BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 339
AUTHOR: Bonilla
AMENDED: April 6, 2011
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 29, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez
SUBJECT : Instructional materials, social content review.
SUMMARY
This bill reestablishes provisions of the education code
that recently sunset relating to the social content review
of instructional materials conducted at the request of
publishers.
BACKGROUND
Current law requires instructional materials, in addition
to meeting the requirements of the content standards,
curriculum frameworks, and evaluation criteria, to also be
approved for social content, for example:
1) Provides that instruction in social sciences shall
include the early history of California and a study of
the role and contributions of both men and women,
black Americans, American Indians, Mexicans, Asians,
Pacific Island people, and other ethnic groups to the
economic, political, and social development of
California and the U.S. with particular emphasis on
portraying the role of these groups in contemporary
society.
(Education Code § 51204.5)
2) Requires instructional materials used in schools to
accurately portray the contributions of both men and
women in all types of roles, including professional,
vocational, and executive role and the role and
contributions of Native Americans, African Americans,
Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, European
Americans, and members of other ethnic and cultural
groups to the total development of California and the
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U.S., as well as the role and contributions of the
entrepreneur and labor in the total development of
California and the U.S. (EC § 60040)
3) States that the governing board of a school district
shall require, when appropriate to the comprehension
of pupils, that textbooks for social science, history
or civics classes contain the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of the U.S. when
adopting instructional materials for use in the
schools. (EC § 60043)
4) Prohibits school districts from adopting instructional
materials that contain any matter reflecting adversely
upon persons because of their race, color, creed,
national origin, ancestry, sex, handicap, or
occupation or any sectarian or denominational doctrine
or propaganda contrary to law.
(EC § 60044)
5) Provides that all instructional materials adopted by
any governing board for use in the schools shall be,
to the satisfaction of the governing board, accurate,
objective, and current and suited to the needs and
comprehension of pupils at their respective grade
levels.
(EC § 60045)
6) Authorizes, in the event that, after the good faith
acquisition of instructional materials by a governing
board, the instructional materials are found to be in
violation of provisions pertaining to instructional
materials and the governing board is unable to acquire
other instructional materials which meet requirements
in time for them to be used when the acquired
materials were planned to be used, the governing board
may use the acquired materials but only for that
academic year.
(EC § 60047)
ANALYSIS
This bill reestablishes provisions of the education code
that recently sunset relating to the social content review
of instructional materials conducted at the request of
publishers. More specifically, the bill:
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1) 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 outside the
primary instructional material adoption processes.
(This requirement sunset as of
January 1, 2011.)
2) Requires the California Department of Education (CDE)
to do the following:
a) Conduct, or contract for, social content
review of instructional materials, as defined,
outside the primary adoption process, provided
that the publisher pays a fee assessed by the
CDE.
b) Assess a fee on a publisher or manufacturer
that does not exceed the reasonable costs to the
department to conduct a social content review
pursuant to this statute.
c) Provide notice to publishers and
manufacturers of the establishment of the fee.
(These requirements sunset as of January 1, 2011.)
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Background . Until the beginning of this year, the
California Department of Education (CDE) was
authorized to conduct social content reviews for
state-adopted instructional materials, and also
conducted reviews for non-adopted instructional
materials, such as supplemental materials. The
publisher or manufacturer requesting the review would
be charged a fee for the out-of-cycle social content
review. The CDE contends that the social content
review of non-State Board of Education-adopted
instructional materials is a service offered to school
districts to ensure all instructional materials comply
with social content requirements.
2) Need for bill. According to the author, the CDE
indicates that without this measure, they will not be
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able to charge fees to support the process necessary
to conduct review of instructional materials outside
the primary adoption process. Therefore, local
districts will have to conduct their own review of
instructional materials for out-of-social content.
This result places a burden on those local districts
and allows the possibility of inconsistencies in
social content reviews from district to district.
3) Fiscal implications . According to the Assembly
Appropriations Committee analysis, this measure would
produce General Fund costs of approximately $100,000
to $200,000 to the SDE to conduct social content
reviews. According to CDE, they contracted out to
county offices of education to conduct approximately
100 reviews in the 2009-10 fiscal year. This bill
authorizes the CDE 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.
4) Social content review and fee assessment . Generally,
the Legislature has provided for the sunset of
statutes that typically allow for the imposition of
fees in order to provide periodic review of the
necessity and efficacy of the fee. Consistent with
past extensions of a fee-based review of social
content standards, staff recommends an amendment, to
sunset provisions of this measure as January 1, 2017.
5) Instructional Material (IM) adoption process . Statute,
prior to its suspension, requires the SBE to adopt
basic IM in the core academic content areas (English
language arts, 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
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district maintaining one or more high schools is
authorized to adopt IM for use in the high schools
(grades 9-12) under its control.
6) Related legislation.
SB 302 (Yee) also reinstates the
California Education Code Section relating to
social content reviews of instructional materials
with a sunset on January 1, 2017.
In addition, SB 302 requires the State Board of
Education (SBE) to
notify the Legislature, as specified, if it
determines any instructional
materials submitted for consideration for adoption
contain content
that meets the revised standards for social
studies curriculum in
Texas, and requires the SBE to ensure that the
next revision of the
History-Social Science (H/SS) framework is
consistent with existing
requirements to ensure instructional materials
include, portray
accurately, encourage and impress certain content
upon pupils.
AB 250 (Brownley), pending in the Senate
Education Committee, attempts to revise the IM
adoption process, including the role of the
Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials
Commission.
SB 140 (Lowenthal), pending in the
Assembly Education 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.
SUPPORT
State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson
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OPPOSITION
None on file.