BILL ANALYSIS Ó ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 754| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ UNFINISHED BUSINESS Bill No: SB 754 Author: Padilla (D) Amended: 8/6/12 Vote: 21 PRIOR SENATE VOTES NOT RELEVANT ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 75-0, 8/21/12 - See last page for vote SUBJECT : School funding: economic impact aid SOURCE : Author DIGEST : This is a new bill. As it left the Senate, it dealt with the California English Language Development Test. Those provisions were deleted in the Assembly. This bill now requires a school district, as a condition of the receipt of economic impact aid funds, to post in an easily accessible location on its Internet Web site data related to its economic impact aid funding and expenditures, as specified. ANALYSIS : Existing law provides economic impact aid funding to school districts based on the number of economically disadvantaged pupils and English learners enrolled in the school district. Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to perform specified calculations to determine the amount of economic impact aid a school district CONTINUED SB 754 Page 2 receives for a fiscal year and further requires each school district to expend these funds for specified programs and activities. This bill, as a condition of the receipt of economic impact aid funds, require a school district to post in an easily accessible location on its Internet Web site data related to economic impact aid funding, for purposes of budget transparency, including all of the following: 1. The amount of economic impact aid allocated to the school district in that fiscal year. 2. The amount of economic impact aid used by the school district for administrative costs in that fiscal year. 3. The amount of economic impact aid expended for limited-English-proficient pupils in that fiscal year and the prior fiscal year by the school district and by each school within the district. 4. The amount of economic impact aid expended for state compensatory education in that fiscal year and the prior fiscal year by the school district and by each school within the district. 5. The amount of unexpended economic impact aid and an explanation of why these funds have not been expended. Background In the last 25 years the English Learner population has doubled, a trend reaffirmed by the 2010 Census. California educates 1.5 million English Learners which accounts for a quarter of the K-12 population. In Kindergarten forty percent of students are English Learners. In 1976, Governor Brown signed the Bilingual-Bicultural Education Act which created a groundbreaking system to improve English Learner education. The Act had a noble goal of "?as effectively and efficiently as possible, to develop in each child fluency in English." SB 754 Page 3 Thirty-six years later, the failure of the current English Learner system is clear. Today, English Learners have the lowest graduation rate of any student demographic. Thirty-one percent of English Learners who make it to 9th grade drop out before graduation. While some English Learners receive their high school diploma, only 13% of English Learners will earn a bachelor's degree. Empowering and informing parents about the fiscal decisions of their child's school is important for creating educational success for English Learners. When parents and communities are informed they are able to hold their schools accountable. Currently, districts do not report school-level funding figures, instead they use district averages. While many districts do post their budgets online, they only list funds in broad categories. The public does not have access to specific, school level expenditures. Parents and communities are largely unaware of how schools spend English Learner funds because school districts are not required to report or post them. There have been several recent reports calling for more transparency in the education funding. The Public Policy Institute, the New America Foundation and researchers and Stanford University have called for more transparent school budgets. The Stanford 2008 report title "Reforming California School Finance" was authored by State Board of Education President Michael Kirst, California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, and former California Secretary of Education Alan Bersin. The report stated that the: "? Ýeducation finance] system as a whole should be simple, transparent, and easily understood by legislators, school officials, and the public?" The report asserts that transparency is needed in order for Californians to support more revenues for schools because: "?.legislators cannot explain to their constituents (much less defend) how education dollars are allocated; and the public cannot understand how additional revenue for education will affect their local schools." SB 754 Page 4 Transparency is necessary to inform schools and empower parents. When schools are informed and parents are empowered, positive improvements can be made. For example, in Coachella Valley Unified School District, the district failed every single category during their last compliance monitoring review. The review put sunshine onto the problems and deficiencies in the districts programs and expenditures. Since then, under the leadership of a new Superintendent and in partnership the Families Improving Schools Education initiative, the district was able to work with parents and the community to restructure their English Learner programs. The Coachella community established the Parent-School-Community collaborative for Student Success, and a Parent Engagement Taskforce between the district, parents, and community partners. Through these efforts, they have established a monitoring mechanism and are supporting improvements to new and existing programs for successful reclassification. Schools and parents can work together to see that students receive the supports and services they need to succeed. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local: No SUPPORT : (Verified 8/21/12) ACLU California Association for Bilingual Education California Immigrant Policy Center Californians Together Education Trust West Families in Schools Los Angeles Unified School District Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund Public Advocates Reading and Beyond ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The author states, "Current law lacks transparency in school budgets that would allow SB 754 Page 5 policymakers, students, parents, teachers and communities to understand how schools and districts provide services to English Learners." This bill requires as a condition of the receipt of EIA funds, school districts to post in an easily accessible location the information about EIA allocations and expenditures at the school district and school site level. ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 75-0, 08/21/12 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall, Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos, Carter, Cedillo, Conway, Cook, Davis, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Beth Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gordon, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Halderman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lara, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller, Mitchell, Monning, Morrell, Nestande, Norby, Olsen, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel Pérez, Portantino, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Swanson, Torres, Wagner, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, John A. Pérez NO VOTE RECORDED: Chesbro, Roger Hernández, Hueso, Nielsen, Valadao RJG:m 8/21/12 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END ****