What works and what doesn't in California's schools? That's a basic question that Californians deserve to know and that Gov. Jerry Brown should want to know.

Do students really do better in smaller classes? Do students do better when teachers take particular courses? What teacher qualifications produce the best outcomes for particular kinds of students?

Schools and districts ought to know that the scarce dollars they get are being spent to the best effect. Across the spectrum, from business leaders to grass-roots advocates for kids, people agree that the state ought to be able to see that taxpayer money is being well-spent.

So it is perplexing and dismaying that the governor has vetoed the use of federal funds – not state dollars – dedicated to creating a database collecting information on teachers across the state and across time. It would give the state the ability to monitor workforce trends, teacher education trends, assignments of teachers by qualifications and linking those to student performance.

Though it did nothing to help the state budget, Brown's $2.1 million veto comes with a big cost. In the immediate sense, the state will have to return the entire three-year $6 million federal grant.

In the future, California is unlikely to be eligible for waivers announced by the Obama administration from federal No Child Left Behind requirements. The feds want to see that states have a robust data system to determine student needs and measure teacher effectiveness.

Brown's veto also means the state is unlikely to be competitive in seeking federal Race to the Top funds. Reviews of the state's previous, unsuccessful applications highlighted the state's lagging data system.

For example, one reviewer noticed that the state targeted only 33 percent of teachers to use the data in the classroom to help them tailor instruction to students by the 2011-12 school year. This is awfully low, given the importance of data in shaping teachers' practice and improving student learning at the classroom level.

Reviewers also noted that California does not collect the most basic data on developing, compensating, promoting, granting tenure to and removing teachers.

Brown questions whether local districts really get any value from statewide data. He seems not to have heard the concerns expressed by seven of the largest districts, including Sacramento. In a June letter to the governor, they wrote that local districts do not have the capacity to build data systems that track students and teachers over time throughout the state. Kids and teachers move around in our highly mobile society.

A 12-member coalition including organizations as varied as the school boards association and Education Trust West also wrote that a statewide teacher database "can truly support the local use of data." Turning back federal funds, they wrote to the governor, "would be a major missed opportunity that may not come again."

Brown has said he wants an advisory committee to review the data system. Fine. That doesn't require that California stop in its tracks in developing a much-needed data system and forgo federal funding.

Brown needs to find a way to undo his harmful decision.

The Bee's past stands

"The state now has a record for each student (CalPADs) and will soon have one for each teacher (CalTIDES). So the public now has accurate dropout numbers – and knows whether a kid who dropped out of one school enrolled in another and why a kid dropped out. But that was only the beginning of the information needed to appraise the performance of California's public schools."

- Jan. 8, 2009

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