LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 1, as amended, Steinberg. Public schools: Race to the Top.
(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.

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Comments/questions on SBX5 1 (Steinberg): Public schools: Race to the Top.