SB 1

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) The Education Data and Information Act of 2008 requires the State Chief Information Officer to convene a working group representing specified governmental entities that collect, report, or use individual pupil education data to create a strategic plan to link education data systems and to accomplish objectives relating to the accessibility of education data. This bill, in addition, would authorize the State Department of Education, the University of California, the California State University, the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the Employment Development Department, and the California School Information Services to enter into interagency agreements in order to facilitate specified objectives regarding the implementation of a longitudinal education data system and the transfer of education data. (2) Existing law establishes the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to, among other things, establish professional standards and procedures for the issuance and renewal of teaching and services credentials. This bill would establish the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Career Technical Education Educator Credentialing Program for purposes of providing alternative routes to credentialing in accordance with the guidelines for the federal Race to the Top Fund, and would require the commission, together with the Committee on Accreditation, to develop a process to authorize additional high-quality alternative route educator preparation programs provided by school districts, county offices of education, community-based organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. The bill would authorize the commission to assess a fee on community-based and nongovernmental organizations that are seeking approval to participate in the program. (3) Federal law, the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) , requires schools and educational agencies receiving federal financial assistance to comply with specified provisions regarding the release of pupil data. State law prescribes additional rules relating to the authorized release of pupil data. This bill would authorize the department, to the extent permissible under FERPA and specified state law, and commencing July 1, 2010, to conduct pupil data management on behalf of local educational agencies. The bill would require the department to establish, no earlier than July 1, 2010, an education data team to act as an institutional review board to review and respond to all requests for pupil data, as specified. The bill would make the department responsible for data management decisions for data under its jurisdiction and make the department and a local educational agency jointly liable for any data management decisions in which the department and the local educational agency participate jointly, as specified. The bill would require the department to develop appropriate policies and procedures for the education data team by July 1, 2010, that includes fees or charges that shall be imposed upon research applicants, as specified. The bill would require the department to perform the duties specified in these provisions with its existing resources. The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2013, and repeal them on January 1, 2014. (4) Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish an advisory committee to advise on all appropriate matters relative to the creation of the Academic Performance Index and the implementation of the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program and the High Achieving/Improving Schools Program. This bill would require the Superintendent and the state board, in consultation with the advisory committee, by July 1, 2013, to make recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor on, among other things, the establishment of a methodology for generating a measurement of group and individual academic performance growth by using individual pupil results from a longitudinally valid achievement assessment system. (5) 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 Legislature's intent to implement education reforms to, among other things, ensure that California is positioned to be successful in the Race to the Top competition. This bill would authorize the Superintendent and the President of the State Board of Education to enter into a memorandum of understanding with a local educational agency for the purposes of implementing the Race to the Top program. The bill would require the Governor, the Superintendent, and the state board, in collaboration with participating local educational agencies, as necessary, to develop a high-quality plan or plans to submit as part of an application for federal Race to the Top funds that includes specified elements. The bill would require the Department of Finance, concurrent with the submission of the plan to the Attorney General, to provide the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of both houses of the Legislature with a copy of the plan or plans. The 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. The 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 require the department to use federal Race to the Top program funds for this evaluation. This bill would require the Superintendent and the state board to establish a list of low-achieving schools and persistently lowest-achieving schools, as defined, according to specific criteria. The bill would require the Superintendent to notify the governing board of a school district, county superintendent of schools, or the governing body of a charter school or its equivalent, that one or more of the schools in its jurisdiction have been identified as a persistently lowest-achieving school. The bill, except as specified, would require the governing board of a school district, county office of education, or the governing body of a charter school or its equivalent 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. (6) Existing law establishes the California Education Information System, which consists of the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, known as CALPADS, and the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data System, known as CALTIDES. This bill would require CALPADS to be used to report data pursuant to specified federal programs, and would authorize data in the California Education Information System to be used by local educational agencies for purposes of evaluating teachers and administrators and making employment decisions, if those decisions comply with specified provisions of law. (7) 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 express the intent of the Legislature that the reauthorization of the statewide pupil assessment program include specified elements, including a plan for transitioning to a system of high-quality assessments, as defined in the federal Race to the Top guidelines and regulations. The bill would establish the Academic Content Standards Commission, consisting of 12 appointed members, as specified. The commission would be required to develop academic content standards in language arts and mathematics, and would be required, on or before July 15, 2010, to present its recommended academic content standards to the state board. The bill would require the state board, on or before August 2, 2010, to adopt or reject the academic content standards, and would also require the Superintendent and the state board to present specified information to the Governor and appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature. This bill would exempt instructional materials adopted pursuant to those provisions from specified requirements relating to the approval and adoption of basic instructional materials by the state board. This bill would require the Superintendent, the state board, and any other entity or individual designated by the Governor 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. Existing law makes certain provisions of the Greene Act inoperative on July 1, 2011, and repeals all of the act's provisions on January 1, 2012. This bill would make the act inoperative on July 1, 2013, and would repeal the act as of January 1, 2014. By extending the time period during which school districts are required to perform various duties relating to the administration of achievement tests, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (8) Existing law requires the State Department of Education under CALPADS to contract for the development of proposals that will provide for the retention and analysis of longitudinal pupil achievement data. Existing law requires local educational agencies to retain individual pupil records for each test taker, including other data elements deemed necessary by the Superintendent, with approval of the state board, to comply with federal reporting requirements delineated in the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This bill would require local educational agencies to also retain other data elements deemed necessary by the Superintendent, with the approval of the state board, to comply with programs implemented pursuant to specified provisions of federal law, subject to the submission of an expenditure plan to the Department of Finance, as specified. (9) Existing law requires the director of the Employment Development Department to permit the use of any information in his or her possession to the extent necessary for specified purposes. The bill would authorize the State Department of Education, the University of California, the California State University, and the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to obtain quarterly wage data on students in order to meet the requirements of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to the extent permitted by federal law. (10) 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. (11) This bill would provide that it shall become operative only if SB 4 of the 5th Extraordinary Session is also enacted and becomes operative.