Contributing Organizations
California County Superintendents
The California County Superintendents provides the organizational mechanism for the 58 County Superintendents of Schools to design and implement statewide programs to identify and promote quality, cost-effective educational practices and services, and provide support to school districts in the areas of student services, curriculum and instructional services, fiscal accountability and business services, personnel services, and technology and telecommunications. The California County Superintendents mission is to promote, influence, and advocate for an educational system that supports all students.
California County Superintendents Arts Initiative
The California County Superintendents Arts Initiative believes that the arts are an integral part of a comprehensive curriculum and are essential for learning in the 21st century. All California students—from every culture, geographic region and socio-economic level—deserve quality arts learning in dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts as part of the core curriculum. The California County Superintendents Arts Initiative is working at the state, regional, and local levels to provide service and support, leadership, and professional development and technical assistance to county offices, schools, and districts. Through its regional infrastructure, designated Regional Arts Leads serve as the regional representatives of the CISC Arts Subcommittee.
California County Superintendents Curricular and Improvement Support Committee
The Curricular and Improvement Support Committee (CISC) initiates collaborative leadership with school districts, the CDE, and other partners to ensure programs, practices, and services that support success for all students. The committee identifies statewide curriculum and staff development needs, provides a communication and implementation network for curriculum and professional development activities, and assists the CDE in adopting and implementing instructional materials and developing publications such as curriculum frameworks. The Arts Subcommittee functions as a subcommittee within the structure of CISC and works in tandem with California County Superintendents Arts Initiative and other state partners to strengthen and expand arts learning in California public schools.
The California Arts Project (TCAP)
The California Arts Project (TCAP) advances the goal of standards-based, equitable, and inclusive arts education for each and every California student. TCAP’s network of teachers and university scholars works alongside educators and local educational agencies through context specific research based, leadership development, professional learning, technical assistance, and facilitation support to achieve this goal. As one of the nine discipline-specific projects of the California Subject Matter Project (CSMP), network of university-based regional sites and statewide leadership and development center, expands student access to and improves student artistic literacy development in dance, media arts, music, theatre, visual, and career arts.
California Subject Matter Project (CSMP)
The California Subject Matter Project (CSMP) provides a professional learning infrastructure as a part of California’s System of Support — ready and able to respond to schools and districts that identify specific content or pedagogical support as part of their continuous improvement efforts. CSMP expert teacher-leaders, in collaboration with university faculty, help facilitate the inquiry-based instructional approach that supports student learning and engagement. These types of intensive and ongoing professional learning programs have been shown to have the greatest impact on student learning (Bressler et al., 2019). CSMP's nine discipline-specific project network provides ongoing professional learning support to educators as they build on their content knowledge, pedagogy and instructional strategies to help all students meet the state’s rigorous learning goals. CSMP programs support school-level implementation of California’s standards and frameworks, as well as local control and accountability plan (LCAP) goals identified by local schools and districts. CSMP provides educators with a variety of professional learning opportunities, designed collaboratively by teachers and university faculty.
These include:
Sustained school-based programs designed to meet the specific needs of a given school or district. Online and in-person workshop series to support the development of teacher content knowledge and pedagogical expertise. Summer and school-year leadership programs designed to develop and sustain teacher leaders ready to support their colleagues’ ongoing development.
The Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division (CFIRD) of the California Department of Education is responsible for administering the development of curriculum frameworks, which provide guidance for the implementation of standards, and the statewide adoption of instructional materials. CFIRD also houses the Clearinghouse for Specialized Media and Technology, which helps to close the achievement gap by providing instructional resources in accessible formats to students with disabilities in California.
CFIRD staff can assist with queries about standards, curriculum frameworks, instructional materials, and related initiatives.
