The California Department of Education (CDE) is an agency that serves students from childhood to adulthood, schools administrations, teachers, parents, and community partners; they are all the stakeholders. Its mission and vision promises that “California will provide a world-class education for all students, from early childhood to adulthood … by innovating and collaborating with educators, schools, parents, and community partners …[to] prepare students to live, work, and thrive in a multicultural, multilingual, and highly connected world” as a team (CDE, Overview, March 2016).
The State and the Federal of the Government provide funding for the CDE. There, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and Director of Education, Mr. Tom Torlakson, works with his administration team to allot funding to different divisions. The Chief Deputy Superintendents of Public Instruction, Mr. Glen Price and Ms. Michelle Zumot, control the District, School & Innovation Branch, the Services for Administration, Finance, Technology, & Infrastructure Branch, the Instruction & Learning Support Branch, the Student Support & Special Services Branch, and the Offices of the Superintendent. (CDE, California Department of Education Overview, March 2015) Their ultimate goal is to make sure all divisions have sufficient funding to run each division smoothly. According to Exhibit 4.3 Major Environmental Components for Public Organizations in the textbook by Rainey, the values and performance criteria for government organizations that apply to CDE are efficiency, effectiveness, reliability, and accountability. (Rainey, pp. 99) The CDE has to efficiently get the approved funds from the State and the Federal government and effectively divide the funding to all related divisions. Students, parents, school administration, and community partners rely tremendously on their accountability on the funding, so that students can have better education.
Since the CDE plays an important role in education, the stakeholders, especially the teachers, parents, and students, have a great impact and influence on CDE’s activities and overall performance. Teachers have to follow the curriculum that is assigned from the CDE. The school administration supervises to make sure all teachings run smoothly. Parents rely on the standards the CDE aligned. They have to make sure their children are taught up to par to do well in their education. Students learn better when the mentioned adults have policies in place to avoid any confusion. Moreover, the community partners, like the after school programs, also play an important role as part of the stakeholders group. Depending on the funding from the CDE, they can therefore recruit quality teachers to help students after school to enhance their studies. These stakeholders correlated one another and work as a team. Anyone fails, the system falls off. Therefore, it is essential for the CDE and all the stakeholders to work well together.
- CDE. (March 2016). California Department of Education Overview. California Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/di/or/documents/orgchartoverviewe.pdf.
- Rainey, Hal G 2014. Understanding and Managing Public Organizations. 5th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
