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Legislation

Last updated: July 1, 2011

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Science-Related Bills Pass Assembly, Senate

Several bills, including a CSTA-sponsored bill, have passed through one house of the legislature and are making their way through the second house.

SB 300 (Hancock) is a CSTA-sponsored bill that requires the review and revision of the science (and history-social science) content standards. The bill was amended in May to remove the proposed 22-member commission and give the authority to amend the out-dated science standards to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with a final up or down vote required by the State Board of Education. The bill was amended for a second time at the end of June as it moved to the Assembly Education Committee. The latest version of the bill calls for the establishment of a smaller, nine member Academic Content Standards Commission for Science. This commission would be tasked with making recommendations to the State Board of Education by January 1, 2013 to modify, revise, and update the science content standards .

Currently, there is no requirement in law that the content standards ever be updated. This means that California’s students will continue to lag behind other states (and nations) until our state reviews and updates our science content standards. CSTA has supported many efforts in years past to require the science standards to be reviewed and revised, but they had been vetoed by then-Governor Schwarzenegger.

STATUS: The bill passed the Assembly Education Committee as amended and was re-referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

A “companion” bill to SB 300, AB 1033 (Feuer), would have permitted the State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to recommend a schedule to the State Board of Education for reviewing and modifying the academic content standards. This bill was sponsored by the SPI and was another attempt to require the periodic review and revision of the standards. However, the bill was killed in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

AB 250 (Brownley) is titled “The Curriculum Support and Reform Act of 2011″ and contains a number of elements meant to, well, reform the standards/frameworks/instructional materials processes.

The most recent round of ammendments were quite significant. They included the renaming of the Curriculum Commission to the "Instructional Quality Advisory Committee" and removing that committee from the adoption process. It also changes the adoption cycle from a 6-year to an 8-year cycle.

STATUS: The bill was amended by the author on June 29 and was re-referred to the Senate Education Committee. It is set for hearing on July 6.

SB 402 (Correa) states the intent of the legislature that 21st century skills be integrated into the curriculum frameworks of core curricula, including English language arts, math, science, history-social science, visual and performing arts, and world languages.

STATUS: One June 22, the Assembly Education Committee re-referred the bill to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

SB 140 (Lowenthal) would require the Dept. of Education to develop a list before July 1, 2012 of supplemental instructional materials aligned with the common core standards in language arts and math, but also permits local district governing boards to adopt instructional materials other than those adopted by the state board if the local board determines that other materials are aligned with the common core standards and meet the needs of the students in the district (emphasis added). This last provision would be a tremendous assist to districts that feel constrained by the small number and narrow focus of materials on the state adoption lists. The bill was ammended to impose a fee on publishers in order to participate in the 8th grade mathematics instructional materials adoption process.

STATUS: The ammended bill was re-referred to the Assembly Education Committee and is awaiting hearing on July 6.

Successes we had last year:

ACR 88 (Torlakson), a CSTA co-sponsored bill which establishes a STEM legislative task force, passed both houses of the legislature and is now enacted. CSTA is part of the group, including the American Chemical Society, and the California Math Council, that is recommending members for the task force. We’ll keep you posted as the task force moves to center stage.

AJR 39 (Beall & Torlakson) is a joint resolution co-sponsored by the California Council for the Social Studies and CSTA that requires the legislature to encourage the development of common core standards for social studies and science. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are the entities that developed the common core reading and math standards; this resolution requires that a letter be sent to the two organizations urging them to do the same for social studies and science.

For current status of these and other science education-related bills, see recent legislation.

Full texts of these and other bills can be found at Leg. Info.

For Senate and Assembly education committees, and to find your legislator, see Legislators.