BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1130|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1130
Author: Solorio (D), et al
Amended: 9/8/09 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 7-0, 7/15/09
AYES: Romero, Huff, Alquist, Hancock, Liu, Simitian,
Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Maldonado, Padilla
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 74-0, 5/14/09 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Academic performance
SOURCE : EdVoice
DIGEST : This bill states the intent of the Legislature
that the existing advisory committee, established by the
Superintendent of Public Instruction on academic
performance, take into consideration specified
recommenda-tions and consider measures already in use by
other states. This bill also provides that if the
committee considers any measure of annual academic
achievement growth, the measure of annual academic
achievement growth by cohort approved in connection with
requirements described above or adopted through a state
plan, as specified, shall meet certain requirements.
ANALYSIS : Current law requires the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI) to establish a broadly
CONTINUED
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representative committee to advise the SPI and the State
Board of Education (SBE) on the creation of the Academic
Performance Index (API) and make recommendations on the
feasibility of measuring academic performance utilizing
unique pupil identifiers.
The API was established pursuant SB 1X (Alpert), Chapter 3,
Statutes of 1999, First Extraordinary Session. The API was
proposed as a means of combining multiple indicators of
school performance into one easy-to-compare index. A
school's API score is based primarily on the test scores of
pupils on the California Standards Tests of pupils in
grades 2 through 11. The California Standards Tests
measure pupil performance against the statewide standards
adopted by the SBE for each grade level. Although the
standards are considered among the best in the nation, they
were not designed to track pupil performance in specific
skills from one grade to the next. Each grade has a unique
set of standards and the tests for that grade are designed
to measure pupil performance against those standards, but
aligned as they are to the standards at each grade level,
the tests are not "vertically aligned" so that a pupil's
performance on any particular set of skills may be tracked
over time. As a result, this system does not allow an
accurate comparison of a pupil's growth or decline in
performance between grade levels.
The California Department of Education also calculates a
"Growth API" that compares grade level performance from one
year to the next. The Growth API does not measure growth
for a specific group of students and is not based on
information for individual pupils; in other words, that
measure may only be reflecting the differences in two
cohorts of pupils, for example last year's third grade
class versus this year's third grade class. The current
state testing system does not measure the actual growth for
the same students over time.
This bill states findings and declarations regarding
standards-based education reform, assessments, and
accountability and the use of cohort growth measures in
accountability systems and intervention determinations.
This bill states the intent of the Legislature that the
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existing advisory committee, established by the
Superintendent of Public Instruction on academic
performance, take into consideration specified
recommendations and consider measures already in use by
other states. This bill also provides that if the
committee considers any measure of annual academic
achievement growth, the measure of annual academic
achievement growth by cohort approved in connection with
requirements described above or adopted through a state
plan, as specified, shall meet certain requirements.
Related/prior legislation . This bill is one of four bills
that propose changes to the state's accountability system,
specifically to the API measure. Those four bills are AB
173 (Price), AB 429 (Brownley), AB 1130 (Solorio), and AB
1435 (V. Manuel Perez). AB 2776 (Mullin), 2007-08 Session,
held in the Senate Appropriations Committee, would have
required examination of the collection of individual
student data, the state's emerging data systems, the
possibility of making real comparisons of student
performance over time, and the long-term availability of
assessment data related to the acquisition of English
language by English learners with respect to making
potential improvements in the API. SB 219 (Steinberg),
Chapter 731, Statutes of 2007, makes changes in the
calculation of, and in the process for, revising the API.
SB 257 (Alpert), Chapter 782, Statutes of 2003, requires
the advisory committee established to advise the SPI on the
API to make recommendations to the SPI on a methodology for
generating a "gain" score measurement to provide more
accurate measure of a school's growth over time. SB 1X
(Alpert), Chapter 3, Statutes of 1999-2000, First
Extraordinary Session, known as the Public Schools
Accountability Act, authorizes the state's current
accountability program, including establishment of the
Public Schools Accountability Act Advisory Committee and
development of the API.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 9/1/09)
EdVoice (source)
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Association of California School Administrators
California School Boards Association
California Teachers Association
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author, "AB 1130
is an important step toward a reliable, more accurate and
comprehensive measure of academic achievement. It will also
help inform the development of a longitudinal growth model
in California that will be used for accountability and
policy making purposes at the state, district, and school
level." The author also states that, "Education leaders and
researchers have found that including a growth measure in
accountability determinations produces a catalyst to data
driven decision making from the district to the school site
and even the classroom. In other states, implementation of
growth measures that are understandable to teachers,
parents and policy makers have fostered partnerships,
innovation and collaboration among public education
stakeholders."
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill Berryhill,
Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield, Buchanan,
Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro, Conway,
Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore, Duvall,
Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuller,
Furutani, Galgiani, Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman, Hall,
Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman,
Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Krekorian, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie
Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande,
Niello, Nielsen, John A. Perez, V. Manuel Perez,
Portantino, Price, Ruskin, Salas, Silva, Skinner,
Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres,
Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, Bass
NO VOTE RECORDED: Ammiano, Brownley, Fuentes, Gaines,
Saldana, Smyth
DLW:mw 9/10/09 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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