BILL ANALYSIS
AB 97
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 97 (Torlakson)
As Amended August 20, 2010
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |49-27|(June 3, 2009) |SENATE: |22-10|(August 30, |
| | | | | |2010) |
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Original Committee Reference: ED.
SUMMARY : Establishes the Academic Content Standards Commission
(Standards Commission) for purposes of reviewing and revising
the history/social science (H/SS) and science academic content
standards, as specified.
The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of this bill,
and instead:
1)Provide that the Standards Commission shall consist of 21
members to be appointed as follows:
a) Eleven members appointed by the Governor;
b) Five members appointed by the Senate Rules Committee;
and,
c) Five members appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly.
2)Require that not less than half of the members appointed by
each appointing authority be current elementary or secondary
classroom teachers and that all members shall serve at the
pleasure of the appointing authority.
3)Stipulate that upon recommendation of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI), the State Board of Education (SBE)
shall adopt a schedule for the Standards Commission to review
and recommend revisions to the H/SS and science content
standards, when funding permits.
4)Require the Standards Commission to develop academic content
standards in H/SS and science that are internationally
benchmarked and build toward college and career readiness by
the time of high school graduation and require all meetings
and hearings of the Standards Commission to be open and
available to the public.
AB 97
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5)Require, within 90 days of receiving the Standards
Commission's proposed academic content standards, the SBE to
do either of the following:
a) Adopt the academic content standards as proposed by the
Standards Commission; or,
b) Reject the academic content standards as proposed by the
Standards Commission.
6)Specifies that if the SBE rejects the standards as proposed by
the Standards Commission, it shall provide a specific written
explanation to the SPI, the Governor, and the Legislature of
the reasons why the proposed standards were rejected.
7)Require the SPI and SBE to present to the Governor and to the
appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature, a
schedule and implementation plan for integrating the new
content standards into the state educational system.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill:
1)Established a process for the review and revision of the
reading/language arts and mathematics academic content
standards.
2)Required the SPI to convene an Academic Content and
Performance Standards Review (ACPSR) panel, consisting of 13
members, appointed as specified.
3)Made this bill inoperative on January 1, 2014 and repealed its
provisions as of January 1, 2015.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, on the prior version of this bill, the costs for the
review and revision of each content standard would be
approximately $180,000 with additional costs of $460,000 to
revise the curriculum frameworks to match the modified standard.
COMMENTS : California's content standards specify the content
that students need to acquire at each grade level from
kindergarten to grade twelve and they are the foundation for the
accountability system, instructional materials and staff
development programs. The SBE has adopted content standards in
the areas of reading/language arts, math, history/social
AB 97
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science, science, visual and performing arts, career technical
education, physical education, health education, and most
recently world languages. The standards in H/SS and science
were adopted in 1998 and they have not been revised or updated.
Recently enacted legislation, SB 1 X5 (Steinberg), Chapter 2,
Statutes of 2009-10, Fifth Extraordinary Session, establishes
the Academic Content Standards Commission to develop academic
content standards in language arts and mathematics that are
comprised of at least 85% of the common core academic standards
developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative
consortium. Pursuant to SB 1 X5, the Standards Commission
submitted its recommendations to the SBE to adopt the common
core state standards with some additions and these
recommendations were adopted by the SBE on August 2 of this
year.
The Assembly version of this bill required a process for the
revision of the math and reading language arts standards.
Because the common core standards in math and reading language
arts have recently been adopted, the provisions of the prior
version of this bill became irrelevant. As amended, this bill
seeks to implement a similar process for the revision of the
H/SS and science content standards. This bill, as heard in
Assembly policy committee, required the revision of the academic
content standards in all four subjects of math, reading language
arts, H/SS and science.
Proponents of this bill would argue that the content standards
should be periodically reviewed and revised to reflect new
developments and research and that teachers should play a key
role in that process.
The author states, "current law does not provide a mechanism by
which these standards, which serve as the backbone of
California's public education system, can be reviewed and
updated to reflect the most cutting edge knowledge and skills
appropriate in each of the subject areas."
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Avina / ED. / (916) 319-2087
FN: 0006624