BILL ANALYSIS
AB 185
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 185 (Buchanan)
As Amended August 27, 2010
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: | |(May 4, 2009) |SENATE: |35-0 |(August 31, |
| | | | | |2010) |
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(vote not relevant)
Original Committee Reference: BUDGET
SUMMARY : Appropriates a total of $903,845,000 in federal funds
for two educational purposes, the School Improvement Grant (SIG)
program and State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF).
The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of this bill,
and instead:
1)Appropriate $415,845,000 in federal funding ($352 million in
one-time funds plus $64 million in base funding) for SIG to
K-12 local educational agencies (LEAs) for the purposes of
funding local improvement plans for low performing schools.
2)Require the appropriations for SIG to be allocated to LEAs to
fund school improvement grants based on school size as
approved by the State Board of Education (SBE).
3)Make the appropriations for SIG contingent upon approval of
California's request to the United States Department of
Education (USDOE) for a waiver to allocate 100% of the funds
in a manner consistent with 2) above.
4)Appropriate $488,000,000 in federal SFSF monies to K-12 LEAs,
the California Community Colleges (CCC), the California State
University (CSU), and to University of California (UC) for the
purposes of mitigating state funding reductions.
EXISTING LAW requires expenditure authority to be granted,
through an appropriation in the Budget Act, a continuous
statutory appropriation or through an appropriation in special
legislation, before a state agency or department is able to
expend or allocate funds to other entities, such as LEAs.
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AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill expressed the intent of the
Legislature to enact statutory changes relating to the Budget
Act of 2009.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee:
1)Appropriates $415,845,000 in SIG funding ($351.8 million in
one-time ARRA plus $64.1 million in base funding) for
supporting three-year school improvement grants to LEAs, to be
provided over a three-year period.
2)Provides that the funds will be allocated on the basis of
school size per the action of the State Board of Education
(SBE) during their August 24, 2010, meeting.
3)Appropriates funds for Phase II of the SFSF grants, including
$271 million to K-12 LEAs to mitigate reductions made to
revenue limits and corresponding reductions made to basic aid
districts, $106 million each (for a total of $212 million) to
the University of California and to the California State
University to mitigate budget finding reductions, and $5
million to Board of Governors of the California Community
Colleges to mitigate funding reductions.
COMMENTS : This bill provides federal funding for the SIG
program and SFSF, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Federal Funding Appropriated in AB 185
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| Federal Funds | Educational | Amount |
| | Entity/Purpose | |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
|SIG Funding |Allocated to LEAs |$415.8 million |
| |approved by the SBE | |
| |to implement the | |
| |federal SIG program. | |
| | | |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
| One-time federal | | $351.8 million |
| SIG American | | |
| Recovery and | | |
| Reinvestment Act | | |
| (ARRA) | | |
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|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
| On-going federal | | $64.1 million |
| SIG funding | | |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
|Federal SFSF: Phase |Allocated for the |$488 million |
|II |mitigation of | |
| |budget reductions | |
| |and to be used | |
| |consistent with | |
| |Title XIV of ARRA | |
| |and SFSF Phase II | |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
| K-12 LEAs | | $271 million |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
| CCC | | $5 million |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
| UC | | $106 million |
|---------------------+---------------------+---------------------|
| CSU | | $106 |
| | |million |
| | | |
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School Improvement Grants: Under the federal No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) Act, schools must meet four sets of requirements
to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), the federal calculation
utilized to determine if schools and LEAS are meeting
performance targets for all students. The requirements include:
1) student participation rate on statewide tests; 2) percentage
of students scoring at the proficient level or above in
English-language arts and mathematics on statewide tests; 3) API
score; and, 4) graduation rate (if high school students are
enrolled). Numerically significant groups of students at a
school or school district also must meet the four requirements.
Any school that receives federal Title I funds and does not meet
AYP targets for two consecutive years, is identified for Program
Improvement (PI). Schools in PI are required to meet various
requirements for sanctions and interventions if they remain in
PI for additional years. Schools exit PI if they achieve AYP
for two consecutive years.
The federal government provides two streams of funding to states
to be used directly to improve student achievement in schools
identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring
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under PI; these funds are provided to enable those schools to
make adequate yearly progress (AYP) and exit PI status. These
funding sources are Title I Set-Aside (NCLB requires states to
set aside four percent of their total Title I grant to help
schools and districts improve their performance) and the SIG.
SIG was established by the federal government in 2008 to provide
technical assistance for Title I schools in PI. In 2009, the
federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) also
provided one-time funding to California under the Title I
Set-Aside and the SIG program on top of the base funding
provided to California.
USDOE issued new guidelines earlier this year that modified the
allocation priorities and uses of SIG funding. States are now
required to use SIG resources to turn around the bottom five
percent of schools in Program Improvement (PI) (i.e.,
persistently low-performing schools). Per federal rules,
schools can receive a minimum of $50,000 and maximum of $2
million per year for three years.
As a condition of receiving funds, schools must implement one of
four intensive intervention models by: 1) closing the school;
2) converting the school to a charter school; 3) releasing at
least 50% of instructional staff and providing certain
flexibility related to staffing and instructional time; and, 4)
giving schools considerable flexibility, including control over
personnel decisions, budgeting, and length of the school
day/year.
The new federal rules also establish priority tiers for
intervention among schools as shown below, and the SBE has
imposed a funding priority for districts choosing to implement
school reform in all of its eligible schools.
Tier 1: Schools receiving Title I funds that either are
in the bottom 5% of Program Improvement schools, as
measured by standardized test scores in math and Language
Arts, or high schools with a graduation rate below 60% for
several consecutive years.
Tier 2: High schools that would have been in the bottom
5%, but do not receive Title I funds.
Tier 3: Additional schools receiving Title I funds that
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the state identifies at its discretion.
This bill would appropriate the funds shown in Table 1 for the
purpose of supporting three-year school improvement grants to
LEAs. The bill provides that the funds will be allocated on the
basis of school size per the action of the SBE at its August 24,
2010, meeting. At that meeting the SBE discussed ways to
mediate the fact that insufficient funds were available to fund
all eligible schools, and determined that a reduction in the
allocations to schools and a federal waiver would be necessary.
The SBE-requested federal waiver would allow for allocation of
the entire grant (federal guidelines require 25% of the funds to
be held in reserve for future use, if not all schools meeting
Tier 1 and Tier 2 criteria are funded in the allocation plan).
This waiver would allow for the funding of a greater number of
schools across the state, as compared to what had been initially
proposed by the California Department of Education (CDE). The
appropriation of the funds in this bill would be contingent upon
approval of that federal waiver. USDOE has indicated support of
the waiver in concept, but has requested that the CDE first
confirm that schools could implement their approved plans with
the reduced funds provided under the school size allocation
(while schools may receive differing amounts based on other
factors, school size allocation would provide the following
approximate amounts: $4 million for small schools - less than
400 pupils; $5 million for medium - between 400 and 1,000
pupils; and, $6 million for large schools - more than 1,000
pupils.
State Fiscal Stabilization Funding : The federal SFSF program
provides one-time formula grants to states under ARRA, for the
purpose stabilizing state and local government budgets in order
to minimize and avoid reductions in education and other
essential public services. SFSF funds are being issued to
states in two phases. California received $2.9 billion for K-12
education in Phase I. The state further received nearly $1.5
billion for institutions of higher education ($716.5 million
each for UC and CSU and $30 million for CCC). This bill would
appropriate funding Phase II of the SFSF grants as shown in
Table 1.
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087
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