SB 2

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Federal law 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. Under existing law, the State Department of Education is required to contract for the development of proposals to provide for the retention and analysis of longitudinal pupil achievement data on the tests administered pursuant to the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program (STAR) , the English language development tests, and the high school exit examination. This longitudinal achievement data is known as the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) . Under existing law, the CALPADS is required to be used to accomplish specified goals, including providing school districts and the department access to the data necessary to comply with federal reporting requirements, as specified, providing a better means of evaluating educational progress and investments over time, providing local educational agencies information that can be used to improve pupil achievement, and providing an efficient, flexible, and secure means of maintaining longitudinal statewide pupil data.Existing law requires the department to establish a process by which local educational agencies issue, maintain, and report information using unique pupil identifiers for child care and development programs, as specified.This bill would require the department to establish this process no later than January 1, 2011. The bill would state the Legislature's intent that on or before January 1, 2011, the department ensure that certain data elements pertaining to preschool be collected for all preschool programs operated by a local educational agency. This bill would authorize the department, to the extent permissible under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and specified state law, and commencing July 1, 2010, to conduct pupil data management on behalf of local educational agencies. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature to accomplish specified objectives related to these provisions, including, but not limited to, complying with the United States Constitution and all applicable federal laws, including FERPA and its implementing regulations, the California Constitution, and all applicable state laws and their implementing regulations, in order to protect pupil rights and privacy. The bill would authorize local educational agencies to access specified data via the CALPADS, and, to the extent permissible under federal and state law, to share specified data via the CALPADS. 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 require the department, to the extent feasible, to redirect department personnel for the purposes of the education data team rather than establishing new positions. 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. The bill would authorize the department, with certain exceptions, to assess a fee on research applicants to cover prescribed costs. 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. (2) Existing law prohibits a state agency from disclosing any personal information in a manner that would link the information disclosed to the individual to whom it pertains. Existing law provides exceptions to this prohibition, including authorizing a state agency to release personally identifiable data to a nonprofit educational institution conducting scientific research, provided the request for information is approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS) for the California Health and Human Services Agency. Existing law authorizes the CPHS to enter into written agreements to enable other institutional review boards to provide the required data security approvals. This bill would delete the authorization to release data to a nonprofit educational institution conducting scientific research and, instead, authorize data to be released to a nonprofit entity conducting scientific research. The bill would require the CPHS to enter into a written agreement with the institutional review board to provide the required data security approvals for the release of data to researchers, as specified. (3) The bill would state the intent of the Legislature to create a preschool through higher education (P–20) statewide longitudinal educational data system in order to inform education policy and improve instruction, and to use this P–20 system for state-level research to improve instruction. The bill would additionally state the Legislature's intent to require the State Department of Education, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the California Community Colleges, the University of California, the California State University, and any other state education agency to be required to disclose, or redisclose, personally identifiable pupil records to this P–20 system, as permissible under federal and state law.