AB 8

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) The federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) , provides $4.3 billion for the State Incentive Grant Fund (Race to the Top Fund) , which is a competitive grant program designed to encourage and reward states that are implementing specified educational objectives. The ARRA requires a Governor to apply on behalf of a state seeking a Race to the Top grant, and requires the application to include specified information. The United States Secretary of Education has issued regulations and guidelines regarding state eligibility under the Race to the Top program. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature, as well as findings and declarations of the Legislature relating to the Race to the Top program. This bill would authorize the Superintendent of Public Instruction to enter into a memorandum of understanding with a local educational agency that is consistent with the requirements established by the bill and the regulations and guidelines for the Race to the Top program. This bill would require the state plan or plans submitted to the United States Secretary of Education for the Race to the Top program to meet specified substantive and procedural requirements. The bill would also require the Department of Finance to provide appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature with a copy of the plan or plans within 10 days of submission to the United States Secretary of Education for the Race to the Top program. The Department of Finance, in conjunction with the Superintendent, would, within 30 days of receipt of any federal Race to the Top program funds, and prior to their allocation, be required to develop and submit to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature an expenditure plan, as specified. This bill would require the Superintendent, on or before January 1, 2011, to contract with an independent evaluator relating to the implementation of the state plan to be submitted in application for a Race to the Top Fund competitive grant award. This bill would require the Superintendent, on or before September 1, 2010, to convene a working group consisting of specified members to develop parameters of the evaluation and make specified recommendations relating to the selection of the independent evaluator. This bill would require the Superintendent, on or before June 1, 2014, to provide the final evaluation to the Legislature, the Governor, and the state board, and authorize the department to use federal Race to the Top program funds for this evaluation. This bill would provide that the evaluation provisions shall become inoperative on July 1, 2014, and as of January 1, 2015, are repealed unless a later enacted statute becomes operative, as specified. (2) The Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 requires the Superintendent, with approval of the state board, to develop the Academic Performance Index (API) , consisting of a variety of indicators, to be used to measure the performance of schools. Existing law requires the Superintendent to develop, and the state board to adopt, expected annual percentage growth targets for all schools based on their API baseline score and prescribes a minimum percentage growth target of 5% annually. The act also establishes the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (IIUSP) . Schools that score below the 50th percentile on certain achievement tests are invited to participate in the program and are provided program funding. Twenty-four months after receiving IIUSP funding, a school that fails to meet its growth targets each year, but demonstrates significant growth, as determined by the state board, continues to participate in the program for an additional year and to receive funding. If a school fails to meet its growth targets each year and does not demonstrate significant growth, it is deemed a state-monitored school and the Superintendent is required to take specified actions with regard to the school. This bill would require the Superintendent to apportion federal Race to the Top program funds pursuant to a specified expenditure plan for low-achieving schools. The bill, commencing with the 2011–12 fiscal year, would require the Superintendent to apportion block grant funds based on the number of certificated personnel employed in eligible school districts that have one or more schools under their jurisdiction and charter schools, that are low-achieving, as defined. School districts and charter schools that receive funds pursuant to these provisions would be required to expend the funds for specified purposes relating to professional development for teachers, administrators, and schoolsite staff. School districts and charter schools receiving funds also would be required to annually report specified information to the State Department of Education relating to the expenditure of these funds. This bill would require the Superintendent to establish a list of persistently lowest-achieving schools, as defined, according to specified criteria. The bill, except as specified, would require the governing board of a school district, county office of education, or charter school to implement, for any school identified by the Superintendent as persistently lowest-achieving, one of four interventions for turning around lowest-achieving schools described in federal regulations and guidelines for the Race to the Top program, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. The bill would authorize a persistently lowest-achieving school implementing specified intervention models to participate in a school-to-school partnership program by working with a mentor school that has successfully transitioned from a low-achieving school to a higher-achieving school. The regional consortia authorized under a specified statute would, using specified federal funds, be required to provide, in collaboration with the department, at a minimum, technical assistance and support to local educational agencies with one or more persistently lowest-achieving schools to assist with the implementation of the duties specified for any of the 4 interventions. This bill would require the governing board of a local educational agency, with regard to any school identified as low-achieving, as defined, but not identified as persistently lowest-achieving, as defined, which continues to fail to make adequate yearly progress under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act after one full school year, and where at least one-half of the parents or guardians of pupils attending the school and the elementary or middle schools that normally matriculate into a middle or high school, as applicable, sign a petition requesting the local educational agency to implement a strategy to reform that school, to (a) place that request as an item on the agenda of a regularly scheduled public hearing no later than 90 days following receipt of that request, (b) hear that agenda item at that regularly scheduled meeting, and (c) allow public testimony and comment on that agenda item. (3) Existing law requires the governing board of a school district to develop and adopt objective evaluation and assessment guidelines for certificated employees. This bill would require each participating local educational agency that executes a memorandum of understanding with the State of California pursuant to the federal Race to the Top program to have in place or establish a rigorous, transparent, and fair evaluation system for its school principals. (4) Existing law requires the Controller, in consultation with the Department of Finance and the State Department of Education, to develop a plan to review and report on financial and compliance audits. Existing law requires the Controller to propose the content of an audit guide and authorizes a supplement to the audit guide to be suggested in the audit year to address issues resulting from new legislation in that year that changes the conditions of apportionment. Existing law requires the Controller to submit the proposed content of the audit guide and any supplement to the Education Audits Appeal Panel for review and possible amendment, and requires the Education Audits Appeal Panel to adopt the audit guide and any supplement pursuant to the rulemaking procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act. This bill would require the Controller to propose, and the Education Audits Appeal Panel to adopt, a charter school supplement to the audit guide in order to provide guidance to auditors regarding which sections of the school district and county office audit guide apply to charter schools and to create specific guidance related to the unique nature of charter schools. The bill also would make conforming changes. The Charter Schools Act of 1992 (Charter Schools Act) authorizes any one or more persons to submit a petition to the governing board of a school district to establish a charter school that operates independently from the existing school district structure as a method of accomplishing specified goals. The act limits the maximum number of charter schools authorized to operate in the state each year, as specified. This bill would delete that numerical limitation. The Charter Schools Act specifies the procedures for the submission, review, and approval or denial of a petition to establish a standard or countywide charter school. The act authorizes the governing board of a school district to deny a charter petition only if the board makes written factual findings that support certain facts regarding the petition. This bill, in addition, would authorize a governing board to deny a petition to establish a standard or countywide charter school if it makes a written factual finding that other charter schools in operation for at least 3 consecutive years and operated by the petitioner have met any of the following criteria: (A) the charter school has demonstrated academic achievement equivalent to a persistently lowest-achieving school, as specified; (B) the charter schoolcompleted its first renewal cycle and was not renewed by the authorizing entity, the county board of education, or the state board, as applicable; or C) the school has had its charter revoked, and the charter was not restored by the county board of education or the state board, as applicable. The Charter Schools Act limits the duration of charters to a period not to exceed 5 years and authorizes the chartering authority to grant one or more subsequent renewals for an additional period of 5 years. The act specifies the criteria a charter school is required to meet in order to receive a renewal of its charter. Commencing January 1, 2005, or after a charter school has been in operation for 4 years, whichever date occurs later, the act requires a charter school to meet at least one of several specified criteria prior to receiving a charter renewal, including a determination by the entity that granted the charter that the academic performance of the charter school is at least equal to the academic performance of the public schools that the charter school pupils would otherwise have been required to attend, as well as the academic performance of the schools in the school district in which the charter school is located, taking into account the composition of the pupil population that is served at the charter school. This bill would delete that criterion and replace it with a criterion relating to attaining positive growth on the charter school's API score. The bill would require a chartering authority, consistent with the federal Race to the Top guidelines, to consider the degree to which a charter school serves pupil populations that are similar to local district pupil populations, especially relative to high-need pupils. The bill would prohibit a chartering authority from granting a renewal of a charter school for longer than a 3-year period if that charter school is in program improvement or if a charter school is in year 5 of program improvement, except as specified. The Charter Schools Act requires a charter petition to include a reasonably comprehensive description of the manner in which annual, independent financial audits will be conducted. The act requires a charter school to transmit a copy of its annual, independent financial audit report for the preceding fiscal year to its chartering entity, the Controller, the county superintendent of schools of the county in which the charter school is sited, except as specified, and the department by December 15 of each year. This bill would require the Controller, by December 31 of each fiscal year, to publish a directory of certified public accountants and public accountants deemed by the Controller to be qualified to conduct audits of charter schools. The bill would require each audit of a charter school to be conducted by a certified public accountant or public accountant selected by the charter school from the directory. The bill would specify that it is unlawful for a public accounting firm to provide audit services to a charter school if the lead audit partner, or coordinating audit partner, having primary responsibility for the audit, or the audit partner responsible for reviewing the audit, has performed audit services for that charter school in each of the 6 previous fiscal years, except as provided. (5) Existing law, the Leroy Greene California Assessment of Academic Achievement Act (hereafter the Greene Act) , requires the Superintendent to design and implement a statewide pupil assessment program, and requires school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education to administer to each of its pupils in grades 2 to 11, inclusive, certain achievement tests, including a standards-based achievement test pursuant to the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program. This bill would require the Superintendent to develop recommendations for the reauthorization of the statewide pupil assessment program that include a plan for transitioning to a system of high-quality assessments, as defined. This bill would require the advisory committee that is established to advise the Superintendent and the state board on specified matters relating to the Public School Performance Accountability Program to make recommendations by January 1, 2011, to the Legislature, the Governor, and the state board on, among other things, the establishment of a methodology of generating a measurement of group and individual academic performance growth by utilizing individual pupil results from a longitudinally valid achievement assessment system, as specified. The Greene Act requires the Superintendent to adopt statewide content and performance standards in the core curriculum areas of reading, writing, mathematics, history/social science, and science, as specified. The Greene Act authorizes the state board to modify any proposed content standards or performance standards prior to adoption, and to adopt content and performance standards in individual core curriculum areas as those standards are submitted to the state board. This bill would eliminate this authority and instead require the Superintendent, to develop a set of academic content standards in language arts and mathematics. The standards would be required to meet specified criteria. The Superintendent, on or before August 2, 2010, would be required to present these standards to the state board, and to present to the Governor, and the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature, specified information relating to these standards. The state board, on or before September 1, 2010, would be required to adopt or reject the standards, as specified. The bill would require the Superintendent to participate in the Common Core State Standards Initiative consortium sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers or any associated or related interstate collaboration to jointly develop common high-quality standards or assessments aligned with the common set of standards. The bill also would make conforming changes. Existing law makes certain provisions of that act inoperative on July 1, 2011, and repeals all of the act's provisions on January 1, 2012. The bill would make the act inoperative on July 1, 2012, and would repeal the act as of January 1, 2013, except specified provisions, which would become inoperative on July 1, 2016, and would be repealed as of January 1, 2017. By extending the time period during which school districts are required to perform various duties related to the administration of achievement tests, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (6) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.