BILL ANALYSIS
AB 72
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Date of Hearing: April 22, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 72 (Duvall) - As Amended: March 25, 2009
SUBJECT : Pupil data
SUMMARY : Authorizes the State Chief Information Officer (CIO) to
manage the data of local educational agencies (LEAs) through the
California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS),
and thus manage CALPADS itself; also requires the CIO to
establish and maintain two bureaucratic structures to review
data requests and to make recommendations regarding the CIO's
management of educational data. Specifically, this bill :
1)Authorizes the CIO to manage, to the extent possible under the
Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the data of
LEAs through CALPADS.
2)Authorizes LEAs to share data, to the extent possible under
FERPA, through CALPADS.
3)Requires the CIO to:
a. Review and respond to all requests for aggregate and
individual non-personally identifiable data.
b. Establish, upon approval by the Committee for the
Protection of Human Subjects for the California Health and
Human Services Agency, an independent review board to
review and respond to all requests for individually
identifiable data.
c. Adopt regulations related to the independent review
board and its duties.
d. Establish a pupil data team to provide input and make
recommendations to the CIO regarding policy and procedures,
including the functionality of CALPADS and data requests.
4)Requires the pupil data team to be broadly representative and
include the CIO or designee, two district superintendents
selected by the Association of California School
Administrators, two county office of education representatives
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selected by the California County Superintendents Educational
Services Association, and one representative from each of the
State Board of Education, the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI), the research community (selected by
EdSource) and the California School Information Services.
5)Requires the members of the pupil data team to serve without
compensation, but allows reimbursement for actual and
necessary travel expenses.
6)Defines requirements related to the members of the pupil data
team as to appointing authorities, member's terms, and
appointment of successors.
7)Requires the CIO to make an online query tool available to the
public in order to facilitate searches of CALPADS aggregate
data, and to comply with all federal privacy laws while doing
so.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Protects, under FERPA, the privacy of student education
records by requiring written permission from the parent or
eligible student, with exceptions, in order to release any
information from a student's education record.
2)Requires school districts to adopt a policy regarding
categories of student directory information that can be
publicly released and to whom it can be released.
3)Provides that student directory information may not be
released if a parent notifies the school that the information
is not to be released.
4)Authorizes CALPADS and requires the California Department of
Education (CDE) to contract for the development of proposals
which will provide for the retention and analysis of
longitudinal pupil achievement data, including data from the
Standardized Testing and Reporting program assessments, high
school exit examination, and English language development
assessments.
5)Requires the CDE to contract for the development of a teacher
data system to be called the California Longitudinal Teacher
Integrated Data Education System (CALTIDES) to serve as a
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central state repository of information on the teacher
workforce to inform policy, identify trends, and identify
future teacher workforce needs.
6)Authorizes the CDE to administer the California Basic
Education Data System (CBEDS), an annual collection of
aggregate student and staff data.
7)Requires, under federal law, that the CDE collect and maintain
education data necessary for compliance with specific federal
requirements, such as those included under the No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLB), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA), the Civil Rights Act of 1967, and the Equal Employment
Opportunity Act of 1972.
8)Requires the CDE to convene an advisory board that is broadly
reflective of the general public of California, and consisting
of representatives from the SBE, the Secretary for Education,
the Department of Finance, the State Privacy Ombudsman, the
LAO, representatives of parent groups, school districts, and
local education agencies, and education researchers to
establish privacy and access protocols, provide general
guidance, and make recommendations relative to data elements.
9)Requires the CIO to convene a working group, representing
governmental entities that collect, report, or use individual
education data, to develop a strategic plan for the linked
education data system.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown increases in state operations costs for
the additional responsibilities placed on the CIO, the support
of the independent review board and the pupil data team, and the
reimbursement of actual and necessary expenses for the members
of the board and team. Creates a potential for costs associated
with the reimbursement of state mandates if the CIO's management
of LEA data through CALPADS or the adoption of procedures or
regulations expands the scope of existing, or creates new,
required activities for LEAs.
COMMENTS : The current state of technology management in the
executive branch, as redesigned in 2007, authorizes the CIO as a
cabinet-level agency, responsible for establishing and enforcing
information technology (IT) strategic plans, policies, standards
and enterprise architecture, and the IT project review,
approval, and oversight program. It also authorizes the Office
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of Information Security and Privacy Protection (OISPP),
operating within the State and Consumer Services Agency, that is
responsible for the promotion and protection of consumer
privacy, and the creation, issuance, and maintenance of
information security and privacy policies, standards, and
procedures directing state agencies to effectively manage
security and risk. In addition, the Information Technology
Consulting Unit (ITCU) within the Department of Finance (DOF)
operates under DOF's general powers of supervision over all
matters concerning the financial and business policies of the
State, including continued fiscal oversight of the state's IT
projects as they are still funded through existing budget
processes. It is important to note that even in this still
fragmented, three agency technology management structure, these
entities are charged with oversight, approval, and the
development of plans and policies; none of these entities are
charged with or are staffed to implement large scale data
systems.
The administrative agency or department closest to being in the
position to implement large scale data systems is the the
Department of Technology Services (DTS), which was established
in an earlier 2005 Governor's technology reorganization plan.
This reorganization consolidated the Stephen P. Teale Data
Center, the California Health and Human Services Agency Data
Center, and the Department of General Services, Office of
Network Services; and, at the time was said to have, "realigned
the information technology infrastructure of the Executive
Branch." DTS is charged with maintaining the state's network
and telecommunications solutions, electronic messaging, and
information technology training, as well as administering a
number of large- scale data systems that are designed as
centralized, state level data bases such as those supporting
drivers' licensing and vehicle registration, California
government payroll, and the state's parolee database. The
components of DTS have managed large administrative data bases,
but do not possess content or "business" expertise in education
data.
A further reorganization plan developed by the executive branch
is slated to take effect in early May 2009. According to the
CIO, this plan would:
1)Integrate four agencies - the CIO, OISPP, DTS and the
Department of General Services, Telecommunications Division -
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into an expanded CIO.
2)Provide the State Chief Information Officer with authority for
IT procurement policy and enterprise IT management.
3)Achieve consolidation of software contracts, office automation
tools, data centers/computer rooms, servers, storage and
networks in order to achieve a cost avoidance and savings of
more than $1.5 billion over the course of five years.
The California State Information Technology Strategic Plan,
updated in 2005 has guided the acquisition, management and use
of technology within the Executive Branch of State government
for a five-year period (2005-2009). This plan discusses
coordination across federal, state and local agencies managing
data systems, and establishes a number of committees and working
groups to do so, but does not propose any further consolidation
of authority over existing or developing data systems in any
area of government, even for those departments directly
administered by the Governor.
In its report released in 2008, the Governor's Committee on
Education Excellence made recommendations for improving
achievement in the K-12 public schools in California. The
committee's technical report provides a discussion of issues
related to management of education data. According to the
committee, "the current governance system for education data is
fractured. Data and information systems are one of the victims
of the state's current convoluted governance structure; if the
state were able to fix the state governance system overnight, an
independent approach for data governance likely would not be
needed. Since a rapid change in state governance is not likely,
the Committee recommends creating a data commission within state
government to do all of the following: oversee the current
implementation of initial longitudinal data systems as the
state's collector of data and would have responsibility for
promoting and ensuring the accuracy of data and information flow
between local education entities and the state, develop a
long-term strategic plan for data use in California, develop
necessary regulations to oversee access to the new information
systems. The Governor's committee also concludes that, "In the
long term, the? responsibilities of the data commission [would
be] transferred to the Superintendent of Public Instruction in
its revised role."
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In late 2008, the SPI released a report entitled, "Framework for
a Comprehensive Education Data System in California - Unlocking
the Power of Data to Continually Improve Public Education."
This report - commissioned by the Governor and the California
Department of Education, funded through private foundations and
completed by McKinsey & Company (a global management consulting
firm) - recommended a significant expansion and linking of
information from California's K-12 system to data from higher
education, social services, pre-kindergarten, and the workforce.
This recommendation was preceded by an expansion of the state's
development of CALPADS to include institutions of higher
education, a move initiated by SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561,
Statutes of 2008. The report also recommended expanding the use
of data to improve instruction and to help policymakers to make
better informed decisions about education policy. Specific to
the proposal in this bill, the report recognized that, "One of
the complications of linking various data systems is that the
individual agencies that own the data systems have their own
policies for managing those systems. The creation of linkages
between systems, or new data elements, or new data systems
altogether, will give rise to many policy questions that need to
be answered before the full set of linkages is complete." The
report followed with a related recommendation to "Establish a
cross-agency data-management structure. This data-management
organization?would have primary responsibility for navigating
the complexity that arises when separate data systems, each
managed by a different agency or entity, are linked together."
Thus the report envisions component data systems managed by
different agencies, but with an interagency mechanism to guide
policy and resolve disputes; this differs from the proposal made
in this bill to move management of a component education data
system to a centralized authority.
CALPADS and CALTIDES are designed to be the foundation of
California's education data system, and will hold student level
data on demographics, program participation and course
completion, and teacher level data including course assignments.
CALPADS will eventually replace a number of the CDE's current
aggregate collections, including the CBEDS collections, the
Language Census, Student National Origin Report, and portions of
the Consolidated Application. CALPADS will also reduce the
amount of data collected on the answer documents of statewide
assessments. According to the CDE, CALPADS is currently in
testing and will begin system implementation in September 2009.
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The CDE also maintains an existing database which acts as the
anchor for California's educational data systems; it is known as
the County, District, School (CDS) code system. This
administrative system provides a non-duplicated fourteen digit
number identifying each county (two digits), school district
(five digits), and school (seven digits) in the state. The
numbering system was developed by the CDE more than thirty years
ago as an administrative necessity, and continues to be
administered by the SPI. The CDS code provides the identifying
index upon which all major K-12 fiscal, programmatic, and
accountability data systems in the state are built, including
CALPADS and CALTIDES.
Following the Governor's 2004 Performance Review of state
government, the Governor submitted a reorganization plan to the
Little Hoover Commission on January 6, 2005. In that
reorganization plan, the Governor made a finding that, "Advisory
boards should be impaneled under the purview of a Secretary on
an ad hoc basis to address specific issues, rather than being
made permanent fixtures of state government. These advisory
bodies often outlive their usefulness or effectiveness. When
necessary, expert advice can be sought from existing
professional associations such as the California Bar
Association, American Medical Association, American Society of
Appraisers, Association of Engineering Geologists, and others.
Detailed expert advice where needed can be contracted for on a
case-by-case basis." In fact one of the boards recommended by
the Governor's report for elimination was the California Health
Policy and Data Advisory Commission. This commission's
functions included a number of advisory activities specifically
related to the consolidation of two data systems and broad
authority to advise existing offices on issues related to health
policy and healthcare data. Clearly the Governor's Performance
Review felt that even an existing, not a newly created, advisory
board was ill-advised as a permanent bureaucratic organization
within state government.
According to the author, "AB 72 has been introduced to address
an amazing oversight in the CALPADS system authority. Under
current state and federal law, all the information collected
into the CALPADS database will be inaccessible to the vast
majority of the populace. In effect, CALPADS will be hamstrung
and information will be unilaterally controlled by a select few.
This is a slap to the face of the People of California and the
hard work that has gone into developing this program." In fact,
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the information available in CALPADS, since it is at the
individual student level, would not be available to the public
under current law or under the proposal made in this bill. Both
federal (primarily FERPA) and state privacy laws prevent the
distribution or exposure of individual pupil records except
under very specific and constrained circumstances. The data in
CALPADS will be used to produce the aggregate level data that
has historically been collected through CBEDS and other data
collections, and that is and has been publicly available on the
CDE website through DataQuest ( http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ )
or through Ed-Data ( http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/welcome.asp ), a
website managed by the Education Data Partnership which is
comprised of the Alameda County Office of Education, the CDE,
EdSource, and the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team.
In addition, SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes of 2008,
also requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC),
State Board of Education (SBE), and CDE to provide the CIO with
non-personally identifiable individual or aggregate educational
data (i.e., data that would be allowed by FERPA), as specified,
in an agreed upon format, in a timely manner according to an
agreed upon schedule, and at no cost to the CIO. Thus the
executive branch under current law already has access to any
data, that can be legally disclosed, and has the ability to
publicly disseminate that information.
Committee staff have a number of concerns with this proposal;
this bill:
1)Changes the focus of CALPADS from being a repository of
student-level data, to being a mechanism whereby the CIO is
authorized to manage the data of LEAs.
2)Shifts responsibilities for managing educational data from an
elected Constitutional Officer, who is more directly
accountable to the Legislature, to a lower, cabinet level
appointee, who is directly answerable to the Governor. The
extent of Legislative control and oversight of these systems
and policies, which has been substantial in the past, is
likely to be reduced under this proposal.
3)Shifts responsibilities for managing educational data from the
state agency responsible for managing educational programs to
an organization with no experience or expertise in the
educational issue areas where the data will be put to use. As
an example of this point, the point of contact within the CDE
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for the CIO, as listed on the CIO's website, is the Director
of the CDE Technology Services Division, the division
responsible for providing " internal [CDE] customers with IT
leadership, technical services, and a state-of-the-art
infrastructure that enables them to deliver effective
education services in California.", and not the Director of
the Data Management Division, the division that manages "data,
collects demographic data from districts and schools, and
assists the field in their use of technology to improve
learning." The focus of the CIO, appropriately so given that
position's charge, is on information technology rather than on
education data.
4)Separates management of the data driven compliance and
administrative systems, that are and would remain the majority
of the responsibilities held by the CDE, from the data that is
necessary for the management of those compliance and
administrative systems. Anything other than seamless access
to data that under this bill will be housed in a separate
agency will interrupt billions of dollars of apportionments,
grants, contracts, and other payments to LEAs processed by the
CDE. In the same manner, anything other than completely
seamless access to this data would also interrupt compliance
and oversight responsibilities held by the CDE with respect to
LEA receipt of federal funds, state categorical programs, and
financial management.
5)Separates management of CALPADS from management of CALTIDES,
the California Special Education Management Information System
(CASEMIS), as well as databases containing state assessment
data and state fiscal data, even though all are part of the
integrated California Education Information System (CEIS)
approved and envisioned by the Legislature and the Governor in
SB 1614 (Simitian), Chapter 840, Statutes of 2006..
6)Generates unknown increases in state operations costs for the
additional responsibilities placed on the CIO, the support of
the independent review board and the pupil data team, and the
reimbursement of actual and necessary expenses for the members
of the board and team. Unfortunately, the additional costs of
staffing up to meet the expanded requirements in the bill are
generated in bad fiscal times for the state.
7)Creates two new panels or boards, a proposal that is clearly
contrary to the findings of the Governor's California
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Performance Review.
8)Does not clarify, nor do the background materials provided by
the author clarify, the need for transferring the management
of educational data systems to a non-education state entity.
9)Is, in many ways, reflective of the legislative analyst's
office proposal relating to CALPADS system reforms. However,
the LAO clearly envisions its recommendations being
implemented in the context of the CDE maintaining
responsibility for CALPADS and other educational data systems.
For example the LAO ended its report on "Redefining Student
Data Access Policy", issued in January of this year, by
recommending that "the new policy [for data access] contain
four key provisions." Those four key provisions were:
"Authorize State Educational Agency to Work on Behalf of LEAs,
Authorize LEAs to Share Data Via CALPADS, Authorize CDE to
Review Requests for Student Data Using Defined Guidelines,
Authorize CDE IRB [independent review board - replacing the
need for the California Health and Human Services Agency
review as proposed in this bill] to Release Data." The LAO
wrote, "Thus, authorizing CDE and CALPADS to work on behalf of
LEAs is the key to enabling CDE to inherit the disclosure
exemptions provided by FERPA, thereby allowing CDE to
authorize research."
SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes of 2008, made a number
of changes in education data processes that are germane to this
bill. For example, SB 1298 states legislative intent to convene
a staff level working group that is representative of the policy
and fiscal staff of both houses of the Legislature and both
parties, the Governor's office, the SPI, the Legislative
Analyst's Office (LAO), and all three systems of California
public higher education; it also requires the working group to
make recommendations related to the governance of educational
data, including, but not limited to, the organizational
structure of the governing entity, its relationship to other
agencies, the scope of its authorities and responsibilities,
methods for holding the governing entity accountable, and
methods for ensuring that the governing entity's work primarily
serves the purposes of educational improvement at the same time
as ensuring the privacy of any data under its charge. The LAO
has already convened this group. SB 1298 also requires the CIO
to:
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1)Convene a working group, representing the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI), the State Board of Education, the
three systems of California public higher education, and any
other governmental entities that collect, report, or use
individual education data that would become part of the
comprehensive educational data system, to develop a strategic
plan that would provide an overall structural design for the
linked data system, examine current state education data
systems, and examine the interdepartmental data protocols and
procedures to be used by state agencies in collecting,
storing, manipulating, sharing, retrieving, and releasing data
in order to enable the linking of data systems. This group is
scheduled to begin meeting in early May.
2)Form a committee that includes school and district
administrators to be advisory to the working group in a)
above; and,
3)Deliver the strategic plan to the Legislature and the Governor
on or before September 1, 2009.
Related legislation : SB 19 (Simitian), pending in the Senate
Rules Committee, requires that the provisions SB 1298
(Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes of 2008, pertaining to the CIO
convening an interagency education group to develop a strategic
plan for California's educational data system be implemented
using federal funds received under the Education Technical
Assistance Act for Statewide Data Systems, as part of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and appropriates
funds for this purpose on a one-time basis.
Previous legislation : SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes
of 2008, establishes processes by which local education agencies
and public institutions of higher education issue, maintain, and
report information using the unique statewide student
identifiers required under current law. SB 1425, vetoed in
2008, would have developed a process for reviewing and
responding to requests for individual pupil data records housed
in CALPADS. SB 1524 (Romero), vetoed in 2008, would have
required CALPADS to have the ability to collect and report
disaggregated data related to Asian and Pacific Islander (API)
pupils, in order to provide a more accurate view of the academic
achievement of the subgroups within that classification. SB
1592 (Perata), held on the Assembly Floor, would have
established a committee responsible for providing oversight for
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CDE's data collection activities. AB 2955 (Duvall), failed
passage in the Assembly Education Committee in 2008, was
substantially similar to this bill. SB 1614 (Simitian), Chapter
840, Statutes of 2006, requires the development of a teacher
data system to serve as a central state repository of
information on the teacher workforce, and specifies that the
existing CEIS include CALPADS, which maintains pupil data, and
CBEDS, an annual collection of aggregate student and staff data.
SB 1453 (Alpert), Chapter 1002, Statutes of 2002, authorizes
the longitudinal data system in its current form, and specifies
that the system be known as CALPADS. SB 90 (Committee on the
Budget), Chapter 183, Statutes of 2007, Makes statutory changes
necessary to implement the 2007-08 state Budget relating to the
CIO and the OISPP. SB 834 (Figueroa), Chapter 533, Statutes of
2006, makes the statutory changes necessary to reflect the
Governors Reorganization Plan 2, which became effective July 9,
2005, and creates the Office of CIO in state government.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Los Angeles Unified School District
Opposition
Association of California School Administrators
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087