BILL ANALYSIS
AB 173
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Date of Hearing: May 13, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 173 (Price) - As Amended: April 14, 2009
Policy Committee: EducationVote:8-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill requires the State Department of Education (SDE) to
contract for the development of a new indicator that measures
pupil-level growth in academic achievement over time.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the new indicator to: (a) serve state accountability
functions and to measure adequate yearly progress (AYP) for
the purposes of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB); (b) allow
the state to make the assurances required by the federal
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), as specified;
(c) distinguish among low-performing schools and local
education agencies (LEAs) to identify those schools that
increase academic achievement; and (d) streamline the
eligibility criteria for state resources and support for
schools and LEAs in need of improvement.
2)Requires SDE to convene an advisory board consisting of
various education representatives, to make recommendations
relative to modifying assessments, academic content standards,
performance expectations, and eligibility criteria for state
support and resources of schools and LEAs.
3)Requires SDE to contract with a consultant for independent
oversight of the project to develop a new academic performance
indicator. This measure requires the Director of Finance to
review the request for proposals prior to the SDE entering
into a contract and requires the contractor to submit twice
annually reports, as specified.
4)Requires this measure to be implemented using federal NCLB
funds, and specifies release of these funds is contingent upon
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an expenditure plan by the Department of Finance.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)GF/98 costs, likely between $350,000 and $700,000, to contract
for the development of a new indicator to measure pupil
pupil-level growth in academic achievement over time. This
measure requires that federal NCLB funds be used to pay for
the contract. The 2009 Budget Act allocates $24 million in
federal NCLB, Title IV: Assessment and Accountability funding
for the state's assessment system.
2)GF/98 costs, likely in the tens to hundreds of millions, to
establish a new state accountability system that meets both
state and federal requirements and modify the state's existing
assessment system, as specified.
COMMENTS
1)Background . SB 1X (Alpert), Chapter 3, Statutes of 1999,
established the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA),
which required the development of the state academic
performance index (API). The API is used to measure
performance of schools and districts over time. An API score
is calculated based on students' performance on the following
standardized tests: the California Standards Tests (CST) in
English language arts, mathematics, and history-social
science, and science (where applicable) and the California
High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).
The state's pupil assessment system (i.e., the Standardized
Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program) measures students'
performance in a content area each year at a certain point in
time. As a result, this system does not allow an accurate
comparison of a pupil's growth or decline in performance
between grade levels. For example, local education agencies
(LEAs) cannot use the state assessments to compare a student's
CST mathematics score in third grade with that same student's
score in fourth or fifth grade to determine the how well the
student has performed.
The federal NCLB requires states to measure the percentage of
student's proficiency primarily in English and mathematics in
a school, a district, or the state. The API holds schools
accountable for improving each year in relation to an
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individual school's performance in the prior year (i.e., their
overall growth). In order to comply with federal law, schools
and LEAs are held to two different accountability systems:
NCLB and the API.
In June 2008, the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) released a
report entitled: A New System of Support for Low Performing
Schools, which recommends "having one integrated school
improvement system [to] overcome many of the shortcomings of
the existing dual system." The LAO further recommends that a
new unified system "rely on a measure that determines both a
student's level of achievement and the increase in a student's
learning from year to year."
This bill requires the SDE to contract for the development of
a new indicator that measures pupil-level growth in academic
achievement over time.
2)Should the state completely eliminate the API ? Prior to the
passage of NCLB, the API functioned as the state's only
accountability system based on the STAR assessments. While it
is appropriate to acknowledge that current standardized
assessments do not measure a pupil's growth over time, the
SDE, at the direction of the Legislature, has explored ways to
modify these assessments (see comment #3 below). Likewise,
any modifications to the assessment system would automatically
require modifications to the API because the assessments are
the basis for a school's API score.
NCLB is expected to be reauthorized in the next year or two.
As such, it is unclear whether the federal accountability
system will be changed to accommodate the state's use of a
growth model to measure academic achievement (e.g., API). The
committee may wish to consider whether it is appropriate to
completely dismantle the API in order to create a new
indicator that accommodates a federal law that may be modified
in the near future. Likewise, the state has invested
significant fiscal resources to build its accountability
system and to replace it outright at this time of fiscal
distress may not be appropriate.
3)SDE pilot study on academic growth measures . The 2007 Budget
Act allocated $150,000 in federal Title VI funds to augment a
provision in the STAR program contract to conduct a pilot
study of academic growth measures using existing longitudinal
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data of selected grades and content areas. The budget bill
language expresses legislative intent to "expand this study to
evaluate multiple approaches for measuring pupil annual growth
on the state standards." Furthermore, the results of the
study were to provide "guidance on the utility of studied
growth models to meet state and federal accountability
requirements."
In May 2008, SDE delivered the study, conducted by the
Educational Testing Service (ETS), to the Legislature. The
study examined several options to measuring academic growth
within the state's existing assessment system. If the STAR
assessments were designed in a manner that enabled performance
levels to mean the same thing at each grade level, the state
could accurately measure student gains or losses across years.
This change in the assessment system would eventually affect
the API because the majority of the index is calculated
utilizing assessment scores.
Specifically, the pilot study recommended that the state
proceed with a regression approach and perhaps consider a
vertical scale approach. However, ETS also provided the
benefits and drawbacks of each approach.
4)Similar legislation .
a) AB 429 (Brownley), pending in this committee, requires
the PSAA advisory committee, by July 1, 2011, to make
recommendations to the Superintendent of Public Instruction
for the development of a longitudinally valid assessment
system in which annual academic growth can be measured for
a school and a pupil over time.
b) AB 1130 (Solorio), pending on the Assembly floor,
expresses legislative intent to examine the methods for
making and reporting comparisons of school and district
academic achievement over time, as specified.
c) AB 1435 (V. Manuel Perez), pending in this committee,
requires the examination of assessment data related to the
acquisition of English language proficiency by English
learners in order to make potential improvements to the
API.
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Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081