BILL ANALYSIS SB 19 Page 1 Date of Hearing: September 4, 2009 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Kevin De Leon, Chair SB 19 (Simitian) - As Amended: September 3, 2009 Policy Committee: EducationVote:8-0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill deletes statute prohibiting the use of data in the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System (CALTIDES), including the use of this data with the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS), for the purposes of pay, promotion, or personnel evaluation of teachers or other employment decisions, as specified. Specifically, this bill: 1) Prohibits CALTIDES from including the names, social security numbers, home addresses, telephone numbers, or email addresses of individual teachers and prohibits the data from being used in violation of state or federal privacy law, as specified. 2) Provides limited authorization to the State Department of Education (SDE) to establish a process for center-based child care and development programs to implement and maintain unique pupil identifiers as required by federal law or as needed to ensure compliance with federal law. 3) Requires the strategic plan developed by the working group convened by the State Chief Information Officer (CIO) to include specific procedures and policies to facilitate the sharing and transfer of data from one segment to another (i.e., higher education and K-12 entities, etc.) and include linkages to workforce data. This measure also authorizes the use of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds to support the workgroup's duties. 4) Requires a local education agency (LEA) to retain data elements deemed necessary by the Superintendent of Public SB 19 Page 2 Instruction (SPI) to comply with federal reporting requirements delineated by ARRA. 5) Requires SDE to submit an expenditure plan to the Department of Finance (DOF) detailing any administrative or LEA costs generated by complying with ARRA reporting requirements. This bill also requires DOF to provide a copy of the expenditure plan to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, as specified. FISCAL EFFECT 1)Potential GF/98 cost pressure, likely in the hundreds of thousands, to LEAs to collect and maintain data in CALPADS, as required by ARRA and deemed necessary by the SPI. The data collection requirements are a condition of receiving ARRA funds; however, given the severe reductions LEAs have incurred over the last two years, the collection and maintenance of additional data elements may create costs to LEAs. 2)Potential Race to the Top (RTT) program funds . Estimates indicate California may receive as much as $500 million in one-time federal funds for this program. The RTT program is a competitive grant process thus there is no guarantee that California will receive any funding. According to the federal notice of proposed guidelines, 50% of any funding received must be allocated to LEAs based on their relative shares of funding under the federal Title I basic grant (i.e., funding for poor and needy pupils). The remaining 50% may used for state-level activities to implement school reform. According to ARRA, the Governor submits the application for the RTT program (see Comment #1 below). COMMENTS 1)Background . SB 1614 (Simitian), Chapter 840, Statutes of 2006, established CALTIDES for the purpose of streamlining processes, improving efficiency of data collection by the SDE, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), and the Employment Development Department, and improving the quality of data collected from LEAs. SB 1614 contained language prohibiting the use of CALTIDES data, either in isolation or with CALPADS (pupil achievement data) for the purposes of pay, promotion, or personnel evaluation of teachers or other employment decisions, as specified. SB 19 Page 3 In February 2009, the federal government passed ARRA, which allocated approximately $100 billion nationwide for education programs to stimulate the economy. Of this amount, California is expected to receive approximately $8 billion. ARRA also established the RTT program, a competitive grant program that makes $4.5 billion (one-time funds) available nationwide to states to implement "significant education reforms across four reform areas: (a) standards and assessments; (b) improving teacher effectiveness and equity in teacher distribution; (c) improving collection and use of data; and (d) supporting struggling schools." According the federal government's notice of proposed priorities (final guidance will not be available until later in the fall), there are two eligibility requirements that states must meet to apply for RTT funds: (a) an approved application under Phases 1 and 2 of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) (ARRA funding to stabilize school districts and mitigate cuts) and (b) no "legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers to linking student achievement or student growth data to teachers for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation." The state has an approved application for SFSF Phase 1 and Phase 2 application will be available later this year. However, existing law, via SB 1614, prohibits data from being used for the purposes of pay, promotion, or personnel evaluation of teachers or other employment decisions, as specified. Therefore, the U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan has publicly indicated that California is not eligible to apply for RTT program funds. This bill deletes statute prohibiting the use of data in CALTIDES, including the use of this data with the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS), for the purposes of teacher personnel decisions; therefore, according to the federal government's notice of proposed priorities, the state will be eligible to apply for RTT program funds. 2)Author's amendments . The author has submitted amendments to delete Section 6 of the bill, which requires wage record system information (necessary to implementing the purposes of CALTIDSES), to be made available to the CTC. The author SB 19 Page 4 argues that this language is unnecessary at this time. 3)Governor Special Session on Education . In August 2009, the governor called a special session of the Legislature to "consider and act upon legislation to address the federal RTT eligibility requirements and guidelines, and other changes necessary to secure federal funding." This measure appears to make California eligible for the RTT program. 4)The CALPADS , established by SB 1453 (Alpert), Chapter 1002, Statutes of 2002, required the SDE to track student achievement in order to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. A longitudinal database requires individual student identifiers be given to each student enrolled in the public K-12 system. In the 2004-05 fiscal year, school districts were provided incentive funding to create these identifiers and establish systems to maintain them. SDE reports that CALPADS is expected to be fully functioning in all districts in the fall of 2009. This bill provides the SPI with authority to require LEAs to collect and maintain data elements in CALPADS to meet ARRA requirements. This measure also requires SDE to submit an expenditure plan to DOF detailing all administrative and LEA costs incurred for meeting ARRA requirements, as specified. Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916) 319-2081