Perhaps in response to criticism that the Assembly was dawdling, Speaker Karen Bass has pushed up by two weeks a hearing on possible  Race to the Top legislation and indicated that she might call members into a December special session — “if need be” — to help the state compete for a share of the $4.35 billion federal competition.

The state’s application is due Jan. 19. The success of California’s bid for as much as $700 million will depend  largely on the persuasiveness of the state’s as yet unformed plan – and the willingness of school districts to join it. But  legislators can strengthen  the application by committing to reform in  four key areas of Race to the Top:Turning around low-performing schools. Sen. Gloria Romero’s SB 5X-1,which the Senate passed earlier this month, addresses a key element. The  state currently has no program  to deal directly with the chronically worst achieving schools. The bill would allow strong interventions: closing down a bad school, which should be a last resort; turning it over to a charter school; or hiring a private manager to run it. But the bill doesn’t include a fourth option that  final Race to the Top criteria now permit: the district’s own transformation strategy. (Update: The federal criteria include school closings as an option, but SB X5-1 doesn’t include this alternative.  Thanks to Sen. Romero’s staff for the clarification.)

In the past, districts have used this vague option  under the No Child Left Behind law as a loophole to do little: adopt a new curriculum, hire an umpteenth consultant or go through the motions of creating a district-run charter school.

The Legislature should spell out what a transformative strategy is. It should include flexibility and autonomy: freeing up the school, under new leadership, from the state ed code; giving the principal control over the budget; and demanding a waiver from the teachers union contract so that the principal can control hiring and firing teachers.

Enhancing the use of data. The Legislature took the most important step by passing Sen. Joe Simitian’s SB 19, which eliminated the restriction preventing using  test results, collected in a statewide data base on students.   to evaluate and pay teachers.

But Simitian has another important bill, SB X5-2. It would set up the process for researchers to have access to both the data base on students – CALPADS – and the data base on teachers, CALTIDES. And it would definitely state the Legislature’s intent that CALPADS extend  from pre-school through college.

It’s essential to bring community colleges and the state’s four-year colleges into the system. Currently, there’s no way to track how well students were prepared for post-graduation and how well they subsequently did in college.

Developing highly skilled teachers and leaders. Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants states to come up with more effective ways to evaluate and pay teachers and principals, using data.

The final Race to the Top regs make clear that this mostly must be done at the district level,  through negotiations between school boards and the local teachers union. But the Legislature could make it easier to fire bad teachers by limiting excessive due process procedures that make termination procedures next to impossible. Don’t look for lawmakers to do this – and buck the California Teachers Associaiton — but there’s always hope.

The Legislature should require evaluations of teacher credentialing programs; some state university programs are clearly better than others. And it should make it easier for second-career teaching candidates in STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – to work in high school career academies.

Setting high academic standards. California is one of 48 states participating in investigation of a common core standards. Sometime next year, the state must decide whether to adopt them. But action isn’t needed now.