BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1357
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 4, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 1357 (Steinberg) - As Amended: June 23, 2010
Policy Committee: Education Vote:8-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires the Annual Report on Dropouts to include
chronic absentee rates and requires the State Department of
Education (SDE) to modify the California Longitudinal Pupil
Achievement Data System (CALPADS) to include pupil attendance
data for use by local education agencies (LEAs), as specified.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Defines "chronic absentee rates" as missing more than 10% of
the schooldays in the school year, as specified.
2)Requires SDE, contingent upon the receipt of federal funds for
this purpose, to prepare CALPADS to include pupil attendance
data by developing processes for the transfer of data between
LEAS, as specified.
3)Requires CALPADS to support LEAs in their efforts to identify
and support pupils at risk of dropping out and be capable of
issuing periodic reports on the rates of absences and chronic
absentees to LEAs, as specified.
4)Expresses legislative intent to support the development of
early warning systems (EWS) to enable the identification and
support of individual pupils who are at risk of academic
failure or dropping out of school, as specified.
5)Requires the EWS to have the following characteristics: (a)
the utilization of highly predictive indicators, including
attendance, course grades/completion, performance on state
assessments, suspensions, and expulsions; (b) a thorough
validation process to ensure the predictive reliability of the
systems; and (c) periodic reports that inform schoolsite staff
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and parents in a manner that enables timely identification and
support of individual pupils who are at risk of academic
failure or dropping out.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)GF administrative costs, of approximately $300,000, to the SDE
to complete the requirements of this measure, including
modifying CALPADS to collect pupil attendance data. This
measure requires SDE to modify CALPADS, contingent upon the
receipt of federal funding for this purpose. In May 2010, the
federal government rejected California's application for a
grant to upgrade and expand the state's data systems,
including CALPADS. The author argues other federal funds are
available to implement this measure.
2)GF/98 cost pressure, of at least $3.1 million, to LEAs to
submit pupil attendance data via CALPADS to SDE. This bill
specifies the submission of this data is voluntary. The
intent of the bill, however, is for school districts to have
the capability to establish EWS programs and they cannot do
this without collecting pupil attendance data.
SUMMARY CONTINUED :
6)Authorizes an LEA, when CALPADS is prepared to accept pupil
attendance data, to submit data to SDE on a quarterly rate of
pupil attendance and other indicators identified by SDE. This
measure further requires SDE to provide EWS reports to LEAs
upon request.
7)Requires SDE to notify LEAs that reporting pupil attendance
and chronic absentee data is voluntary. This bill also
requires the notice to include a description of the benefits
of reporting pupil attendance and chronic absentee data in
fostering the development of effective supports and
interventions for at-risk pupils.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the California Dropout Research Project
August 2009 statistics, "Over the last 10 years, the annual
[dropout] rate has increased from 2.9% to 3.9%, while the
four-year rate has increased from 11.7% to 15.3%." The report
also documents that over the last 10 years, "the number of
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high school dropouts in California increased twice as fast as
the number of graduates. And the number of high school seniors
who neither graduated nor dropped out increased by more than
100%."
According to the author, "Chronic absence from school, even in
the primary grades, is one of the most accurate predictors of
later high school dropout. Our education data system, however,
is not equipped to collect data on absenteeism. California
must do more to support districts and make sure that
individual students, and schools, are identified when they
show clear signs of distress. Once identified, districts,
parents, schools and communities can do a better job of
providing the supports needed to address the problem."
2)Status of federal Enhancing Education through Technology (ETT)
funds . The EETT program was established under the federal No
Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) to provide funding to
Title I schools or schools that could demonstrate "a
substantial need for assistance in acquiring or using
technology." According to the US Department of Education, the
primary goal of the program is to "improve student achievement
through the use of technology in elementary and secondary
schools." Local activities include the use of technology to
collect, manage, and analyze data to enhance teaching and
school improvement.
The federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(ARRA) allocated $72 million one-time to the state for the
EETT program. This allocation was in addition to the $29
million in on-going federal EETT program funds received by the
state in 2009 pursuant to NCLB. To date, the $29 million in
on-going funding has been allocated pursuant to current law.
Likewise, the governor's May 2010 budget proposal includes
$9.4 million in on-going EETT funding. The reduced funding
level indicates the federal government is phasing-out the
program.
Pursuant to federal law, at least 95% of the $72 million in
one-time ARRA EETT funds must be allocated as grants to LEAs.
Up to five percent of the funds may be used for state
administration and state level activities. The EETT program
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requires up to 50% of LEA funding be provided via formula
grants (based on the number of poor/needy pupils) and a
minimum of 50% in LEA funding be provided via competitive
grants.
In the fall of 2009, the Department of Finance (DOF) requested
expenditure authority for the federal EETT funds from the
Legislature via the Section 28 budget process. This authority
would have authorized funds to be allocated according to the
following: (a) $34 million for formula grants and (b) $38
million for competitive grants to school districts serving
pupils in grades 4-8. This authority was denied based on the
Legislature's concern that the state has made several data and
technology commitments (i.e., CALPADS) and that the state
should use EETT funds that would maximize the effect on
statewide educational technology projects.
During the legislative review process of DOF's expenditure
request, SDE conducted a request for proposal (RFP) process
for the competitive EETT funding. School districts applied
and those that with successful applications received
notifications of their grant award. SDE conducted this
process without explicit expenditure authority for EETT
funding. Therefore, school districts did not receive their
grant awards. By conducting the RFP process, SDE created an
expectation by school districts that they would receive this
funding.
The Assembly and Senate Budget Subcommittees debated the EETT
funding issue throughout the spring. Even though SDE chose to
conduct the RFP process without explicit legislative
expenditure authority, the Assembly Budget Subcommittee voted
to allocate the funding based on DOF's initial expenditure
request for two reasons: (a) school districts had completed
the RFP process in good faith and (b) in many instances,
districts spent this money and are waiting for reimbursement.
The Senate Budget Subcommittee voted to allocate $34 million
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for formula grants and $48 million in competitive grants
(extra funding due to non-approval of state-level activities)
to allow school districts "to use technology and data to
improve college and career readiness and high school
graduation." The funding provided for competitive grants is
not consistent with the grants submitted by school districts
and approved by SDE. Instead, the Senate proposal repurposes
the competitive funds and requires school districts to undergo
a new RFP process. The Senate proposal for the use of these
funds would allow school districts to apply for EETT funds to
establish EWS, as proposed in this measure.
Due to the different actions by the Assembly and Senate Budget
Subcommittees, the status of the federal EETT competitive
funds is a budget conference issue and is expected to be
resolved at the same time as the budget. As of July 2010, the
Legislature provided expenditure authority for $34 million in
EETT formula grants to be allocated to school districts
according to federal law.
3)The CALPADS , established by SB 1453 (Alpert), Chapter 1002,
Statutes of 2002, required the SDE to track student
achievement in order to comply with NCLB. A longitudinal
database requires individual student identifiers be given to
each student enrolled in the public K-12 system. In the
2004-05 fiscal year, school districts were provided incentive
funding to create these identifiers and establish systems to
maintain them. SDE reports that CALPADS is expected to be
fully functioning in all districts in the fall of 2009.
In November 2009, IBM was awarded the contract to develop
software for CALPADS. Between August and October 2009, IBM
released software to LEAs to perform the administrative and
practical function associated with collecting and reporting
student level data. CALPADS, however, is not required to
collect pupil attendance data.
4)CALPDAS system issues . In January 2010, SABOT Technologies
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issued a report on the status of the CALPADS system. The
report recommended the CALPADS project be stopped until the
following four major areas are addressed: (a) technical
architecture, (b) personnel, (c) engineering processes, and
(d) project management. According to SABOT, the stop
recommendation is "based on the overall status of the system,
our root cause analysis of the systems issues, and the
project's overall performance. This rating further means that
there are critical risks to the project's success that without
immediate and decisive action will increase in likelihood.
There is a high probability of project and system failure
should the project continue on the present path."
In response to this report, the Superintendent of Public
Instruction ordered LEAs to discontinue the majority of data
collections via the CALPADS system. The SPI indicated SDE and
IBM will develop a stabilization plan and perform a
comprehensive system review that will test process on all
CALPADS functions and components. This review occurred between
February and late March of this year. Currently, LEAs are
submitting pupil data via CALPADS. The timeline, however, for
submitting data has been significantly delayed due to the
system's problems.
The committee may wish to consider whether or not it is
appropriate to require CALPADS to collect additional data when
the system is not fully reporting the data required to be
collected under current law.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081