SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell today announced that Governor Schwarzenegger has signed his sponsored legislation to reduce the burden of data collection on school districts.

"With our tough academic standards and state and federal accountability systems, schools in California are focused like never before on improving student achievement," O’Connell said. "By reducing the burden of unnecessary data collection, our educators can focus time and money on students in the classroom, not bureaucratic paperwork. I appreciate Assemblymember Ruskin’s leadership on this issue, and I look forward to working with him again to help further eliminate the burden of data collection for our schools."

AB 110 by Assemblymember Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City) will reduce the paperwork burden for school districts by deleting certain redundant and duplicative data collection and reporting requirements contained in existing law.

O’Connell initiated his Superintendent's Paper Reduction Initiative in 2004. Since that time, the California Department of Education (CDE) is on track to eliminate more than 37 percent of the information required by the department from local education agencies, schools, programs, and other entities in the K-12 system.

According to a survey conducted by the CDE last year, each piece of data collected from a school district costs approximately $315.

"For years there was little or no oversight to determine whether data requests were redundant, whether they were still necessary, or could and should be simplified," said O'Connell.

O'Connell has taken a proactive approach to reducing data collections by directing his staff to get involved at the federal level when new data collection is proposed. He also encourages local schools and districts to help the department question the use and redundancy of proposed new data collections.