Thomas PeeleNews Partner EdSourceChanging its earlier position, the California Department of Education will release Smarter Balanced test scores next month and not wait to incorporate them into other data as planned, a department official said Tuesday, Sept. 27.“There is no reason to withhold the data,” Malika Vella, deputy superintendent of the initiatives branch of the department, said on KPCC Public Radio’s show “AirTalk” in Los Angeles.The department had told EdSource earlier this month, in response to a public records request, that the data was not complete and would be held until later in the year, when it would be released as part of a dashboard that would include other holistic student indicators, such as absentee rates.The data is expected to show pan
