BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 2548
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|Author: |Weber |
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|Version: |May 27, 2016 Hearing |
| |Date: June 29, 2016 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Lynn Lorber |
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Subject: School accountability: statewide accountability
system
SUMMARY
This bill requires the State Board of Education (SBE) to
establish state performance standards for key indicators and
adopt an accountability system for K-12 public schools that is
aligned to the requirements of federal law, relies upon data
from specified key indicators, and ensures the creation of a
data and reporting system that provides meaningful and
accessible information on school and school district
performance.
BACKGROUND
Existing state law:
1) Establishes the Local Control Funding Formula, requires
local educational agencies to adopt and annually update a
Local Control and Accountability Plan that includes a
description of:
a) The annual goals, for all students and each
subgroup, to be achieved for each of the state
priorities and for any additional local priorities.
b) The specific actions the school district or
county office of education will take during each year
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to achieve the goals, including any specific actions
to correct any deficiencies in regard to the state
priorities.
(Education Code § 42238, et seq., § 52060 and § 52066)
1) Requires the SBE to adopt evaluation rubrics to assist:
a) A school district, county office of education
or charter school in evaluating its strengths,
weaknesses, and areas that require improvement.
b) A county superintendent of schools in
identifying school districts and charter schools in
need of technical assistance and the specific
priorities upon which the technical assistance should
be focused.
c) The Superintendent of Public Instruction in
identifying school districts for intervention.
1) Requires the State Board of Education (SBE) to adopt, as
part of the evaluation rubrics, standards for school
district and individual school performance and expectations
for improvement in regard to each of the state priorities.
(EC § 52064.5)
Existing federal law:
1) Establishes the federal Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA), which requires states to establish accountability
systems that include the following indicators:
a) Proficiency in reading and math;
b) Graduation rates for high schools;
c) English language proficiency;
d) For elementary and middle schools, student
growth or another indicator that is valid, reliable,
and statewide; and
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e) At least one other indicator of school quality
or success, such as measures of safety, student
engagement, or educator engagement.
2) Requires the accountability system to have substantial
weights on indicators a) through d) and, in aggregate,
indicators a) through d) must have much greater weight than
indicator e).
3) Requires states, at least once every three years, to
identify the lowest performing 5% of Title I schools and
all high schools with a graduation rate that is below 67%
for comprehensive support. (United States Code, Title 20,
§ 6301, et seq.)
ANALYSIS
This bill requires the SBE to establish state performance
standards for key indicators and adopt an accountability system
for K-12 public schools that is aligned to the requirements of
federal law, relies upon data from specified key indicators, and
ensures the creation of a data and reporting system that
provides meaningful and accessible information on school and
school district performance. Specifically, this bill:
1) Requires the SBE to adopt a statewide accountability
system, to ensure alignment and fidelity with the state
priorities and federal law, that does all of the following:
a) Satisfies the accountability system requirements
of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
b) Aligns the state's local control framework, which
is focused on identifying and supporting local
educational agencies with the additional need to
identify, support, and improve the highest need
schools.
c) Relies upon data from specified key indicators
(see #2 below) established pursuant to the evaluation
rubrics.
d) Provides the California Collaborative for
Educational Excellence (CCEE), county superintendents
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of schools, and the public with data to be used in a
multi-tiered system of review and assistance.
e) Ensures the creation of a data and reporting
system that provides meaningful and accessible
information on school and school district performance
that is displayed through an electronic platform.
Key indicators
2) Requires the key indicators for the accountability system
to include, if not already included by the State Board of
Education (SBE), all of the following:
For elementary and middle schools
a) A measure of student achievement in at least
English language arts, mathematics and science.
b) A measure of academic growth.
c) A measure of progress toward English proficiency.
d) A measure of chronic absenteeism.
e) A measure of school climate.
For high schools
f) A measure of student achievement in at least
English language arts, mathematics and science.
g) A measure of graduation rates.
h) A measure of progress toward English proficiency.
i) A measure of college and career readiness.
j) A measure of chronic absenteeism.
aa) A measure of school climate.
3) Requires the academic indicators in a)-c) and f)-h) above
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to receive substantial weight and, in aggregate, much
greater weight than is afforded to all other indicators.
4) Requires the performance of subgroups to receive
substantial weight.
5) Provides that the SBE is not precluded from including
additional statewide measures that can be disaggregated by
subgroup in the accountability system for
purposes of meaningful differentiation of all schools or
from grouping the measures into common clusters.
6) States legislative intent that the state will continue to
use the evaluation rubrics and all indicators identified as
state priorities and subgroups for purposes of continuous
improvement and to guide the provision of technical
assistance, support and intervention.
Alignment of state and federal accountability
7) Requires the State Board of Education to do all of the
following:
a) Set clear, ambitious, statewide standards for
performance and expectations for improvement toward
each of the key indicators described in #2 for
students overall and for each numerically significant
subgroup.
b) Establish a mechanism to meaningfully
differentiate the performance of all public schools,
to identify school districts and county offices of
education for intervention by the Superintendent of
Public Instruction on an annual basis based on
outcomes for all students and for each subgroup using
the key indicators (#2) and to do all of the
following:
i) Distinguish multiple levels of
performance for purposes of continuous
improvement, transparency, meaningful stakeholder
engagement, recognition, and support, as
specified.
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ii) Support parents in making informed
school decisions on behalf of their children.
iii) Enable school districts, county offices
of education, the California Department of
Education, and the California Collaborative for
Educational Excellence to identify schools for
recognition, support, and assistance and ensure
that support and assistance is provided to at
least those schools identified pursuant to i).
c) Comply with all notification, stakeholder
engagement, school support, and improvement activities
required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
8) Requires the standards for improvement to be differentiated
by subgroup so that subgroups that start off at lower
performance levels make greater growth to achieve the
statewide standards.
Multiple levels of performance
9) Provides that the multiple level of performance includes
the identification of the following:
a) Not less than the lowest-performing 5% of all
schools receiving federal Title I funds and all public
high schools in the state failing to graduate
one-third or more of their students.
b) All schools in which any subgroup of students is
consistently underperforming, as determined by the
State Board of Education (SBE), based on all of the
key indicators in #2 and the accountability system
established pursuant to this bill.
c) All schools where any one subgroup of students,
on its own, would lead that school to be in the lowest
5% of schools for students overall.
Technical assistance and intervention
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10) Requires the CCEE and county superintendents of schools, in
identifying appropriate assistance for a school or local
educational agency (LEA), to analyze data aligned with all
the state priorities in order to align the level of
support, collaboration, and intervention to the needs of
LEAs or individual schools.
Digital dashboard
11) Requires that parents and the public have the ability to
easily access, compare, analyze, and summarize school
reports, student performance results, and the progress made
by schools and school districts in reaching all of the
state's Local Control Funding Formula and Local Control and
Accountability Plan priority areas.
12) States legislative intent to ensure that any web-based data
and analysis tools should enable all stakeholders to
readily identify strengths and weaknesses, identify
inequities between schools and subgroups of students across
multiple measures, monitor academic achievement and
improvement, provide for meaningful differentiation, and
enable users to download data and reports in
machine-readable formats.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill. According to the author, "In December
2015, the federal government adopted the Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA) which replaces the No Child Left Behind
Act (NCLB). The California State Board of Education and
California Department of Education are developing
California's state accountability plan, which is slated to
be submitted to the United States Department of Education
as early as January 2017. The plan must be approved by the
United States Department of Education in time to launch the
new TK-12 public education accountability system by the
2017-18 school year. Absent legislation, the Local Control
Funding Formula's focus on targeting assistance to local
educational agencies based on all state priorities and
ESSA's need to focus assistance on individual schools based
on key indicators will result in a bifurcated system
sending mixed messages similar to the dueling state and
federal systems
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we had under No Child Left Behind Act. California has an
opportunity to create a single, coherent
local-state-federal system of accountability and continuous
improvement for public education."
2) Status of the new accountability system. The Local Control
Funding Formula (LCFF), among other things, requires school
districts and county offices of education to develop and
annually update a local control and accountability plan
that includes a description of the annual goals to be
achieved for each of the eight state priorities and a
description of the specific actions that will be taken to
achieve the identified goals of the district or county
office of education. Pursuant to the LCFF, the State Board
of Education (SBE) is developing a new accountability
system that relies upon multiple measures (rather than
solely on test scores), and encompasses a system of
continuous improvement and support for schools.
According to the SBE, the new accountability system will build
on the foundations of the LCFF, consisting of the local
control and accountability plan, the evaluation rubrics,
and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence
support structure. The SBE has taken several actions
related to the development of the new accountability
system; some notable recent actions include:
a) Approved a set of indicators that form the
foundation for the new multiple measures
accountability system:
i) Student test scores and individual
growth.
ii) Progress of English learners toward
English proficiency.
iii) Graduation rates.
iv) Measures of student engagement
including suspension rates (and chronic absence
when available at the state level).
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b) Directed staff to provide an update in July about
the options for incorporating the following indicators
into the evaluation rubrics:
i) College and career readiness measures.
ii) Local school climate surveys.
iii) Composite measure of English learner
proficiency, including English learner
proficiency rates, reclassification rates, and
long-term English learner rates.
c) Directed staff to prepare a recommendation for
establishing standards for priority areas that are not
addressed by the key indicators, and how those
standards will be used to assess a local educational
agencies eligibility for technical assistance and
intervention:
i) Appropriately assigned teachers, access
to curriculum-aligned instructional materials,
and safe, clean and functional facilities (state
priority 1).
ii) Implementation of state academic
standards (state priority 2).
iii) Parent engagement (state priority 3).
iv) Access to a broad course of study
(state priority 7).
v) Outcomes in a broad course of study
(state priority 8).
d) Approved a method for calculating performance as
a combination of outcome and improvement, allowing
performance to be differentiated at the school,
district and county office of education levels as well
as for student subgroups.
This bill requires the State Board of Education (SBE) to
include key indicators that the SBE has already acted to
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include, and additional key indicators that the SBE only
recently directed its staff to provide options for
incorporating the additional indicators into the evaluation
rubrics. The indicators that the SBE has approved reflect
those for which state-level data is available; local
educational agencies would be expected to also use local
indicators to ensure all state priorities are reflected.
The staff recommendations are to be presented to the SBE at
its July meeting.
3) Weight of key indicators. This bill requires the following
key indicators to receive substantial weight and, in
aggregate, much greater weight than is afforded to all
other indicators, as is required by Every Student Succeeds
Act:
All schools
a) A measure of student achievement in at least
English language arts, mathematics, and science.
b) A measure of progress toward English proficiency.
Elementary and middle schools
c) A measure of academic growth.
High schools
d) A measure of graduation rates.
The SBE has not yet taken action relative to weighting, as
federal regulations are still being developed. Staff notes
that the LCFF does not include weighting requirements, as
technical assistance and intervention are based on a
priority-by-priority review.
1) Standards for performance and expectations for improvement.
The SBE approved a method for calculating performance as a
combination of outcome and improvement, allowing
performance to be differentiated at the school, district
and county office of education levels as well as for
student subgroups. This bill requires the standards for
improvement to be differentiated by subgroup so that
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subgroups that start off at lower performance levels make
greater growth to achieve the statewide standards. It
appears that the draft regulations to implement Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) require a trajectory to meet a
goal, which could be interpreted as this bill proposes, or
that it is one of the available options. This bill
codifies elements of ESSA, yet federal regulations are
still under development. Is it prudent to codify
provisions that may change once federal regulations are
adopted?
The SBE approved a method for calculating performance as a
combination of outcome and improvement. The SBE has also
approved a methodology establishing five performance bands
for each state indicator. According to the SBE, the
performance outcome can serve as a status measurement and
the performance improvement can measure changes in
performance over time. This bill requires the SBE to adopt
a mechanism to meaningfully differentiate the performance
of all schools, including distinguish multiple levels of
performance. The requirements of this bill may meet the
requirements of ESSA but it is unclear if the state system
of accountability will consist of multiple indicators of
performance or if it will produce a single rating or index
to reflect performance. (See comment # 5.)
2) Remaining issue. The emerging state system of school
accountability currently proposes to calculate performance
as a combination of outcome and improvement separately for
each indicator, while draft regulations to implement ESSA
require states to assign a single rating to each school.
This bill does not provide a resolution to this issue.
This bill requires the multiple levels of performance to
include identification of factors required by ESSA, such as
identification of the lowest-performing 5% of schools, and
schools with subgroups that consistently underperform. The
draft federal regulations stipulate that the single school
rating is to be based on at least three levels of school
performance (a single summative rating using a combination
of performance on the specified indicators that has at
least three performance levels). This bill may meet the
requirements of ESSA but it is unclear if the state system
of accountability will consist of multiple indicators of
performance or if it will produce a single rating or index
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to reflect performance.
3) Identification of schools for intervention. This bill
requires the SBE to establish a mechanism to identify
school districts and county offices of education for
intervention by the SPI on an annual basis based on
outcomes for all students and for each subgroup using the
key indicators. Staff recommends an amendment to require
the mechanism to also identify local educational agencies
for advice and assistance from the CCEE or the county
office of education.
4) Data dashboard. This bill requires SBE to adopt an
accountability system that, among other things, ensures the
creation of a data and reporting system that provides
meaningful and accessible information on school and school
district performance that is displayed through an
electronic platform. The 2016 Budget Act includes funding
for the San Joaquin County Office of Education to develop a
data dashboard. This bill becomes effective on January 1,
2017. It is unclear if all of the data for these measures
will be available at the state level when this bill becomes
operative. It is unclear if the data dashboard envisioned
by the State Board of Education (SBE) or the existing state
data system will meet the requirements of this bill (see
#7a).
5) Fiscal impact. According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill imposes the following costs:
a) Unknown General Fund costs, potentially in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars, for California
Department of Education (CDE) to comply with the data
components of this bill. The current school data
systems, California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement
Data Systems and DataQuest, do not present data in
formats required under the bill. It is not clear if
CDE would be able to adapt existing systems or if a
new data system would need to be developed. Either
way, significant resources would be needed to present
data in the manner prescribed in the bill.
b) Unknown Proposition 98/General Fund cost
pressures, in the millions of dollars, to the extent
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this expanded accountability system identifies more
school districts or school sites in need of state
intervention and assistance.
SUPPORT
Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors
Alliance for Boys and Men of Color
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - California
Black Parallel School Board
California Alliance of African American Educators
California Chamber of Commerce
California Charter Schools Association Advocates
California School-Based Health Alliance
Camino Nuevo Charter Academy
Cesar Chavez Foundation
Center for leadership Equity and Research (CLEAR)
Children Now
Children's Defense Fund - California
Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth
College Board
Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement
Democrats for Education Reform
Dolores Huerta Foundation
Educate 78
Education Trust-West
Educators 4 Excellence
EdVoice
Equal Justice Society
Families in Schools
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
First 5 Santa Clara County
Future Is Now
Great Public Schools Now
Half Moon Bay Brewing Company
Innovate Public Schools
KIDS' OWN WISDOM
LA Voices
Los Angeles Trust for Children's Health
MISSION READINESS - MILITARY LEADERS FOR KIDS
National Center for Youth Law
Our Family Coalition
Parent Revolution
Partnership for Children & Youth
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PICO California
Public Counsel
Raineth Housing
Sacramento Area Congregations Together
San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership
Stand Up
Students for Education Reform
Students Matter
The GreenHouse
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
United Ways of California
Women's Empowerment
OPPOSITION
California Teachers Association
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