BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 429|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 429
Author: Brownley (D), et al
Amended: 9/4/09 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 8-0, 7/15/09
AYES: Romero, Huff, Alquist, Hancock, Liu, Padilla,
Simitian, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Maldonado
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 13-0, 8/27/09
AYES: Kehoe, Cox, Corbett, Denham, Hancock, Leno, Oropeza,
Price, Runner, Walters, Wolk, Wyland, Yee
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 79-0, 6/2/09 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : School accountability
SOURCE : Association of California School Administrators
DIGEST : This bill requires the advisory committee, that
the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) has
established under current law, by January 1, 2011, to make
recommendations to the SPI for the establishment of a
methodology for measuring a school's academic achievement
growth and a pupil's academic achievement growth more
accurately and validly over time. This bill requires the
committee to consider a specified pilot study of academic
growth measures in making its recommendations to the SPI,
CONTINUED
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and that the recommendations be consistent with specified
federal laws. The SPI will be required to immediately
forward the committee's recommendations to specified state
entities. This bill provides that specific provisions of
the bill will not be implemented unless and until funds are
appropriated by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or
another statute.
Senate Floor Amendments of 9/4/09 restore language that was
passed by the Senate Education Committee (8-0) with the
following revisions: (1) The reporting date is advanced
from July 1, 2011 to January 1, 2011, and (2)
recommendations are required to be consistent with federal
law and guidance under the federal "Race to the Top" law.
ANALYSIS : Current law requires the SPI to establish a
broadly representative committee to advise the SPI and the
State Board of Education (SBE) on the creation of the
Academic Performance Index (API) and make recommendations
on the feasibility of measuring academic performance
utilizing unique pupil identifiers.
The API was established pursuant SB 1X (Alpert), Chapter 3,
Statutes of 1999-2000, First Extraordinary Session. The
API was proposed as a means of combining multiple
indicators of school performance into one easy-to-compare
index. A school's API score is based on the test scores of
pupils on several statewide tests, including scores from
the California Standards Tests of pupils in grades 2
through 11, and the California High School Exit
Examination.
This bill requires, by January 1, 2011, the advisory
committee established pursuant to the above provision shall
make recommendations to the SPI for the establishment of a
methodology for generating a measurement of academic
performance by utilizing unique pupil identifiers for
pupils in kindergarten and any of grades 1 to 12,
inclusive, and for developing a longitudinally valid
achievement assessment system in which annual academic
growth can provide a more accurate and valid measure of a
school's academic achievement growth and a pupil's academic
achievement growth over time.
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This bill requires the advisory committee to consider the
pilot study of academic growth measures, pursuant to
Provision 10 of Item 6110-113-0890 of Section 2.00 of the
Budget Act of 2007, in making recommendations to the SPI
for this purpose. Upon receipt, the SPI shall immediately
forward the recommendations of the advisory committee to
the state board, the appropriate policy and fiscal
committees of the Legislature, and the Department of
Finance. The SPI shall include a cost estimate for each
recommendation and a timeline for implementation. The
recommendations shall be consistent with statutory,
regulatory, and technical guidance from the United States
Department of Education under the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. Section 6301 et seq.) and
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public
Law 111-5) so as to maximize the state's funding
opportunities, including, but not limited to, state
incentive grants under the Race to the Top Fund.
This bill specifies that no recommendation made pursuant to
the above, or any other proposal to develop a
longitudinally valid assessment system, may be implemented
unless and until funds are appropriated by the Legislature
in the annual Budget Act or another statute specifically
for that purpose.
Comments
Measuring academic growth . The California Standards Tests,
that make up the heart of the state's Standardized Testing
and Reporting Program, measure pupil performance against
the statewide standards adopted by the SBE for each grade
level. Although the standards are considered among the
best in the nation, they were not designed to track pupil
performance in specific skills from one grade to the next.
Each grade has a unique set of standards and the tests for
that grade are designed to measure pupil performance
against those standards, but aligned as they are to the
standards at each grade level, the tests are not
"vertically aligned" so that a pupil's performance on any
particular set of skills may be tracked over time. As a
result, this system does not allow an accurate comparison
of a pupil's growth or decline in performance between grade
levels.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 9/4/09)
Association of California School Administrators (source)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees
California County Boards of Education
California Federation of Teachers
California School Boards Association
California State PTA
California Teachers Association
Californians Together Coalition
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities
Los Angeles County Office of Education
San Francisco Unified School District
Santa Clara County Office of Education
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill
Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Blumenfield,
Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter,
Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon,
DeVore, Duvall, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher,
Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani,
Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi,
Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight,
Krekorian, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza,
Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, John A.
Perez, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Price, Ruskin, Salas,
Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra
Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran,
Villines, Yamada, Bass
NO VOTE RECORDED: Block
DLW:mw 9/8/09 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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