BILL ANALYSIS
SB 19
Page 1
Date of Hearing: July 1, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
SB 19 (Simitian) - As Amended: May 4, 2009
SENATE VOTE : 35-2
SUBJECT : Education Data
SUMMARY : Authorizes the use of federal grant funds, received
pursuant to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(ARRA) and provided for statewide data systems, to fund
activities currently required of the State Chief Information
Officer (CIO) related to the creation of a strategic plan to
link education data systems from K-12 and higher education.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data
System (CALPADS) and requires the California Department of
Education (CDE) to contract for the development of a system
that will provide for the retention and analysis of
longitudinal K-12 pupil achievement data on Standardized
Testing and Reporting assessments, high school exit
examination, and English language development assessments.
2)Requires CDE to establish a process by which local education
agencies (LEA) issue, maintain, and report information using
the unique Statewide Student Identifiers (SSID), being used in
CALPADS, for state and federally funded center based child
care and development programs administered by the CDE, but
prohibits requiring those programs to implement or maintain
the SSIDs until an appropriation for this purpose is provided.
3)Requires each of the three public higher education systems to
establish a process by which colleges and universities within
those systems issue, maintain and report information using
SSIDs, and to provide an annual report to the Governor and the
appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature
that includes a detailed timeline for the implementation,
maintenance, and use of the SSIDs.
4)Establishes the office of the CIO as a cabinet-level position
responsible for coordination and strategic planning in the
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area of information technology (IT), and requires the CIO to
convene a working group, representing the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI), the State Board of Education, the
three systems of California public higher education, and any
other governmental entities that collect, report, or use
individual education data that would become part of the
comprehensive educational data system, to develop a strategic
plan that would provide an overall structural design for the
linked data system, examine current state education data
systems, and examine the interdepartmental data protocols and
procedures to be used by state agencies in collecting,
storing, manipulating, sharing, retrieving, and releasing data
in order to enable the linking of data systems; the strategic
plan is required to be delivered to the Legislature and the
Governor on or before September 1, 2009.
5)States legislative intent to convene a staff level working
group that is representative of the policy and fiscal staff of
both houses of the Legislature and both parties, the
Governor's office, the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI), the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), and all three
systems of California public higher education; requires the
working group to make recommendations related to the
governance of educational data, including, but not limited to,
the organizational structure of the governing entity, its
relationship to other agencies, the scope of its authorities
and responsibilities, methods for holding the governing entity
accountable, and methods for ensuring that the governing
entity's work primarily serves the purposes of educational
improvement at the same time as ensuring the privacy of any
data under its charge.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS : SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes of 2008,
made a number of changes in education data processes. For
example, SB 1298 states legislative intent to convene a staff
level working group that is representative of the policy and
fiscal staff of both houses of the Legislature and both parties,
the Governor's office, the SPI, the Legislative Analyst's Office
(LAO), and all three systems of California public higher
education; it also requires the working group to make
recommendations related to the governance of educational data,
including, but not limited to, the organizational structure of
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the governing entity, its relationship to other agencies, the
scope of its authorities and responsibilities, methods for
holding the governing entity accountable, and methods for
ensuring that the governing entity's work primarily serves the
purposes of educational improvement at the same time as ensuring
the privacy of any data under its charge. The LAO has already
convened this group.
SB 1298 also requires the CIO to convene a working group,
representing the SPI, the State Board of Education, the three
systems of California public higher education, and any other
governmental entities that collect, report, or use individual
education data that would become part of the comprehensive
educational data system. The CIO, along with this working
group, is required to develop a strategic plan, to be delivered
to the Legislature and the Governor on or before September 1,
2009, that would provide an overall structural design for the
linked data system, examine current state education data
systems, and examine the interdepartmental data protocols and
procedures to be used by state agencies in collecting, storing,
manipulating, sharing, retrieving, and releasing data in order
to enable the linking of data systems. This group began meeting
in early May.
According to the author, "SB 19 addresses one outstanding item
from last year's SB 1298 related to the state's vision for a
comprehensive education data system; specifically, the
requirement of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to prepare a
technical plan to link statewide information systems and
education data. As amended May 5, the bill authorizes use of
the federal funds to cover the CIO's costs related to the SB
1298 linkages work group." The Governor's proposed 2009-10
budget requested $2 million General Fund to enable the CIO to
complete the activities specified in SB 1298, however, that $2
million appropriation was not included in the budget enacted in
February. The Legislative Analyst's Office has commented that,
given the state's fiscal condition, committing $2 million in
General Fund resources for a strategic plan at this time may not
be the Legislature's highest priority, and noted that ARRA may
contain funds that could be appropriately used for such
activities.
The author also notes that, "Legislation will be needed to enact
the statutory changes necessary to maximize the use of the
federal stimulus funds for state-level education data systems ?
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[but] The timing of the federal guidance and application
timeframes for the federal stimulus funds for statewide
education data systems lag legislative deadlines." The U.S.
Department of Education has indicated it will announce the grant
competition for the ARRA funds for statewide education data
systems and provide additional guidance in July of this year.
Due to this timing issue, the author raises the possibility that
substantive amendments, adding content that would position the
state to compete for these funds, may be made to this bill once
additional guidance related to the state-level data systems
grant competition is released by the federal government.
Committee staff recommends that the Committee ask the author to
keep its staff informed as to the development of future
amendments to this bill, and that the author also be informed
that the Committee may ask for the bill to be re-referred to the
Committee for the purpose of hearing any substantive amendments
made in the future.
Related legislation : AB 72 (Duvall), pending in the Assembly
Education Committee, would authorize the CIO to manage the data
of LEAs through CALPADS, and thus manage CALPADS itself; also
requires the CIO to establish and maintain two bureaucratic
structures to review data requests and to make recommendations
regarding the CIO's management of educational data.
Previous legislation : SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes
of 2008, establishes processes by which local education agencies
and public institutions of higher education issue, maintain, and
report information using the unique statewide student
identifiers required under current law. AB 2955 (Duvall),
failed passage in the Assembly Education Committee in 2008, was
substantially similar to AB 72 (Duvall). SB 1614 (Simitian),
Chapter 840, Statutes of 2006, requires the development of a
teacher data system to serve as a central state repository of
information on the teacher workforce, and specifies that the
existing CEIS include CALPADS, which maintains pupil data, and
CBEDS, an annual collection of aggregate student and staff data.
SB 1453 (Alpert), Chapter 1002, Statutes of 2002, authorizes
the longitudinal data system in its current form, and specifies
that the system be known as CALPADS. SB 90 (Committee on the
Budget), Chapter 183, Statutes of 2007, Makes statutory changes
necessary to implement the 2007-08 state Budget relating to the
CIO and the OISPP. SB 834 (Figueroa), Chapter 533, Statutes of
2006, makes the statutory changes necessary to reflect the
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Governors Reorganization Plan 2, which became effective July 9,
2005, and creates the Office of CIO in state government.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Children Now
Commission on Teacher Credentialing
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California
League of Women Voters of California
Preschool California
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087