BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 1346 (Wyland) - Local Control and Accountability Plans
Amended: April 21, 2014 Policy Vote: Education 7-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: May 23, 2014 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE.
Bill Summary: SB 1346 adds requirements to the Local Control and
Accountability Plans (LCAPs), required under the new Local
Control Funding Formula (LCFF), related to serving the academic
needs of English Learner (EL) pupils. This bill also makes
changes to local accountability in serving EL students.
Fiscal Impact:
LCAP requirements (locals): Significant costs to local
educational agencies (LEAs) which, if deemed by the
Commission on State Mandates to be reimbursable, would have
substantial aggregated costs. The state would likely
reimburse millions of dollars annually, for LEAs to make
required changes to their LCAPs, and to complete the related
plan implementation work. There is also a potentially
significant reimbursable mandate on county offices of
education (COEs) to review the changes and new criteria
required of the LCAPs.
LCAP requirements (state): Up to $500,000 in workload costs
to the California Department of Education (CDE) to add a 9th
state priority to the LCAPs and draft conforming regulations
for adoption by the State Board of Education (SBE) and for
the SBE to adopt revised LCAP templates.
API subgroup: $50,000 in CDE costs to make programming
changes needed to create the new subgroup. Minor ongoing
state costs to include the subgroup in future accountability
reports.
Background: In 2013, the LCFF was enacted. The LCFF replaces
almost all sources of state funding, including most categorical
programs, and uses new methods to allocate these resources and
future allocations to school districts, charter schools, and
county offices of education. The LCFF allows LEAs much greater
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flexibility to spend the funds than under the prior system. This
formula is designed to provide districts and charter schools
with the bulk of their resources in unrestricted funding to
support the basic educational program for all students, plus
supplemental funding, based on the enrollment of educationally
disadvantaged students (low-income students, ELs, and foster
youth), provided to increase or improve services to these
high-needs students. COEs receive different funding levels
within the LCFF, based upon the same allocation principles.
The LCFF allocates resources to LEAs as follows:
1 Base Grants are provided to all school districts and
charter schools. They are calculated on a per-pupil basis
(measured by student average daily attendance) according to
grade span (K-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12) with adjustments that
increase the base rates for grades K-3 (10.4% of base rate)
and grades 9-12 (2.6% of base rate).
2 Supplemental Grants provide an additional 20% in base
grant funding to school districts and charter schools for
each low-income student, EL, and foster youth (unduplicated
pupil count).
3 Concentration Grants provide an additional 50% above
base grant funding to school districts and charter schools
for each low-income student, EL, and foster youth that
exceed 55% of total enrollment. (Charter schools are capped
at the concentration rate of the school district in which
they are located).
The LCFF includes new requirements for local planning and
accountability, including the creation of an LCAP for each
school district and charter school, which focus on improving
student outcomes in state educational priorities and ensuring
engagement of parents, students, teachers, school employees, and
the public in the local process. To ensure accountability for
LCFF funds, the required school districts, charter schools, and
COEs must adopt and update an LCAP. The LCAP must include
locally determined goals, actions, services, and expenditures of
LCFF funds for each school year in support of the state
educational priorities that are specified in statute, as well as
any additional local priorities. In adopting the LCAP, LEAs must
consult with parents, students, teachers, and other school
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employees.
There are 8 state priorities that must be addressed in the LCAP,
for all students and significant student subgroups in a school
district and at each school: 1) Williams settlement issues; 2)
implementation of academic content standards; 3) parental
involvement; 4) pupil achievement; 5) pupil engagement (as
measured by attendance, graduation, and dropout data); 6) school
climate (in part measured by suspension and expulsion rates); 7)
the extent to which students have access to a broad course of
study; 8) pupil outcomes for non-state-assessed courses of
study.
School district LCAPs are subject to review and approval by
their COEs. The Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) is
authorized to intervene in a struggling district, under certain
conditions.
Proposed Law: This bill changes state and local accountability
and reporting requirements related to EL pupils. Specifically,
this bill:
1) Requires each LEA's fiscal audit to determine whether LCFF
expenditures were in compliance with State Board of
Education (SBE) adopted regulations regarding supplemental
and concentration grants.
2) Requires COEs, as part of their review of an LEA's adopted
budget, to determine whether LCFF expenditures were in
compliance with SBE adopted regulations.
3) Prohibits the SBE adopted regulations concerning LCFF
supplemental and concentration grants from being more
restrictive than the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
Title I requirements governing the use of school-wide
funds.
4) Adds reclassified ELs as a distinct subgroup of pupils
whose academic achievement must be measured by the Academic
Performance Index (API) for accountability purposes and
provides that the inclusion of reclassified ELs in the API
shall, at a minimum, be consistent with the manner in which
reclassified ELs are included in the determination of
adequate yearly progress, as required by federal law.
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5) Adds, beginning in 2015-16, the following elements to the
LCAP that each LEA is required to adopt: a) a listing and
description of the expenditures for the fiscal year
implementing the specific actions included in the LCAP;
and, b) a listing and description of the expenditures that
will serve EL pupils, low-income pupils, foster youth, and
reclassified ELs.
6) Includes the reclassification of ELs in the state priority
of "pupil achievement."
7) Adds as a 9th state priority to be addressed in an LCAP:
the extent to which teachers, administrators, and staff
receive professional development or participate in
induction programs, including the type and subject areas of
the professional development provided.
8) Requires a school district that enrolls at least 15% ELs or
50 EL pupils to establish a districtwide EL parent advisory
committee to advise the governing board on: a) establishing
school district goals and objectives for programs and
services for EL pupils to ensure that the academic and
language proficiency needs of ELs are being met; b)
administering the home language survey; c) school district
reclassification procedures.
9) Requires the LCAP templates adopted by the SBE on or before
March 31, 2015 to meet the requirements of the NCLB related
to the single plan for pupil achievement, and to ensure
that LEAs that receive supplemental and concentration funds
include in their LCAPs specified information on the
instructional programs and services provided to EL,
low-income, foster youth and reclassified EL pupils.
10) Requires LEAs to expend Economic Impact Aid program funds
only for purposes authorized in statute and regulations as
they read on June 30, 2013.
Related Legislation: SB 344 (Padilla) 2013 contained similar
accountability measures and mechanisms for ELs. That bill was
was vetoed by Governor Brown, with the following message:
This bill interferes with the work of the State Board of
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Education as it implements, through an open and transparent
process, the Local Control Funding Formula. Moreover, it
contains provisions contrary to the July budget agreement.
For these reasons, I am unable to sign this bill.
Staff Comments: This bill requires LEAs to make numerous changes
to their LCAPs, and to complete the related plan implementation
work. LCAP creation is supposed to be funded from LCFF funds
allocated to LEAs. This bill does, however, expand LCAP
requirements without providing additional funding. It is unclear
whether these changes will constitute a reimbursable state
mandate, or whether these changes will simply put more cost
pressure on existing LCFF funds. If it deemed to be a
reimbursable mandate, the state would have to reimburse more
than 1,000 school districts for the activities required by this
bill.
COEs will also be required to review the changes and new
criteria required of the LCAPs. This is likely a new
reimbursable mandate, and the additional staff time COEs
dedicate to reviewing the changes would become a state cost.
The CDE anticipates incurring $500,000 in workload costs to meet
the bill's requirements to add a 9th state priority to the LCAPs
and draft conforming regulations and revised templates for
adoption by the SBE. The CDE would also require $50,000 to make
programming changes needed to create a new reclassified EL
subgroup. The department also has concerns that creating a
different subgroup for reclassified ELs will have accountability
ramifications for a school's API, because reclassified ELs are
currently counted in the EL subgroup until they have scored
proficient on the former California Standards Test for 3 years.
It may also result in challenges to the integrity of statewide
test scores, by enabling non-standardized local reclassification
methodologies to affect the scores of a statewide subgroup, or
in schools creating stricter criteria for reclassification in
order to benefit their API.