BILL ANALYSIS
AB 429
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Date of Hearing: May 13, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 429 (Brownley) - As Amended: April 29, 2009
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:8-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA)
advisory committee, by July 1, 2011, to make recommendations to
the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) 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. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the PSAA advisory committee to use the pilot study of
academic growth measures required by the 2007 Budget Act in
making recommendations to the SPI.
2)Requires the SPI to forward the recommendations of the PSAA
advisory committee to the State Board of Education (SBE), the
Legislature, and the Department of Finance (DOF). This
measure also requires the SPI to include a cost estimate for
each recommendation and a timeline for implementation.
3)Prohibits any proposal to develop a longitudinally valid
assessment system from being implemented unless funds are
appropriated in the annual budget act or another statute for
this purpose.
FISCAL EFFECT
GF/98 cost pressure, likely in the tens to hundreds of millions
of dollars, to the State Department of Education (SDE) to modify
the state's assessment system and the API to measure student
growth over time. Actual costs will be determined by the
specific recommendations made by the PSAA advisory committee.
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For example, if it chooses to statistically modify the state's
existing assessment system, costs will be less. However, it the
advisory committee chooses to design new assessments, the costs
will be significantly more. This measure prohibits any proposal
to develop a longitudinally valid assessment system from being
implemented unless funds are appropriated for this purpose.
COMMENTS
1)Background . SB 1X (Alpert), Chapter 3, Statutes of 1999,
established the 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 a student's
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 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (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 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.
California and other states requested flexibility from the
federal government to be held accountable to a system that
measures overall growth (i.e., the API) rather than individual
scores (i.e., NCLB). Several states were provided this
flexibility; however, the federal government rejected
California's request because it does not currently meet two
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requirements: (a) operation of a longitudinal database (the
California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System
(CALPADS) is expected to be online in 2010) and (b) the state
assessment system cannot be compared from year to year.
This bill, sponsored by the Association of California School
Administrators, requires the PSAA advisory committee to make
recommendations to the SPI 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.
2)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
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 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. This bill requires
the PSAA advisory committee to use the results of this study
in making their recommendations.
3)Similar legislation .
a) AB 173 (Price), pending in this committee, requires the
SDE to contract for the development of a new measure to
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replace the API and requires SDE to convene a new advisory
board to provide general guidance and make recommendations
in achieving this requirement.
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.
d) AB 2776 (Mullin), similar to this measure, was held on
the Senate Appropriation Committee's suspense file in 2008.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081