BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Session AB 2548 (Weber) - School accountability: statewide accountability system ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Version: May 27, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 8 - 0 | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Hearing Date: August 8, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: This bill requires the State Board of Education (Board) to establish state performance standards for key indicators and adopt an accountability system for kindergarten through grade 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. Fiscal Impact: Unknown, but likely significant costs in the hundreds of AB 2548 (Weber) Page 1 of ? thousands, to the California Department of Education (CDE) related to the creation of a data and reporting system on school performance according to the specifications provided in this bill. See staff comments. (General Fund) Possible reimbursable state mandate costs for county superintendents of schools to analyze data related to the state priorities to align the level of support and intervention provided to the needs of the local educational agencies (LEAs). See staff comments. (Proposition 98) Background: The Budget Act of 2013 established a new formula to allocate funding to LEAs. The formula consolidated most of the state's numerous separate funding streams and associated restrictions. The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), among other things, requires LEAs 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. The LCFF statute directed the Board to develop significant components of the accountability system through regulations. The Board is currently developing a system that relies upon multiple measures and includes a system of continuous improvement and support for schools. In addition, the federal government adopted the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015 which provides an opportunity to create one coherent accountability system. The Board is scheduled to adopt evaluation rubrics in September 2016 to assist LEAs in evaluating its strengths and weaknesses; to assist a county superintendent of schools in identifying school districts and charter schools in need of technical assistance; and for the Superintendent to identify school districts in need of intervention. As part of the evaluation rubrics, the Board must adopt standards for school district and individual school performance and expectations for improvement regarding each of the state priority areas outlined in existing law. Proposed Law: This bill requires the Board to adopt a statewide accountability system that ensures alignment with the state AB 2548 (Weber) Page 2 of ? priorities established in current law and with the accountability system requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In addition to satisfying federal law, the Board must adopt a statewide accountability system that: 1. Aligns the state's framework of identifying and supporting LEAs with the additional need to identify, support, and improve the state's highest need schools. In doing so the Board is required to: a. Set clear, ambitious statewide standards for performance and expectations for improvement toward each of the key indicators for all students and for each numerically significant subgroup. The bill provides that, to comply with federal law, the standards must be differentiated by subgroup so that subgroups that start off from at a lower performance level makes greater growth to achieve statewide standards. b. Establish a mechanism to: i. Meaningfully differentiate the performance of all public schools to identify LEAs in need of intervention on an annual basis based on outcomes for all students and for each subgroup of students using multiple measures. ii. Distinguish multiple levels of performance for continuous improvement, transparency, meaningful stakeholder engagement, recognition, and support, including the identification of: at least the lowest performing five percent of all school receiving federal Title I funds and all high schools failing to graduate one-third or more of their students; all schools in which any subgroup of students is consistently underperforming; and all schools AB 2548 (Weber) Page 3 of ? where any one subgroup of students would lead that school to be in the lowest five percent of schools for students overall. iii. Support parents in making informed decisions on behalf of their children. iv. Enable LEAs, the CDE, and the Collaborative to identify schools for recognition, support, and assistance, and ensure that support and assistance is provided to at least those in the lowest-performing five percent. v. Comply with all notification, stakeholder engagement, school support, and implementation activities required by federal law. 2. Relies upon data from key indicators established pursuant to the evaluation rubrics adopted by the Board. At a minimum the key indicators must include, if not already included by the Board, a measure of all of the following: a. Student achievement in at least in English language arts, math, and science b. Academic growth c. Progress toward English proficiency d. Chronic absenteeism e. School climate. AB 2548 (Weber) Page 4 of ? Key indicators specific to high schools also include a measure of graduation rates and a measure of college and career readiness. Certain high school key indicators as well as the performance of subgroups are required to receive additional weight. 3. Provides the Collaborative, county superintendents of schools, and the public with data to be used in a multi-tiered system of review and assistance. 4. 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. Staff Comments: The actual costs attributed to this bill are difficult to identify at this time as the net effect of the bill's requirements is unclear. Some of the requirements in this bill are consistent with recent Board actions, some preempt decisions that have yet been made, or conflict with past decisions. In addition, it is difficult to know if the requirements in this bill will be inconsistent federal law as federal regulations are still under development. With regard to including specified key indicators in the state accountability system, the Board included a high school college and career readiness indicator, consistent with this bill. It has also included chronic absenteeism, but there has been no final decision on including this as a key indicator specific to high school. In addition, this bill requires two separate key indicators for student achievement in statewide assessments and academic growth. However, the Board has adopted a state indicator that combines student achievement, when available, with a measure of individual student growth. Therefore, if enacted, the Board would have to revisit this decision. Staff notes that the new statewide science assessment is in AB 2548 (Weber) Page 5 of ? development, and no data are currently available to be included in the indicator. Also, the Board has not yet taken action relative to weighting certain key indicators and subgroup performance as federal regulations are still being developed. The major cost driver of this bill relates to the creation of a data and reporting system that provides information on school and school district performance that is displayed through an electronic platform. It further specifies that parents and the public are required to 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 priority areas. The bill establishes the Legislature's intent that the web-based data and analysis tools enable stakeholders to 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 to allow users to download data and reports. Though this bill requires the Board to ensure the development of this data and reporting system, the CDE is the entity with this responsibility. CDE currently provides comprehensive data on school, district, and statewide performance and the Budget Act of 2016 includes funding for the San Joaquin County Office of Education for the development of the evaluation rubrics, the School Accountability Report Cards, and a data dashboard. Existing data systems do not include the analytical and reporting features required in this bill. Therefore it is likely that significant resources would be needed to fulfill these specifications. According to the CDE, it is unclear whether this could be accomplished through enhancements to existing systems or whether a new system would need to be developed. Finally, this bill could result in possible reimbursable state mandate costs for county superintendents of schools to analyze data related to the state priorities to align the level of support and intervention provided to the needs of the LEAs. Incremental costs beyond existing law are unclear as county AB 2548 (Weber) Page 6 of ? offices of education are currently required to provide technical assistance under certain circumstances, including to any school district that fails to improve student achievement across more than one state priority for at least one student subgroup. The evaluation rubrics will be used to assist county superintendent of schools in identifying school districts and charter schools in need of technical assistance. It is unclear how existing law and this bill's requirement will interact and whether it will create additional workload for county offices of education. However, by specifically mandating this activity in statute, a county office of education may be able to submit a claim for reimbursement of related activities to the Commission on State Mandates. -- END --