BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 885
AUTHOR: Simitian
AMENDED: March 24, 2011
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 27, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : Longitudinal Education Data System
SUMMARY
This bill authorizes the California Department of Education
(CDE), the University of California (UC), the California State
University (CSU), the Chancellor of the California Community
Colleges (CCC), the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC),
the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC), the
State Board of Education (SBE), the Employment Development
Department (EDD) and the California School Information
Services (CSIS) to enter into a joint powers agreement to
facilitate the implementation of a comprehensive longitudinal
P-20 statewide data system for California, as well as the
transfer of educational and workforce data.
BACKGROUND
Current law establishes the Education Data and Information Act
of 2008 which, among other things, requires each of the three
public higher education systems to establish a process by
which colleges and universities within those systems issue,
maintain, and report information using unique statewide
student identifiers. The Act requires the various education
segments to begin using a common student identifier, so that
once a governance structure and technical architecture are in
place, records can be linked from pre-K through the
university. Each of the public segments of higher education
are required to annually provide the Governor and the
appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature
with a report that includes a detailed timeline for the
implementation, maintenance, and use of the unique Statewide
Student Identifiers. The Act also authorizes the CDE, UC, CSU,
Chancellor of the CCC, CTC, EDD and CSIS to enter into
interagency agreements to facilitate the implementation of a
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comprehensive longitudinal P-20 statewide data system for
California, the transfer of data from one educational segment
to another, and the transfer of workforce data to the
educational segments. (Education Code 10800-10807).
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Deletes the authority of the California Department of
Education, the UC, the CSU, the Chancellor of the CCC,
the CTC, EDD and CSIS to enter into interagency
agreements for specified purposes.
2) Authorizes these entities, as well as the CPEC and the
SBE, to enter into a joint powers agreement in order to
facilitate:
a) Implementation of a comprehensive
longitudinal P-20 statewide data system for
California.
b) Transfer of data from one educational segment
to another.
c) Transfer of workforce data to the educational
segments.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, on-going
California efforts. existing California law, as well as
assurances provided to secure funding from the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act all support the need to
link K-12 and higher education records. This bill is an
effort to facilitate the implementation of a
comprehensive longitudinal P-20 statewide data system for
California. This is necessary because much of the current
student data is collected and stored in many separate
data systems. While useful for the specific segments,
there is a need to bring this information together in a
manner that allows tracking of student achievement across
the P-20 continuum. There is also a critical need to
provide the educational data necessary to comply with
federal funding and reporting requirements and to
evaluate programs in order to spend limited education
dollars wisely.
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2) Working group activity . SB 1298 (Simitian, Chapter 561,
Statutes of 2008) established the Education Data and
Information Act of 2008 and, among other things, created
two working groups, one to focus on the technical
capacity to link education data systems from various
agencies, and another to make recommendations on the
governance of P-20 education data. The State Chief
Information Officer (CIO) convened a working group to
develop the strategic plan to link education data systems
from all segments and reported on those efforts in March
2010. The Legislative Analyst convened a working group
to explore governance issues, and in December 2009,
issued its recommendations for the governance of
cross-segment education data. Among its recommendations,
the LAO suggested that managing a cross-segmental data
warehouse could be accomplished through the use of a
joint powers authority. The provisions of this bill are
consistent with those recommendations.
3) Status ? Each of the segments has complied with the
statutory requirement that they prepare annual reports
outlining their progress in implementing maintaining and
using unique student identifiers. In 2011, the systems
report that principals from the CDE, CCC, CSU, UC, and
CPEC have met to discuss their ability to build a
statewide database through a joint powers agreement. In
addition, CPEC has been piloting ways to merge CDE and
postsecondary data and EDD and the CSU have also
undertaken related pilot studies. The CSU reports that
the principals are close to concluding a joint
interagency agreement, vetted by counterpart General
Counsel, for each to submit data, to match, and to merge
files. No timeline or details on the maintenance has yet
been developed.
4) Private proprietary sector ? Up to now, the Education
Information Data Act has focused on the integration of
data across state agencies and public educational
institutions. However, according to the California
Student Aid Commission, $93.3 million in Cal Grant
funding was paid to over 13,000 California students
attending private proprietary institutions, comprising
about 9 percent of the total 2009-10 Cal Grant funding.
Additionally, in related budget action, SB 70 (Committee
on Budget and Fiscal Review, Chapter 7, Statutes of
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2011), among other things, established standards for
student loan cohort default rates which must be met by an
institution in order to be eligible to participate in the
Cal Grant program, arguably, an effort to ensure grant
money goes to students attending proprietary institutions
that provide value (as measured by lower cohort default
rates). Several recent studies have highlighted the
need to expand degree production in order to meet
California's workforce needs and the potential of the
private proprietary sector to provide additional
capacity. Should efforts to develop a comprehensive P-20
data system be expanded to include the private
proprietary sector?
5) Related legislative history . The importance of a unique
student identifier and the need to link information
across a P-20 network has been reinforced through several
legislatively directed efforts, including:
SB 1453 (Alpert, Chapter 1002, Statutes of
2002) authorized the
creation of the California Longitudinal Pupil
Achievement Data System (CALPADS) to provide school
districts and CDE with the data necessary to comply
with federal reporting requirements under No Child
Left Behind. The bill required that a unique pupil
identifier be assigned to each K-12 student enrolled
in a California public school.
SB 1298 (Simitian, Chapter 561, Statutes of
2008), the Education Data and Information Act of
2008, established a process by which local education
agencies and public institutions of higher education
issues, maintain, and report information using the
unique statewide student identifiers required under
current law.
SB 19 (Simitian, Chapter 159, Statutes of 2009)
added an additional issue, to identify specific
procedures and policies that would facilitate the
sharing and transfer of data from one segment to
another and ultimately to include linkages to
workforce data, to the strategic plan being created
by the CIO working group established by SB 1298
(Simitian, 2008). It also authorized the use of
federal grant funds, received pursuant to the
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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(ARRA) and provided for statewide data systems, to
fund the activities required of the CIO working
group.
SBX5 2 (Simitian, Chapter 1, Statutes of 2010),
among other things, declared the Legislature's
intent to create a preschool through higher
education (P-20) statewide longitudinal educational
data system in order to inform education policy and
improve instruction and to be used for state-level
research to improve instruction and to require the
State Department of Education, the Commission on
Teacher Credentialing, the California Community
Colleges, the University of California, the
California State University, and any other state
education agency to be required to disclose, or
redisclose, personally identifiable pupil records to
this P-20 system.
1) Related national efforts . The need for a unique student
identifier and the ability to link student information
across a P-20 network is the focus of several current
national efforts. These include:
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC), created in
2005, is a national, collaborative effort to
encourage and support education policymakers to
improve the collection, availability and use of data
and to implement state longitudinal data systems to
improve student achievement. For the past four
years, the DQC's annual survey has tracked state
progress in implementing the 10 Essential Elements
to ensure that policymakers and educators have the
longitudinal data systems capable of providing
timely, valid and relevant data to inform decisions.
According to the DQC, California currently meets 8
of the 10 essential elements. One of the unmet
elements is the ability to match P-12 student-level
data to higher education data.
The federal America COMPETES Act of 2007
codified the twelve elements of a P-16 education
data system and among other things, requires a
unique student identifier and the capacity to
communicate with higher education data systems.
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Additionally it requires the use of system data to
inform policy and practice to better align State
standards and curricula with the demands of
postsecondary education, the workforce and the Armed
Forces.
In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA) required states, as a condition of
receiving State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (SFSF),
to provide, among other things, assurances regarding
"Improving collection and use of data." More
specifically, states were required to provide an
assurance that they would establish a longitudinal
data system that included the 12 elements described
in the America COMPETES Act. California, in return
for its receipt of SFSF funds, is obligated to
provide a certain amount of data reporting to the
federal government that relies on the linkage of
P-20 data.
The Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS)
grant program, authorized by the federal Educational
Technical Assistance Act of 2002, is designed to aid
state education agencies in developing and
implementing longitudinal data systems. AARA
provided $245 million for the SLDS grant program to
be awarded in 2010. California's grant proposal
included a request for $20 million to fund various
data related activities. However, the bulk of
funding was proposed to be used to create a
longitudinal P-20 education data warehouse.
California was not among the recipients of these
awards.
In 2009, the federal Department of Education
issued an invitation to the states to compete for
approximately $4.35 billion of ARRA one-time funding
as Race to the Top (RTTT) grants to be distributed
in two phases. Among other things, the RTTT
applications required demonstration of an assurance
regarding the creation of data systems to measure
student success and support instruction. California
was not among the winners in the first phase of
grants awarded in March 2010. Among the reviewer
comments on a number of elements of the California
application, it was noted that California reports
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that it currently only had 3 of the 12 America
COMPETES Act elements in place in its longitudinal
data system.
SUPPORT
Association of California School Administrators
Board of Governor's of the California Community Colleges
Children Now
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California
The Education Trust-West
The Little Hoover Commission
OPPOSITION
None received.