BILL ANALYSIS �
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
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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"
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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