BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair


          SB 1200 (Hancock) - Common Core Standards.
          
          Amended: May 2, 2012            Policy Vote: Education 7-2
          Urgency: No                     Mandate: No
          Hearing Date: May 21, 2012      Consultant: Jacqueline 
          Wong-Hernandez
          
          This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. 

          
          Bill Summary: SB 1200 requires the Superintendent of Public 
          Instruction (SPI) to recommend, and the state board of education 
          (SBE) to adopt the Common Core college and career readiness 
          standards. This bill also authorizes the review and modification 
          of standards for 8th grade mathematics, as specified.

          Fiscal Impact: 
              $684,000 for the CDE to convene a standards review 
              commission, and staff the commission.
              Potentially substantial savings, if the grade 8 mathematics 
              standards are altered to be more consistent with the Common 
              Core standards.

          Background: The SBE adopted Common Core standards in English 
          language arts and mathematics on August 2, 2010. At that time, 
          the SBE adopted two different sets of standards for grade 8 
          mathematics, one that is the common core standards for grade 8 
          and one that is a combination of common core grade 8 and Algebra 
          I standards.  

          The SBE did not adopt the college and career readiness anchor 
          standards that complement the grade-specific Common Core content 
          standards. The anchor standards are broad and the grade-specific 
          standards provide more details. The SBE does not have broad 
          statutory authority to review, revise or adopt academic content 
          standards.  The SBE was given the authority, on a one-time 
          basis, to adopt the existing standards, including the common 
          core standards in English language arts and mathematics.  

          Proposed Law: This bill requires the SPI to recommend and the 
          SBE to adopt the college and career readiness anchor standards 
          developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative 








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          consortium. It further requires that if the SPI and the SBE 
          jointly find that there is a need to revise or modify the 
          mathematics academic content standards, they will convene a 
          standards review commission consisting of 11 members, appointed 
          as follows: (a) 4 members by the Governor; (b) 3 members by the 
          Senate Rules Committee; (c) 3 members by the Speaker of the 
          Assembly; and, (d) 1 member by the SPI; the appointing 
          authorities are required to consider specified factors in their 
          appointments. The commission may only review and make 
          recommendations to modify the grade 8 common core standards in 
          mathematics. Upon receiving recommendations from a standards 
          review commission, the SBE may adopt, reject, or revise the 
          standards, as specified.

          Staff Comments: Convening a standards review commission, as 
          specified, will likely require frequent meetings and additional 
          CDE staff work to coordinate meetings and to staff the group. 
          This bill specifically subjects the process to the Bagley-Keene 
          Open Meeting Act, and its requisite administrative duties. The 
          CDE estimates that the staff support cost of implementing this 
          process will be approximately $665,000 to implement this bill. 
          Additionally, it would require approximately $18,000 in travel 
          reimbursement for members, office expenses, and recording of 
          meetings. 

          To the extent that this bill results in rectifying the 
          deficiencies in the current grade 8 mathematics, it could result 
          in substantial cost savings for the state. This is particularly 
          true for future math assessments. If the California curriculum 
          is closer to what is being used by other states, it would be 
          easier for California to participate in multistate assessments 
          and benefit from adoptions of instructional materials based on 
          the Common Core standards. The CDE has opined that if maintains 
          its own unique assessment in Algebra 1 for grade 8, for example, 
          it will have to develop and implement that assessment on its 
          own, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

          This bill would also require the SPI to present the revised 
          mathematics standards to the SBE to adopt, reject, or revise the 
          standards. There may be additional costs if the SBE votes to 
          reject or extensively revise the commission's newly-proposed 
          grade 8 mathematics standards. 

          








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