BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ķ



                                                                AB 1246
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        ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
        AB 1246 (Brownley)
        As Amended  January 23, 2012
        Majority vote 

         EDUCATION           6-4         APPROPRIATIONS      12-5        
         
         ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
        |Ayes:|Brownley, Ammiano,        |Ayes:|Fuentes, Blumenfield,     |
        |     |Buchanan, Butler, Carter, |     |Bradford, Charles         |
        |     |Eng                       |     |Calderon, Campos,         |
        |     |                          |     |Chesbro, Gatto, Hall,     |
        |     |                          |     |Hill, Ammiano, Mitchell,  |
        |     |                          |     |Solorio                   |
        |     |                          |     |                          |
        |-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
        |Nays:|Norby, Beth Gaines,       |Nays:|Harkey, Donnelly,         |
        |     |Halderman, Wagner         |     |Nielsen, Norby, Wagner    |
         ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
         
        SUMMARY  :  Revises the process for adopting instructional materials 
        for use in kindergarten and grades 1-8, inclusive (K-8).  
        Specifically,  this bill  : 

        1)Authorizes school districts and requires the Superintendent of 
          Public Instruction (SPI), instead of the Instructional Quality 
          Commission (IQC), to recommend to the State Board of Education 
          (SBE) instructional materials for review and adoption, and 
          requires the following:

           a)   Instructional materials recommended by the SPI or by a 
             school district to meet existing criteria, as specified;

           b)   Recommendations submitted from the SPI and school districts 
             to include reports of findings that include information 
             regarding alignment of standards, program organization, pupil 
             assessments, teacher support, and support for English learners 
             and pupils with disabilities; and,

           c)   Instructional material review committees convened by a 
             school district for the purpose of making recommendations to 
             consist of a majority of classroom teachers serving pupils in 
             the grade in which the instructional materials are to be used.









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        2)Makes the instructional materials adoption cycles eight years long 
          for all content areas and authorizes the submission of materials 
          on a continuous basis, but authorizes the California Department of 
          Education (CDE) to assess a fee to a publisher to conduct a review 
          if those materials are submitted after a timeframe specified by 
          the SBE.

        3)Authorizes publishers to submit materials to the SPI and to school 
          districts and authorizes school districts to submit district 
          developed or published materials to the SBE.

        4)Provides that the process of reviewing instructional materials 
          shall involve review committees that shall include, but shall not 
          be limited to, volunteer content experts and reviewers that 
          include a majority of classroom teachers.     

        5)Specifies that the rules and procedures for the adoption of 
          instructional materials shall be transparent and consistently 
          applicable regardless of the format of the instructional 
          materials, which may include, but not be limited to, print, 
          digital, and open-source instructional materials.

        6)Deletes the requirement that the IQC review and recommend 
          instructional materials for adoption, and instead, authorizes, at 
          the request of the SBE, the IQC to review instructional materials 
          reports of findings, hear appeals, and give independent advice to 
          the SBE on instructional materials.

        7)Specifies that the provisions in 6) above shall not be implemented 
          unless funds are available in the Budget Act for the IQC. 

        8)Requires the SBE to hold a public hearing before adopting 
          instructional materials for use in the elementary schools of the 
          state.

         FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, 
        on-going General Fund administrative costs to the CDE, likely 
        between $150,000 and $250,000, to review instructional materials 
        submitted by the SPI and school districts and to conduct an appeals 
        process.  Actual costs will depend on the number of instructional 
        materials submitted and the number of appeals.  This bill prohibits 
        CDE from implementing the new requirements associated with the IQC 
        until funding is provided for these purposes.









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         COMMENTS  :  With the adoption of the common core academic content 
        standards, the state must ensure all students have access to these 
        recently adopted standards.  AB 250 (Brownley), Chapter 608, 
        Statutes of 2011, started a comprehensive process for implementing 
        the common core standards, through the development of curriculum 
        frameworks and model professional development modules.  A prior 
        version of AB 250 also sought to improve the instructional materials 
        adoption process, but those provisions were amended out of the bill 
        in the Senate, at the request of the Administration for further 
        deliberation.  This bill contains the provisions that were amended 
        out of AB 250.  

        This bill makes changes to streamline the instructional materials 
        adoption process and give school districts the opportunity to 
        participate in the review of instructional materials.

        The current adoption process has been suspended until the 2015-16 
        school year, thus no instructional material adoptions have taken 
        place since the 2008 Reading Language Arts adoption.  A temporary 
        measure, SB 140 (Lowenthal), Chapter 623, Statutes of 2011, was 
        enacted to ensure availability of supplemental instructional 
        materials that are aligned to the common core academic content 
        standards during the time of the adoption suspension.  The author's 
        intent is to have an improved process in place by the time the state 
        restarts the adoption of instructional materials.  

        Revising the K-8 instructional materials adoption process:  The K-8 
        instructional materials adoption process has been criticized for 
        being overly complex and not giving school districts enough 
        flexibility and options for instructional materials.  This bill 
        modifies the role of the IQC, formerly the Curriculum Development 
        and Supplemental Materials Commission, in the instructional 
        materials adoption process, and requires the SPI and allows school 
        districts to submit recommendations to the SBE for the adoption of 
        instructional materials, instead of the IQC.  The IQC will continue 
        to exist but will be primarily responsible for developing and 
        revising curriculum frameworks and criteria, and will have a limited 
        role in the adoption of instructional materials at the request of 
        the SBE.  This bill authorizes the SBE to request the IQC to review 
        reports of findings prepared by the SPI or school districts and 
        review instructional materials, as necessary.  The IQC will also 
        serve as an appeals panel when disputes emerge and in such cases, 
        give independent advice to the SBE on whether instructional 
        materials meet the required criteria.








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        The Legislative Analyst's Office notes in a 2007 report titled, 
        "Reforming California's Instructional Materials Adoption Process," 
        that removing the Curriculum Commission from the process "would 
        constrain the state-level tendencies to override the evaluation 
        decision of teachers and other experts. In so doing, it likely would 
        increase the number of district options and reduce instructional 
        materials costs."  This bill will give school districts the 
        opportunity to participate in the process of reviewing and adopting 
        instructional materials and in turn would provide more flexibility 
        and options for school districts.  The intent of this provision is 
        to provide for a process that is similar to the process used in the 
        adoption of high school instructional materials, whereby local 
        school districts review and adopt their own materials.  However 
        because the California Constitution requires the SBE to adopt 
        instructional materials for use in K-8, this bill maintains the 
        authority for the SBE to approve or reject instructional materials 
        submitted by school districts.  

        A public and transparent process:  The existing process involves 
        content experts and field reviewers that make recommendations based 
        on the extensive reviews they conduct.  The intent is to continue a 
        similar open and public process that the SPI would coordinate.  
        Together the SPI and school districts would have the opportunity to 
        make recommendations that would in turn potentially result in a 
        comprehensive list of state-adopted instructional materials that 
        gives several program options for school districts to choose from.

        After textbooks are adopted by the SBE, school districts have to 
        conduct their own evaluation of instructional materials and to 
        select the materials that best meet the needs of their students.  
        Districts are given virtually no information to compare the 
        state-adopted materials when they conduct their own reviews.  This 
        results in school districts spending additional time and resources 
        to duplicate, in many instances, the efforts of experts who have 
        already reviewed materials at the state level.  To address the lack 
        of information and to increase transparency, this bill requires a 
        report of findings from school districts or the SPI along with 
        specified information be made available to districts and posted on 
        CDE's Internet Web site.  For purposes of transparency, this bill 
        also requires the SBE to hold a public meeting prior to the adoption 
        of instructional materials.  

        Additionally, arguments have been made that the current adoption 








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        process stifles rather than stimulates innovation, and that an 
        ongoing or rolling process might provide opportunities to update 
        materials more efficiently.  To that end, this bill allows for the 
        continuous submission of instructional materials, but would 
        authorize the SBE to specify a timeframe during an eight year cycle 
        during which the reviews would be conducted per existing practice of 
        not charging a review fee, and after that specified timeframe, 
        publishers would be assessed a fee to have their materials reviewed. 
         This is similar to how follow-up adoptions were handled in the 
        past.  

        Given that no adoptions are taking place at the present moment, the 
        timing for the changes proposed by this bill may be appropriate, and 
        disruptions are not likely to occur as a result of this bill.


         Analysis Prepared by  :    Marisol Aviņa / ED. / (916) 319-2087 

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