI, as well as details about how LEAs demonstrate that they have prepared students. Additionally, representatives from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) provided an overview of how other states structure their college/career indicators.

Glover Woods pointed to the most recent Dashboard release, which showed that while there was a 3-percentage point increase in the number of high school graduates that LEAs successfully prepared for college or a career as measured by nearly a dozen indicators, only 52 percent of students statewide were identified as prepared.

“This raises some very important questions for us, such as why are more students not being captured in the indicator? Are the accomplishments of our students not being currently reflected? And does the indicator need to be modified to better align with our goals?” Glover Woods said.

One way in which the indicator could be modified to better capture the work of LEAs in closing achievement gaps was brought up by CSBA’s Machado during public comment.

“Students deserve a coherent statewide approach that strengthens and supports the work already happening in districts and counties offices of education,” Machado said, citing a letter CSBA sent the SBE on Jan. 9. “Thinking about constraints, we asked the board to consider the unique barriers faced by students in county court and county community schools. Their time in these programs is transitional, which means that they may not complete a career technical education (CTE) pathway or other programs the CCI measures. As a result, their true potential is undercounted, and the efforts of educators working hard to re-engage them are obscured. When the measures don’t account for these structural challenges, they’re unintentionally penalizing LEAs serving the highest-needs students.”

Board member Gabriela Orozco-Gonzalez agreed. “One thing that really stood out to me strongly, that the CCI relies on sustained participation over time, multi-year course sequences, pathway completion, and long-term access to programs like CTE or college credit. For many students, that structure makes sense, but for others, especially those with high mobility or interrupted educational experiences, readiness doesn’t always show up neatly,” she said. “As a teacher, I think that meaningful learning can happen in short windows of time and that students can demonstrate readiness to discrete accomplishments, applied skills and real-world experiences even when traditional sequences are not feasible.

“So, I also appreciate the connection between this conversation and the broader accountability system,” Orozco-Gonzalez continued. “How we design and interpret the CCI has real downstream implications, particularly for systems that serve students facing mobility, credit disruption or limited access to full programs and offerings. Keeping those realities in mind will be important as we move towards the accountability work plan.”

Read a full recap of the meeting at blog.csba.org/sbe-recap-january-2026.