BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 339 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 4, 2011 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Felipe Fuentes, Chair AB 339 (Bonilla) - As Amended: April 6, 2011 Policy Committee: Education Vote:7-2 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill requires the State Board of Education (SBE) to adopt regulations to govern the social content reviews conducted at the request of a publisher or manufacturer of instructional materials (IM) outside the primary IM adoption process. Specifically, this bill: 1)Requires social content reviews of IM to be conducted by the State Department of Education (SDE) or its agents for IM pursuant to existing statute and the guidelines for social content adopted by the SBE. This measure also authorizes SDE to contract with agents to conduct these reviews. 2)Requires SDE to assess a fee on a publisher or manufacturer in an amount that does not exceed the reasonable costs to the SDE to conduct a social content review. FISCAL EFFECT GF costs of approximately $100,000 to $200,000 to the SDE to conduct social content reviews. According to SDE, they contracted out to county offices of education to conduct approximately 100 reviews in the 2009-10 fiscal year. This bill authorizes the SDE to assess a fee to cover all costs for these reviews. Likewise, the measure also requires the revenue generated from these fees to be budgeted as a reimbursement and subject to review through the annual budget process. COMMENTS 1)Purpose . Current law requires IM to accurately and equitably AB 339 Page 2 portray the cultural and racial diversity of American society, the male and female roles, and the contributions of minority groups and males and females to the development of California and the United States. Statute also prohibits IM from containing inappropriate references to commercial brand names or companies. Prior to January 1, 2011, statute required the SBE to adopt regulations to govern the social content reviews conducted at the request of an IM publisher outside the primary and follow-up IM adoption processes. This bill, sponsored by the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), reinstates this requirement. The SPI argues this bill is necessary to ensure supplemental IM (IM not adopted by the SBE) used in California classrooms accurately portray cultural diversity, demonstrate the contribution of minority groups, and do not contain inappropriate references to commercial brand names, products, and corporate logos. 2)IM flexibility and adoption process . AB 2 X4 (Evans), Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009, specified that local education agencies (LEAs) are not required to purchase IM through the 2012-13 fiscal year. Consistent with the non-purchasing requirement, Chapter 2 also suspended the requirement for SBE to adopt IM or conduct other procedures associated with adoption (i.e., adopting curriculum frameworks) until the 2013-14 fiscal year (FY). SB 70 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review), Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011, extended this flexibility by two years, until 2014-15. Prior to the enactment of AB 2 X4 (Evans), Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009, statute required the SBE to adopt basic IM in the core academic content areas (ELA, mathematics, history/social science, and science) every six years for use in grades K-8. It also established a schedule for the adoption of IM in other subjects. Statute also required the SBE to adopt statewide academically rigorous content standards in the core curriculum areas. These content standards are implemented through the curriculum frameworks, as adopted by SBE. The adopted IM must be consistent with the criteria and standards of quality prescribed in the adopted curriculum frameworks. The development of curriculum frameworks is a multi-year process. Also, the governing board of each school district maintaining one or more high schools is authorized to adopt IM for use in the high schools (grades 9-12) under its control. AB 339 Page 3 3)Related legislation . a) AB 250 (Brownley), pending in the Assembly Education Committee, attempts to revise the IM adoption process, including the role of the CDSMC. b) SB 140 (Lowenthal), pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee, establishes a streamlined process for the state-level adoption of instructional materials that are aligned with the Common Core Academic Content standards, and expands the authority of local school boards to adopt instructional materials to include K-8 schools. Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916) 319-2081