BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Gloria Romero, Chair
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 97
AUTHOR: Torlakson
AMENDED: June 1, 2009
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: July 15, 2009
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : Academic Content Standards
SUMMARY:
This bill requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction
to convene Academic Content and Performance Standards Review
panels for the purpose of reviewing and recommending changes
to the academic content standards for reading/language arts
and mathematics and repeals the authority of the State Board
of Education to modify proposed standards prior to their
adoption.
BACKGROUND
Existing law, operative until July 1, 2011, and to be
repealed on January 1, 2012, requires the State Board of
Education (SBE) to adopt statewide academic content standards
pursuant to the recommendations of the Commission for the
Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards,
in core curriculum areas of reading, writing, and
mathematics, history/social science and science to serve as
the basis for assessing the academic achievement of
individual pupils and of schools, school districts, and the
California education system. Further, current law:
1) Permits the SBE to modify proposed content standards or
performance standards prior to adoption and allows the
SBE to adopt content and performance standards in
individual core curriculum areas as those standards are
submitted to the SBE.
2) Requires the SBE to adopt statewide performance
standards in the core curriculum areas of reading,
writing, mathematics, history/social science, and
science based on recommendations made by the
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Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) and a
contractor or contractors.
Existing law declares that the content and performance
standards are models and are not subject to the
Administrative Procedures Act.
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Repeals the authority of the SBE to modify proposed
content standards or performance standards prior to
their adoption.
2) Requires the SPI to convene Academic Content and
Performance Standards Review (ACPSR) panels to review
the content and performance standards in
reading/language arts (RLA) and mathematics and requires
each 13-member ACPSR panel to consist of the following:
a) Six members appointed by the Governor, four of
whom shall be credentialed teachers and have public
school classroom experience in the curriculum area
and in those grade levels for which they are
appointed.
b) The SPI or his or her designee.
c) Four members appointed by the SPI, three of
whom shall be credentialed teachers and have public
school classroom experience in the curriculum area
and in those grade levels for which they are
appointed.
d) One member appointed by the Senate Rules
Committee.
e) One member appointed by the Speaker of the
Assembly.
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3) Specifies that members of each ACPSR panel are to serve
a two-year term without compensation (except for
reimbursement for travel expenses).
4) Requires the appointing authorities to consult with each
other in making appointments to ensure that panel
members have expertise in the academic subject under
review, are knowledgeable about urban and rural schools,
English learners, and special education, are from
different geographical areas of the state and reflect
the ethnic and gender diversity of California.
5) Requires each ACPSR panel to review the current content
standards and performance standards to ensure that the
standards are measurable and objective and meet other
specified criteria such as reflecting the knowledge and
skills necessary for California's workforce, provide the
basis for statewide assessments, and provide grade level
continuity.
6) Requires each ACPSR to recommend changes to the SBE as
necessary and requires the SBE to hold hearings on the
recommended changes to the standards and adopt or reject
the recommended changes to the standards within 120 days
of their receipt from a review panel and at least two
years prior to the adoption of curriculum frameworks for
the relevant subject area.
7) Requires the SBE, in the event it rejects the
recommended changes, to provide a specific, written
explanation of the reasons why the recommended changes
were not adopted and provides that the review panel may
modify its recommendations and resubmit them to the SBE.
8) Specifies that the Academic Content and Performance
Standards Review Panel (ACPSR) process shall not be
implemented unless an appropriation is provided in the
Budget Act or another statute and specifies the
governing statute shall become inoperative on January 1,
2014 and is repealed on January 1, 2015 unless a later
statute enacted before January 1, 2015 deletes or
extends that date.
9) Requires, to the extent feasible, the SBE to ensure that
assessments are aligned with the state content and
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performance standards adopted pursuant to the
recommendations of the Academic Content and Performance
Standards Review Panel.
10) Extends the operative and repeal dates for existing law
that governs the process for adopting new content areas
to January 1, 2017.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) History and overview . The academic content standards
are the foundation for the state's educational system.
The Curriculum frameworks (which guide instruction),
teacher training and professional development,
textbooks, student assessments, and the state's
accountability and intervention programs are aligned to
the academic content standards.
AB 265 (Alpert) Chapter 975, Statutes of 1995, provided
for the appointment of a Standards Commission for the
establishment of academic content standards in the core
areas of reading, writing (English language arts),
mathematics, history/social science, and science. The
English language arts standards that were recommended by
the Commission were adopted largely intact by the SBE
but the mathematics content standards were substantially
revised by the Board prior to adoption, thereby raising
questions about the efficacy of the standards
development process. Subsequent legislation required
the SBE to adopt content standards in other areas,
including Visual and Performing Arts, Physical
Education, and foreign languages. There are currently
academic content standards in the following areas:
English language Arts, adopted December 1997
Mathematics, adopted December 1997
History-Social Science, adopted October 1998
Science, adopted October 1998
Visual and Performing Arts, adopted January 2001
Physical Education Model Content Standards, adopted
January 2005
Career Technical Education, adopted May 2005
Health Education adopted March 2008
World Languages, adopted January 2009
The academic content standards have not been revised since
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their initial adoption. This bill addresses the need to
authorize and establish an efficient and transparent
process for revising and adopting standards.
2) Should the standards be reviewed ? Current law
provides for the periodic review of curriculum
frameworks as part of the process of adopting
instructional materials (every six years in core subject
areas and every eight years in other subjects).
Although the Legislature has previously endorsed the
concept of periodic review of the K-12 academic content
standards (see "Prior legislation" below) California
does not have a timeline or process for updating its
academic content standards.
Arguments in opposition: Those who oppose updating the
standards argue that California has adopted world-class
academic content standards and reviewing the standards
could result in administrative activities that would
yield no substantial improvement to the standards. An
argument has also been made that because they serve as
the foundation of the state's educational system, the
standards were not designed to be updated on a regular
basis.
Arguments in support: Proponents of this measure contend
however, that periodic review of the content standards
would enable the state to reflect new developments and
research, changes in national policies, or new
approaches to pedagogical practice. In addition,
periodic review of the standards would provide an
opportunity to include content not previously addressed.
Staff notes that a 2006 report by Education Week found
that out of the 49 states that have adopted content
standards, a majority of states (32) have a regular
timeline for revising those standards.
3) National standards . In April 2009, the House
Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on creating
a set of common K-12 academic standards for all states.
In a May 28, 2009 letter signed by, Governor
Schwarzenegger, SBE President Ted Mitchell, and
Superintendent Jack O'Connell, California indicated its
intention to participate in an initiative sponsored by
the National Governors Association and the Council of
Chief State School Officers to develop a set of common
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academic standards for K-12 students. Given the
possibility that state standards may inform the
discussions of common standards and vice versa, it may
make sense for the review of the content standards to
move in concert with the development of the national
standards.
4) Why only math and reading/language arts ? An earlier
version of this bill included each of the curriculum
content areas. To reduce costs, the bill was amended in
the Assembly Appropriations Committee to include only
two content areas: reading/language arts (RLA) and
mathematics. Although the selection of these two
content areas is consistent with current adoption
schedules and may enable the SBE to consider how to
strengthen algebra readiness prior to eighth grade,
there may also be benefits to addressing the other core
standards. Updating the science standards could enable
the state to have greater leverage for federal funds or
programs (such as Race to the Top) and updating the
history-social science standards could allow California
to add groups/cultures not previously included or
address recent historical events. Given the importance
of all the core standards, staff recommends amendments
to require the SBE to adopt a schedule for reviewing the
science and history/social science standards so they can
be included when funding permits, in the process this
bill establishes.
5) Fiscal impact . According to the Assembly
Appropriations Committee analysis, one-time General Fund
administrative costs to the California Department of
Education (CDE) of at least $420,000 to establish an
ACPSR panel in RLA and mathematics. Depending on the
magnitude of changes recommended, there could be
additional and potentially significant costs associated
with aligning state assessment programs and teacher
training to the revised standards.
6) Related legislation . AB 836 (Torlakson), which is
scheduled to be heard by this Committee on July 15,
2009, establishes an education technology task force for
the purpose of making recommendations to the SPI on
technology literacy model standards, developing a
comprehensive statewide technology plan, and requires
the SBE to adopt technology literacy model content
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standards by July 30, 2010.
7) Prior legislation . Previous legislative attempts to
authorize or establish a process for the periodic review
of the academic content standards have been vetoed by
more than one Governor. The veto messages for SB 1367
(Karnette, 2002), AB 642 (Mullin, 2003), and AB 2744
(Goldberg, 2004) stated that the SBE had the authority
to review and revise the content standards as it deems
necessary. However, in January 2005, the Legislative
Counsel issued an opinion stating that the SBE does not
have the authority to revise the standards under current
law, noting that the authority to revise the standards
appears to end with their adoption.
AB 97 is similar to SB 1097 (Torlakson, 2008), which was
passed by this Committee on a 6-0 vote, and was
subsequently vetoed. In his veto message, Governor
Schwarzenegger expressed concern about deleting the
authority of the SBE to modify proposed content
standards prior to adoption and expressed concern about
diluting the role of the Governor to retain a majority
of appointments to the body that would be reviewing the
standards. Specifically, the veto message read:
The original academic content standards were adopted
through a public and inclusive process involving
teachers, educators and content experts from around the
state. The authorizing statute provided that the
Governor retain a majority of appointments to the
Standards Commission, followed by the Superintendent
and leadership in the legislature and correctly held
the Governor ultimately accountable to ensure a balance
of expertise and stakeholders participated in such a
critical endeavor. This bill proposes to dilute the
role of the Governor.
SB 1097 also deletes a provision codified by the
original statute that explicitly authorized the State
Board of Education (Board) to modify any proposed
content standards prior to adoption. Instead, it only
allows the Board to accept or reject proposed changes.
The Board would not have authority to make even minor
corrections to the panel's recommended changes.
I see no compelling reason to alter the balance
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established by the original statute in determining the
composition of the commission that reviewed the
academic content, or the process that provided for
recommendations to the Board for consideration,
modification, and approval.
Furthermore, while I would welcome participation by
teachers, the measure does not define "recent public
classroom experience" and thereby raises the
possibility of controversy regarding whether or not
certain members of the panel are duly authorized to
participate.
I cannot support the dilution of the authority of the
Governor or the State Board of Education. California's
content standards are too important to allow for
unnecessary ambiguity that could call into question the
very process of a historic review and possible
modification.
Given the similarity between AB 97 and AB 1097, is it
reasonable to expect a different outcome for this bill?
8) Clarifying amendment . Staff notes that the content
standards for the curriculum area of English are titled
"English-Language Arts" while the curriculum framework
for this area is called "Reading/Language Arts." To
avoid confusion, staff recommends an amendment to
specify the content area as English Language Arts rather
than reading/language arts.
SUPPORT
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
AFL-CIO
Association of California School Administrators
Business for Science, Math and Related Technologies Education
California County Boards of Education
California Federation of Teachers
California Language Teachers Association
California Mathematics Council
California School Boards Association
California School Library Association
California Science Teachers Association
California Teachers Association
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Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
Los Angeles County Office of Education
San Francisco Unified School District
The Sikh Coalition
An individual
OPPOSITION
None received.