BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 700 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 15, 2013 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Mike Gatto, Chair AB 700 (Gomez) - As Amended: May 6, 2013 Policy Committee: Education Vote:7-0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill requires the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), when the history-social framework is revised as required by law, to encourage a voter education component to be included in the American Government and civics course that includes instruction on how to register and cast votes in local, state, and federal elections, and how to use the voter information pamphlet and other materials to be become an informed voter. FISCAL EFFECT To the extent the requirements of this bill are already included in the scheduled history-social science curriculum framework review process, there will be minor, absorbable GF costs to the State Department of Education (SDE) to implement this measure. If these requirements cannot be achieved within the existing review process, there will likely be one-time GF administrative costs to SDE between $75,000 and $150,000. COMMENTS 1)Purpose . Current law requires the State Board of Education (SBE) and SDE to request the IQC review and revise, as necessary, the course requirements in the history-social science framework to ensure that minimum standards for courses in American government and civics include teaching pupils how to interact with state and local government agencies and representatives to solve problems and to petition for changes in laws. According to the author, "As the state has become home to many AB 700 Page 2 new immigrants, including Spanish speaking, Latino families?.California has the responsibility to increase civic engagement not only with first generation voters, but the children of newly registered voters." This bill requires the IQC to encourage a voter education component in the history-social science framework, as specified. 2)How will this measure effect the completion of the history-social science curriculum framework ? AB 2 X4 (Evans), Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009, specified that local education agencies (LEAs) are not required to purchase instructional materials (IM) through the 2012-13 fiscal year (FY). 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 school year. SB 70 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review), Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011, extended this suspension until the 2014-15 FY. Prior to the enactment of AB 2 X4, the next history-social science curriculum framework was scheduled for adoption in May 2010 and the IQC had completed all of the necessary work, including approval to conduct a 60-day comment period. With the passage of SB 1540 (Hancock) - see below, the IQC is expected to complete the framework process within the next year and a half. It is unclear if this bill will cause the IQC to restart the framework process to include a voter education component. In order to ensure this measure will not lead to additional costs to the current framework process, the following uncodified language should be added to clarify the requirements of this measure do not affect the current process: Sec. 2. For purposes of adopting the subsequent history-framework only, this shall not be construed as requiring the Instructional Quality Commission to meet specifically for purposes of implementing the requirements of Section 1 of this act. Any recommended revisions made pursuant to Section 1 shall be implemented in accordance with the regular adoption process and shall not increase the costs of developing the subsequent curriculum framework. Also, there is concern that a voter education "component" AB 700 Page 3 means a stand-alone curriculum within the history-social science framework. The committee suggests addressing this issue. 3)Technical amendment . There is an extra word in a sentence of this bill. On page 2, line 15, delete the word "ensure." 4)SB 1540 (Hancock), Statutes of 2012 , authorizes the SBE to consider adoption of a revised curriculum framework and evaluation criteria for instructional materials in history-social science, and prohibits SDE from conducting work necessary to revise this framework until it has completed work related to the development of curriculum frameworks for the Common Core Content Standards in English language arts and mathematics. 5)Related legislation . a) AB 137, pending in the Senate, requires the IQC to include information related to civics education whenever it revises the history-social science curriculum framework. b) AB 391 (Wieckowski), pending in this committee, requires the history-social science curriculum framework, when it is revised, to encourage instruction related to the understanding of personal finances. c) AB 424 (Donnelly), pending in this committee, the IQC, when the history-social science framework is revised, to consider incorporating specified documents in the framework. Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916) 319-2081