BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 140
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 17, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 140 (Lowenthal) - As Amended: August 15, 2011
Policy Committee: Education Vote:7-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill establishes a process for the State Department of
Education (SDE) to conduct a review of supplemental materials
aligned to the state Common Core Standards (CSS) in English
language arts (ELA) and mathematics, as specified. It also
establishes a process for SDE to conduct a full adoption for
materials aligned to the eighth grade CSS mathematics standards.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires SDE to recommend, and the State Board of Education
(SBE) to approve, evaluation criteria to guide the development
and review supplemental instructional materials (IM).
2)Requires SDE to develop a list, on or before July 1, 2012, of
supplemental IM for use in kindergarten through grade eight
that are aligned to the state's CSS in ELA and mathematics.
Further requires the IM to provide a bridge between the CSS
and the standards-aligned IM currently being used by local
education agencies (LEAs).
3)Requires SDE to recommend, and SBE to approve, content review
experts to review the supplemental IM submitted, as specified.
4)Requires SBE, on or before September 30, 2012, to do the
following: (a) approve all, or a portion, of the list of
supplemental IM proposed by SDE or (b) reject all, or a
portion of the list of supplemental IM proposed by SDE, as
specified. Further requires the SBE, if it rejects all or a
portion or adds an item to the supplemental IM list, to
provide written reasons for its actions in a public meeting.
5)Requires SDE to maintain a list of supplemental IM aligned to
the CSS in ELA and mathematics, as approved by the SBE on its
SB 140
Page 2
Internet website. Further sunsets the provisions related to
supplemental IM on July 1, 2014.
6)Requires SDE to recommend, and SBE to approve, evaluation
criteria to guide the development and review of eighth grade
mathematics IM, as specified. Further requires SDE to
recommend to the SBE for their approval content review experts
to review the IM.
7)Requires SDE to assess a fee on each publisher that chooses to
participate in the eighth grade mathematics IM process that
complies with the all of the following: (a) the fee must be
based on the number of IM that publisher indicates it will
submit for review and (b) the fee must an amount that does not
exceed reasonable costs to SDE in conducting this process, as
specified.
8)Sunsets the provisions relating the adoption of eighth grade
mathematics CSS standards on July 1, 2014.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)GF administrative costs to SDE, likely between $250,000 and
$500,000, to conduct a supplemental adoption of CSS standards
in ELA and mathematics and a full adoption of eighth grade
mathematics CSS, as specified. Of this cost, approximately
$300,000 is attributed to the full adoption process. This
bill authorizes SDE to charge publishers a fee to cover costs
associated with the full adoption; it is unclear, however, if
the fee will cover the entire cost of the adoption.
2)The 2011 Budget Act allocates $3.5 million in carryover
federal Title I funds (poor/needy pupil) pursuant to
legislation enacted in the 2011-12 legislative session to
support initial implementation of the CSS. Specifically, the
funding is identified for three purposes, one of which is
establishing a state-level process for approval of
supplemental IM aligned to the CSS. This bill is the vehicle
that implements this language.
COMMENTS
1)Background . As a condition of applying for the federal Race
to the Top (RTT) grant program, states were required to adopt
the CCS in ELA and mathematics by the fall of 2010. As part of
California's RTT application, SB 1 X5 (Steinberg), Chapter 2,
Fifth Extraordinary Session, Statutes of 2010, was enacted to
SB 140
Page 3
establish the Academic Content Standards Commission (ACSC),
consisting of 21 members appointed by the governor (11), the
Senate Committee on Rules (5), and the Speaker of the Assembly
(5), to develop academic content standards in language arts
and mathematics.
In July and August 2010, the ACSC held several meetings to
analyze the state's current ELA and mathematics content
standards in comparison to the CCS in ELA and mathematics. In
August 2010, the ACSC completed its work and submitted its
recommendations to the SBE for their approval. The SBE
approved the revised standards submitted by the ACSC in August
2010.
The U.S. Department of Education, using RTT grant funding,
issued a competitive grant for the development of a
comprehensive assessment system based on the CCS in ELA and
mathematics that would adhere to the testing requirements of
the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
ESEA requires testing in ELA and mathematics in grades three
through eight and once in grades 10 through 12.
Two assessment consortia were funded through this process: the
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. Each
consortium was awarded grant funding to develop an assessment
system aligned to the CCS in ELA and mathematics and to help
participating states transition implementing the standards and
the common assessments.
In June 2011, California joined the SMARTER Balanced
Assessment Consortium as a governing state. Both consortia
are scheduled to operationalize assessments in 2014-15.
2)Purpose . Since the adoption of the CCS in August 2010, LEAs
have been anxious to know how the state plans to integrate the
use of these standards into the classroom, including when they
will be held accountable via the assessment system for
teaching the standards. Given the state's severe fiscal
crisis, the SPI, the SBE, the governor, and the Legislature
have been hesitant to make decisions regarding the
implementation of these standards.
SB 140
Page 4
With the state's recent decision to become a governing state
in the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, which proposes
to implement newly designed CSS assessments in 2014, LEAs are
anxious to implement the CSS in classrooms. In order for
pupils to be held accountable to CSS in ELA and mathematics
via assessments, LEAs, at a minimum, need supplemental IM
aligned to the CSS to ensure teachers and pupils have the
proper tools to begin to bridge the curriculum between the
state's current content standards in LEA and mathematics and
the CSS.
According to the author, "The SBE recently adopted the CSS.
California is participating in a consortium of states working
to develop new assessments that are aligned to the CSS. We
need to equip our schools with the tools necessary to provide
quality instruction on these standards. This bill provides an
opportunity for schools to quickly access supplemental IM
specific to the CSS while allowing schools to continue to use
existing instructional materials."
3)Why is it necessary to have a full IM adoption for eighth
grade mathematics ? When the CSS in mathematics were debated
by the Academic Standards Commission , there were strong
feelings by commission members regarding Algebra being taught
in the eighth grade. In order to address this issue, the
commission adopted two sets of eighth grade mathematic
standards - the CSS in eighth grade mathematics and a portion
of the CSS eighth grade mathematics standards combined with
the state's current algebra standards.
The commission's adoption of two sets of eighth grade
mathematic standards has posed problems for SDE.
Specifically, SDE argues it cannot adopt supplemental IM for
eighth grade mathematics because there is not one uniform set
of CSS standards that can be bridged to the state's current
eighth grade mathematics standards. Therefore, SDE state's it
must conduct a full adoption, which means a complete review of
all IM submitted for alignment to all eighth grade CSS in
mathematics. A supplemental adoption does not entail a full
review of IM.
SB 140
Page 5
4)AB 2 X4 (Evans), Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009 , specified that
LEAs are not required to purchase IM through the 2012-13 FY.
Consistent with the non-purchasing requirement, Chapter 2 also
suspended the requirement for SBE to adopt IM or conduct other
procedures associated with adoption (i.e., adopting curriculum
frameworks) until the 2013-14 school year. SB 70 (Committee on
Budget and Fiscal Review), Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011,
extended this suspension until the 2014-15 FY. This bill does
not require LEAs to purchase IM, however, it does establish an
adoption process for IM in eighth grade CSS mathematics.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081