BILL ANALYSIS
AB 314
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 314 (Brownley)
As Amended May 6, 2009
Majority vote
EDUCATION 8-1 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|Ayes:|Brownley, Ammiano, |Ayes:|De Leon, Ammiano, Charles |
| |Arambula, Buchanan, | |Calderon, Davis, Fuentes, |
| |Carter, Eng, Solorio, | |Hall, John A. Perez, Price, |
| |Torlakson | |Skinner, Solorio, |
| | | |Torlakson, Krekorian |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+----------------------------|
|Nays:|Garrick |Nays:|Nielsen, Duvall, Harkey, |
| | | |Miller, |
| | | |Audra Strickland |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Makes various changes to the state instructional
materials (IM) adoption process, and provides flexibility to
districts in the purchase of IM. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the list of state-approved instructional materials be
made available to school districts and be posted on the
California Department of Education's (CDE) Internet Web site
and requires the list includes information from the
assessments or reports of findings and recommendations from
the expert reviewers and evaluators of instructional
materials, as specified.
2)Deletes the requirements that the Curriculum Development and
Supplemental Materials Commission (Curriculum Commission)
study, evaluate, and recommend to the State Board of Education
(SBE) instructional materials for adoption.
3)Allows school districts that receive funds from the
Instructional Materials Funding Realignment (IMFR) program to
submit, as specified, names of individuals to be considered to
serve in the review and evaluation of IM submitted for
adoption for use in kindergarten and grades one to eight,
inclusive (K-8).
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4)Specifies that school districts choosing to submit
recommendations of individuals shall ensure that at least one
of the individuals is a credentialed teacher and that all
individuals have experience with and expertise in the content
field under review and requires the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) to verify that the individuals recommended
by school districts have expertise in the content field under
consideration.
5)Requires the SPI to conduct a random lottery to select
individuals to serve as instructional materials reviewers and
content review experts from the recommendations made by school
districts and requires the SPI to ensure that:
a) The selected reviewers reflect the ethnic groups, types
of school districts and regions in California;
b) The selected reviewers have experience in providing
instruction to English language learners and pupils with
disabilities; and,
c) A majority of the reviewers are credentialed classroom
instructors.
6)Extends the IM purchasing requirement from 24 to 36 months
following an adoption.
7)Requires the SBE to hold a public meeting prior to the meeting
at which it is scheduled to adopt IM recommended by the
instructional materials reviewers and content review experts.
8)Requires the adoption of procedures to ensure that the SBE
considers price as one factor in the adoption of IM only after
recommendations are submitted to the SBE based on content
standards alignment, approved evaluation criteria, and
quality.
9)Requires publishers to furnish IM in an electronic format at a
price that is less than the price charged for the printed
version and exempts a small publisher, as defined, from this
requirement.
10)Provides that the electronic versions of IM shall contain at
least the same content as the printed version and allows for
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the materials to be copy-protected.
11)Requires publishers to provide any equipment or technology
associated with the use of IM free of charge to the same
extent as they are provided to other states or districts in
the United States (U.S.).
12)States that school districts may use IMFR funds to purchase
state adopted textbooks or basic IM in an electronic format,
if they can ensure that each pupil will be provided with a
copy of the IM to use at school and at home, as specified.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, potential General Fund (GF) administrative savings,
of at least $100,000, to reduce the duties of the Curriculum
Commission. However, this funding would need to be redirected
to CDE for administrative costs associated with verifying and
selecting IM reviewers and content experts and posting
information on its Internet Web site, as specified. Also, the
CDE may need additional funding, potentially in excess of
$150,000, to handle administrative duties previously conducted
by the commission. The 2009 Budget Act allocates $164,000 GF to
provide the Curriculum Commission with subject matter experts.
COMMENTS : The process for adopting IM for use in K-8 is long
and complex. The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) released a
report in May 2007 titled, "Reforming California's Instructional
Materials Adoption Process," which found that the existing
adoption process is "a complex maze of activities." The LAO
further finds that the current process involves many agencies
and groups, many of whom duplicate functions, thereby inflating
instructional material costs.
This bill seeks to remove the Curriculum Commission from the IM
adoption process, as recommended by the LAO to streamline this
complex process. The Curriculum Commission will continue to
exist and will be primarily responsible for developing and
revising curriculum frameworks and criteria. This bill proposes
to leave the IM review process entirely up to content experts,
IM reviewers and the SBE. This bill will simply remove one
layer of this complex process. The LAO asserts that removing
the Curriculum Commission from the process "would constrain the
state-level tendencies to override the evaluation decision of
teachers and other experts. In so doing, it likely would
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increase the number of district options and reduce instructional
materials costs."
This bill increases district participation in the state review
process by allowing districts that receive funds from the IMFR
fund, to submit names of eligible individuals that could be
selected to participate in the review of IM. The SPI would be
responsible for the selection of the content experts and
reviewers through a random lottery selection process. The
intent is to expand the pool of candidates that could serve as
content experts and IM reviewers and ensure that those reviewers
possess diverse viewpoints and backgrounds. These experts would
make their recommendations on IM directly to the SBE.
After textbooks are adopted by the state, local educational
agencies (LEAs) have the authority and the responsibility to
conduct their own evaluation of IM and to adopt the materials
that best meet the needs of their students. The LAO report
suggests that districts are given virtually no information they
can use to compare the state-adopted materials when they conduct
their own reviews. This results in school districts spending
additional time and resources to duplicate, in many instances,
the efforts of experts who have already reviewed materials at
the state level. To address this lack of information, this bill
requires that the report of findings from the content experts
and reviewers involved in the process along with specified
information is made available to districts and posted on CDE's
Internet Web site.
The LAO's report also states that California's separate six and
eight-year adoption cycles for seven academic subjects requires
the state to conduct review activities every year and results in
school districts having to buy new IM in at least one subject
conceivably every year. Districts have argued that it is very
difficult to keep up with all the textbook purchases that have
to be made almost every year as a result of the frequent
adoptions and the tight 24 month purchasing requirement.
Additionally, districts invest substantial time and effort in
training teachers on newly acquired instructional materials.
The process of training all teachers in a district could take up
to three years to complete, which means that school districts
only have one or two years to use the materials after fully
implementing these programs and training all its teachers. The
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LAO points out that there is frustration in the field as result
of the frequency of the adoptions process which require
districts to "purchase 'new' materials just as their
professional development efforts seemed to be coming to fruition
and teachers were becoming expert in using the 'old' materials."
The SBE has been approving several requests for waivers of the
24 month purchasing provisions, thus providing those districts
an additional year to purchase materials. Furthermore, as a
result of recent budget action, namely the enactment of SBx3 4
(Ducheny), Chapter 12, Statutes of 2009-10 Third Extraordinary
Session, districts are relieved from the 24 month purchasing
requirement, but this flexibility will sunset on July 1, 2010.
The result will be that districts will have an extra year to
purchase mathematics books that were adopted in 2007 but when
these provisions sunset, they could potentially end up having to
purchase two significantly large adoptions, math and reading
language/arts, by the beginning of the school term of 2010-2011.
This bill will permanently provide an additional year for
districts to purchase recently adopted IM. The extended time
period to purchase IM will also provide districts additional
time to pilot instructional materials and an additional year to
use existing materials without having the additional burden of
seeking a waiver through the SBE.
This bill also seeks to provide for the establishment of
procedures to ensure that the SBE considers price as one factor
in the adoption of IM but only after recommendations are
submitted to the SBE based on content standards alignment,
approved evaluation criteria, and quality. Requiring the SBE to
consider price as a factor in the adoption of instructional
materials may result in the adoption of instructional materials
that are less costly for districts.
There is much interest in incorporating technology into teaching
and learning and providing access to schools to new and emerging
technologies. In an effort to expand opportunities for
districts to incorporate technology, this bill seeks to expand
the availability of electronic versions of IM by requiring
publishers to make electronic versions of IM available to
districts at a price lower than the printed version, and allows
publishers to provide equipment or technology associated with
use of materials free of charge to the same extent that is
provided to any state or school district in the United States.
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Prior legislation: AB 2315 (Mullin) of 2008 makes various
changes to the instructional materials (IM) adoption process,
and provides flexibility and more information to districts in
the purchase of IM. AB 2315 was vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger with the following message:
"The State Board of Education (SBE) recently addressed the issue
of greater transparency and clear timelines and procedures in
the instructional materials adoption process. Those SBE
regulations were intended to set forth the process by which the
SBE adopts curriculum frameworks, evaluation criteria, and
instructional materials. Moreover, I see no need to change the
process or the people involved in this important work. The SBE
should maintain the authority of selection and appointment of
instructional materials reviewers and content review experts."
AB 2468 (Brownley) of 2008 requires the SBE to adopt procedures
governing the adoption and purchase of instructional materials
used in K-8 including preventing the consideration of costs in
the early phases of the adoption process and requiring the SBE
to consider costs when adopting instructional materials. AB
2468 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger with the following
message:
"I have vetoed similar legislation dealing with the cost of
instructional materials in prior years. Current law already
provides safeguards against California paying higher prices for
instructional materials than any other state or school district
in the entire country. Moreover, I continue to believe that
California should always focus on providing the highest quality
of educational materials for our students."
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Avi?a / ED. / (916) 319-2087
FN: 0001132