BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 885
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Date of Hearing: June 22, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
SB 885 (Simitian) - As Amended: March 24, 2011
SENATE VOTE : 38-0
SUBJECT : Public education accountability: longitudinal
education system
SUMMARY : Authorizes specified state entities to enter into a
joint powers agreement for the purpose of implementing the
statewide educational data system and transferring data.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Deletes the authority for the California Department of
Education (CDE), California's three public higher education
systems, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC),
Employment Development Department (EDD), and California School
Information Services (CSIS) to enter into interagency
agreements for the purpose of implementing the statewide
educational data system and transferring data, and instead
authorizes those entities, plus the California Postsecondary
Education Commission and the State Board of Education (SBE),
to enter into a joint powers agreement for the same specified
purposes.
2)Clarifies that the education data system envisioned for
California is a preschool through higher education (P-20)
statewide data system.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data
System (CALPADS) as part of a comprehensive longitudinal
education data system; also requires the CDE to contract for
the development of a system that will provide for the
retention and analysis of longitudinal K-12 pupil achievement,
provide state and local educational agencies with the data
necessary for compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) Act, provide a means for evaluating educational
programs and progress, provide information needed to improve
student achievement, and provide a common means for
maintaining longitudinal pupil-level data.
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2)Authorizes the California Longitudinal Teacher Information
Data Education System (CALTIDES) as part of a comprehensive
longitudinal education data system; also requires the CDE, in
collaboration with the CTC, to contract for the development of
a system that will streamline processes, improve the
efficiency of data collection by CDE, CTC and EDD, and improve
the quality of data collected from local educational agencies
and teacher preparation programs; these provisions do not
specifically authorize EDD to provide workforce or wage
information for individuals.
3)Requires CDE to establish a process by which local education
agencies (LEA) issue, maintain, and report information using
the unique Statewide Student Identifiers (SSID), being used in
CALPADS, for state and federally funded center based child
care and development programs administered by the CDE, but
prohibits requiring those programs to implement or maintain
the SSIDs until an appropriation for this purpose is provided.
4)Establishes CSIS for the purpose of developing and
implementing an electronic statewide school information
system, including the assignment of non-personally
identifiable student identifiers (SSID) to all public K-12
students in California, so as to facilitate the exchange of
student data between LEAs and with the CDE.
5)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
SSID, and to provide an annual report to the Governor and the
appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature
that includes a detailed timeline for the implementation,
maintenance, and use of the SSID.
6)Authorizes the CDE, the three public higher education systems,
CTC, EDD and CSIS to enter into interagency agreements in
order to facilitate the implementation of a comprehensive
longitudinal education data system.
7)Establishes the CIO as a cabinet-level position responsible
for coordination and strategic planning in the area of
information technology, and requires the State Chief
Information Officer (CIO) to convene a working group,
representing the SPI, the SBE, the three systems of California
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public higher education, and any other governmental entities
that collect, report, or use individual education data that
would become part of the comprehensive educational data
system, to develop a strategic plan that would provide an
overall structural design for the linked data system, examine
current state education data systems, and examine the
interdepartmental data protocols and procedures to be used by
state agencies in collecting, storing, manipulating, sharing,
retrieving, and releasing data in order to enable the linking
of data systems; the strategic plan was required to be
delivered to the Legislature and the Governor on or before
September 1, 2009.
8)States legislative intent to convene a staff level working
group that is representative of the policy and fiscal staff of
both houses of the Legislature and both parties, the
Governor's office, the SPI, the Legislative Analyst's Office
(LAO), and all three systems of California public higher
education; required the working group to make recommendations
related to the governance of educational data, including, but
not limited to, the organizational structure of the governing
entity, its relationship to other agencies, the scope of its
authorities and responsibilities, methods for holding the
governing entity accountable, and methods for ensuring that
the governing entity's work primarily serves the purposes of
educational improvement at the same time as ensuring the
privacy of any data under its charge.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS : Current law envisions a comprehensive data system
that includes the current pre-K and K-12 data systems maintained
by CDE, and the data systems maintained by the state's three
public higher education systems. CALPADS will be a major part
of the foundation of this education data system, and will hold
student level data on demographics, program participation, and
course completion. Individual student data will be indexed
using the required unique SSIDs. CALPADS, currently being
implemented, will eventually replace a number of the CDE's
current aggregate collections, including the California Basic
Educational Data System (CBEDS) collections, the Language
Census, Student National Origin Report, and portions of the
Consolidated Application. CALPADS will also reduce the amount of
data collected on the answer documents of statewide assessments.
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The CDE will also administer the development of CALTIDES, a
system that will integrate teacher credential and authorization
data with CALPADS data. Data will be linked longitudinally
using a unique, non-personally identifiable Statewide Educator
Identifier (SEID); an individual teacher will be assigned a SEID
by the CTC, when the individual submits an application for any
document that indicates that the person is seeking to become
credentialed as an educator. CALTIDES development is under
procurement. The existing Child Development Management
Information System (CDMIS), also housed in the CDE, collects
data about families served with child care services funds in
order to satisfy federal reporting requirements. However, this
system is not designed to allow the seamless transfer of
information between it and CALPADS.
In addition to these data systems administered by the CDE, there
are data systems administered by each of the three public
systems of higher education in the state. Historically these
systems have relied on social security numbers or an internally
generated student identification numbers to index individual
student data records, and thus also do not allow the seamless
transfer of information between the P-12 data systems and those
in higher education. SB 1298 (Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes
of 2008, requires each of the higher education segments to
establish a process by which colleges and universities within
those systems issue, maintain and report information using
SSIDs.
The comprehensive educational data system envision by this bill
and current law is the key to providing policymakers the ability
to ask, and have answered, questions about the impacts of
existing or pending policy so as to be able to use that
information in the policy making decision process. It is also
the key to providing the data necessary to tailor the best
instructional program for each student, and to providing the
most useful information to parents and to the public. There is
the potential for great benefits from this type of system; there
are also problems to overcome in moving from the educational
data systems that exist now to the system envisioned here - not
the least of which is establishing the administrative or
governance structure within which numerous state and local
entities, each with its own data system, can cooperate in order
to coordinate educational data for California's pupils from
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pre-school through their education career and into the
workforce.
SB 1298 (Simitian) also stated legislative intent to convene a
staff level working group to make recommendations related to the
governance of the educational data system. The LAO convened
this group, which included bipartisan representation from the
Assembly and Senate as well as representation from the
Governor's office, LAO, the SPI, the Chancellor's Office of the
California Community Colleges, the University of California, and
the California State University. To inform its deliberations,
the working group also invited the participation of an advisory
group including teacher, school administrator and school board
associations, the CTC, California Postsecondary Education
Commission, Cal-PASS, and other organizations, associations, and
government entities. LAO issued the working group report in
December of 2009. The governance working group made five
recommendations; three of those recommendations (see below) are
reflected in this bill:
Recommendation 1-The working group recommended that the data
system be governed by a single entity that is educationally
based, but without an exclusive afliation with K-12 or higher
education; the group further recommended that the governance
structure include state-level members as well as representatives
from each of the contributing education segments, with the
non-segment representatives representing a significant majority
Recommendation 2- The working group recommended that individual
education segments continue to be responsible for data
collection, maintenance, security, and distribution of
segment-specic data.
Recommendation 3-The group recommended that the entity
maintaining the cross-segment data warehouse (as opposed to the
segment-specific data) be responsible for data collection,
maintenance, security, and distribution of cross-segment data,
including receiving, maintaining, securing, and answering
requests for cross-segment data.
The working group pointed out that these recommendations could
be implemented by the creation of a Joint Powers Authority (JPA)
without any additional changes in state law. A JPA is an
institution permitted under state law whereby two or more public
authorities can operate collectively. A JPA can employ staff
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and establish policies independently from the member entities,
but it derives its authority from its member organizations. A
JPA has an operating board (with member directors), which can be
given any of the powers inherent in the constituent agencies.
The JPA board often has a membership that is composed of one
representative from each of the contributing member
organizations, but the membership of the board is among the
elements that may be specified in the joint powers agreement
creating the JPA. Although a JPA is an extension of the member
organizations, a JPA generally has its own budget and an
independent staff, reporting to the JPA board, to complete its
assigned work. In the context of educational data governance, a
JPA could function as the governing entity coordinating the
cross-segment comprehensive data system. This bill establishes
the authority for the stakeholder state entities that are
involved in the collection, maintenance and reporting of P-20
educational data to enter into a joint powers agreement in order
to facilitate the implementation of the P-20 data system, the
transfer of data between educational segments, and the transfer
of workforce data to the educational segments.
Related legislation: SB 827 (Lowenthal), pending in the
Assembly Education Committee, establishes a committee to advise
and make recommendations to the Governor, SPI, SBE, and the
Legislature on issues related to the CALPADS.
Previous legislation: SB 1357 (Steinberg), Chapter 704,
Statutes of 2010, requires the Department of Education to modify
the statewide data system to incorporate student attendance
data. SB X5 2 (Simitian), Chapter 1, Statutes of 2010),
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. SB 1298
(Simitian), Chapter 561, Statutes of 2008, establishes processes
by which local education agencies and public institutions of
higher education issue, maintain, and report information using
the unique SSIDs required under current law. In addition, SB
1298 required the CIO to convene a working group, representing
the higher education segments, the SPI, the SBE, and related
state agencies to develop a strategic plan that would provide an
overall structural design for the linked data system; it also
stated legislative intent to convene a staff level working group
representing the Legislature, the administration, the SPI, and
the higher education segments to make recommendations related to
the governance of educational data.
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SB 1425 (Steinberg), vetoed in 2008, would have developed a
process for reviewing and responding to requests for individual
pupil data records housed in CALPADS. SB 1524 (Romero), vetoed
in 2008, would have required CALPADS to have the ability to
collect and report disaggregated data related to Asian and
Pacific Islander (API) pupils, in order to provide a more
accurate view of the academic achievement of the subgroups
within that classification. SB 1592 (Perata), held on the
Assembly Floor at the author's request in 2008, would have
established a committee responsible for providing oversight for
CDE's data collection activities. AB 2955 (Duvall), failed
passage in the Assembly Education Committee in 2008, would have
authorized the CIO to manage the data of LEAs through CALPADS,
and thus manage CALPADS itself; AB 2955 would have also required
the CIO to establish and maintain two bureaucratic structures to
review data requests and to make recommendations regarding the
CIO's management of educational data. SB 1614 (Simitian),
Chapter 840, Statutes of 2006, requires the development of
CALTIDES to serve as a central state repository of information
on the teacher workforce, and specifies that the existing
California Education Information System include CALTIDES,
CALPADS, and CBEDS, an annual collection of aggregate student
and staff data. SB 1453 (Alpert), Chapter 1002, Statutes of
2002, authorizes the longitudinal data system in its current
form, and specifies that the system be known as CALPADS.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Association of California School Administrators
Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges
Public Advocates
Silicon Valley Leadership Group
The Education Trust-West
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087
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