2009-2010 LEGISLATION
prepared by California Science Teachers Association

Link to 2007-2008 science education-related legislation.
Last updated: Oct. 13, 2009

Bill # (author)	Issues (italics represent amendments)	Analysis	Status	Who Supports It	Who Opposes It	Next Action	CSTA's Position
SBX5 1 (Romero)	Race to the Top Legislation This bill provides for student achievement data, in the form of the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) to be used to make teacher and principal employment decisions, including for purposes of pay, promotion, sanction, or evaluation. The bill also lifts the cap on the number of charter schools that may be authorized by the state. The bill also allows students who are enrolled in low-performing schools to attend a school in a district other than their district of residence. The bill would require the state superintendent to make recommendations on the criteria and conditions for identifying the lowest five percent of historically low-performing schools and would require that each identified school take at least one of three specified alternative governance or restructuring actions required by federal law.	This bill was introduced in response to federal guidelines outlining requirements that states must meet in order to be eligible for federal Race to the Top (RTTT) money, expected to be between $500 million and $1 billion for California. Governor Schwarzenegger called a special session of the legislature to consider legislation to meet the RTTT requirements.	In Senate Education Cmte.	Unk.	Unk.	Unk.
ACR 5 (Torlakson)	California Science Education Month Makes certain findings related to science and science education in the state and proclaims March 2009 as California Science Education Month, and extends the legislature's support "to pupils of all ages who are interested in science."		Chaptered	CSTA San Diego Science Festival			Support
ACR 88 (Torlakson)	STEM Task Force Creates a legislative task force on STEM education as a means to raise awareness of issues in STEM education and to support initiatives to improve education of STEM subjects.		Passed Assembly; to Senate Ed. Cmte.	CSTA BSMARTE American Chemical Society		Unk.	Support
AB 97 (Torlakson)	Content Standards Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to appoint an Academic Content and Performance Standards Review Panel for each of the curriculum areas that have MATH AND READING content standards, to review and recommend to the State Board of Education changes to the content and performance standards. The bill allows the State Board of Education to accept or reject the revisions within 120 days of submission. Specifies that the bill would not be implemented unless a budget appropriation was specifically enacted for these purposes. Amended to add that a schedule for reviewing science and history/social science standards should be established.	This bill, which originally called for the review of all subject area content standards, is the latest in an increasingly long line of bills requiring the state's content standards to be reviewed and revised as necessary. Each previous bill has been vetoed by the governor.	Passed Assembly; passed Senate Education Cmte.; moved to inactive file. May be brought back next year	CSTA BSMARTE CTA CFT Calif. Business Ed. Assoc. Calif. County Board of Ed. Calif. Math Council Calif. School Library Assoc. Calif. PTA Los Angeles COE San Francisco USD AFSCME	Unk.		Support
AB 314 (Brownley)	Materials Adoption Process would make changes to the instructional materials adoption process. Specifically, the bill would: * require the State Board of Education to hold an informational meeting prior to the meeting where they adopt the materials * require the reports of findings of the teacher and subject matter expert panels which review and recommend the materials to be made public * require the adopted materials to be accessible for at least three years after the next adoption * give districts three years to adopt new materials, instead of the current two years * allow districts to submit names of potential reviewers to the superintendent, and * require the superintendent to choose the members of the review panels via a random lottery * eliminate the role of the Curriculum Commission from the materials evaluation and recommendation process, and instead * require that the recommendations be made to the SBE directly by the teacher and expert panels.	This bill is similar to a bill introduced last year by former Assemblymember Gene Mullin (AB 2315), which was eventually vetoed by the governor. CSTA supports some elements of this bill, most particularly that the recommendations of the teacher review panels be submitted directly to the State Board of Education without the additional filter of the Curriculum Commission, but we are not supportive of extending the amount of time that materials are available to be adopted by districts. We believe the current six year adoption cycle, with two additional years allowed for districts to adopt new materials, is long enough for teachers and students to be without up-to-date materials.	Passed Assembly; passed Senate Education Cmte.; in Senate Appropriations Cmte.	CSBA Calif. County Boards of Ed. AFSCME ACSA San Diego COE Santa Clara COE Small School Dist. Assoc. Assoc. of Suburban School Dists.	Assoc. of American Publishers
AB 429 (Brownley)	Pupil Identifier and Assessment System Requires the PSAA committee to recommend a methodology for generating a measurement of academic performance using unique pupil identifiers and for developing a longitudinally valid assessment system that can measure a school's and a pupil's academic achievement over time.		VETOED Governor's veto message	CSTA CSBA AFSCME ACSA CFT Californians Together Calif. County Boards of Ed. CFT CTA EdVoice Los Angeles COE San Francisco USD Santa Clara COE	Unk.		Support
AB 476 (Torlakson)	Pupil Testing and STAR Requires the state superintendent to convene a panel to advise the department on the evaluation of the STAR program, including making recommendations about the selection of the independent evaluator and evaluation parameters.	The original bill would have eliminated testing in second grade; the bill was amended to delete that provision.	VETOED Governor's veto message	CSTA ACSA BSMARTE Small S.D. Assoc. CTA AFSCME Calif. Alliance for Arts Ed. Calif. Business Ed. Assoc. CFT Calif. Math Council Californians Together	EdVoice		Support
AB 554 (Furutani)	Graduation Requirements Would permit a student, with concurrence of governing board, to substitute a career technical course for each of the following courses required for high school graduation: one course in visual or performing arts or foreign language, and two courses in physical education; the career technical courses would serve as legitimate substitutes for the replaced courses.	Amended to change the graduation requirements: instead of requiring one course in visual and performing arts or foreign language, would require two courses from any of visual and performing arts, foreign language, or career-technical education.	Passed Assembly Education Cmte.; in Assembly Appropriations Cmte.; held under submission	Get Real Coalition CSTA Variety of occupational, business, and trade associations, incl. AFSCME, Calif. Business Ed. Assoc., Calif. Automotive Business Coalition, Calif. Space Authority	CFT CTA Variety of health, arts, language organizations, incl. American Heart Assoc., Calif. Alliance for Arts Ed., Calif. Language Teachers Assoc., CAHPERD		Support
AB 836 (Torlakson)	Task Force on Educational Technology Would require the State Supt. of Public Instruction to convene a task force to study and make recommendations about appropriate educational technology.		VETOED Governor's veto message	AFSCME CSBA Calif. School Library Assoc. CTA CUE Calif. Alliance for Arts Ed. Los Angeles COE LAUSD Orange USD Riverside Co. Schools Advocacy Assoc. Santa Clara COE Tech America	Unk.
AB 1223 (Block)	Teacher Preparation and Professional Development Requires the legislative analyst's office to convene an advisory committee to determine the preparation and professional development needs of both academic and career technical teachers, and present findings by January 10, 2010.		In Assembly Education Committee	Unk.	Unk.
SB 381 (Wright)	High School Instruction Prohibits a school district from adopting graduation requirements that require completion of additional coursework to meet or exceed the requirements and prerequisites for admission to the California public postsecondary education institutions unless the district also adopts an alternative graduation requirement that requires the completion of an equal amount of coursework to attain entry-level employment skills in business or industry upon graduation from high school.		Passed Senate; passed Assembly Education Cmte.; in Assembly Appropriations Cmte.	Calif. Bus. Ed. Assoc. Calif. Manufacturers& Techno-logy Assoc. Calif. Space Authority Calif. Agricultural Teachers Assoc. Contractors National Assoc. Calif. Automotive Business Coalition Calif. State Building and Construction Trades Council Numerous technology, agriculture, industrial arts, career professional organizations	ACSA CSBA CTA Calif. Business Ed. Assoc. Californians for Justice Public Advocates Numerous social service agencies		Watch
SB 426 (Yee)	Curriculum Frameworks Requires the Curriculum Commission as part of its regular process for developing and revising curriculum frameworks to consider and vote on legislative concurrent resolutions that propose changes to the curriculum frameworks and to present adopted resolutions biannually to the SBE.		Passed Senate Education Cmte.; in Senate Appropriations Cmte.; held under submission	AFSCME Calif. Italian-American Task Force Hmong Leader-ship Network of San Joaquin Korean Schools Assoc. of No. Calif. Little Manila Foundation	Unk.
SB 471 (Romero and Steinberg)	Stem Cell Research and Education States findings and declarations of the legislature relating to stem cell research and science, including the development of the California Stem Cell Education Initiative, and declares that all education policymakers should collaborate to help the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine advance its education initiatives.	Amended bill requires the SBE to include stem cell science in the next science framework.	Signed by governor; chaptered	BIOCOM BayBio Calif. Healthcare Institute CIRM CSU UC Student Society for Stem Cell Research	Calif. Catholic Conference
SB 552 (Padilla)	Adopted Course of Study on Organ Donation and Procurement Requires the adopted course of study in ~~science~~ health to include education in organ procurement and tissue donation.	Amended to require the course to be included in health classes, not science classes.	Passed Senate; passed Assembly Education Cmte.; in Assembly Appropriations Cmte.; held under submission	American Assoc. of Tissue Banks Blood Centers of Calif. Calif. Transplant Donor Network Variety of Lions Clubs, other donor networks and tissue banks	Unk.
SB 751 (Romero)	Teacher Credentialing Authorizes the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to issue credentials to teachers prepared in other countries who has earned a corresponding credential in another state, and provides for a district to contract with other entities to provide intensive examination courses in math and science to assist candidates to prepare for taking subject matter exams.		Signed by governor; chaptered	CFT CTA CSBA CTC San Francisco USD	Unk.
STATE BOARD ISSUES	Revision of Science Framework All curriculum frameworks are reviewed and updated on a six-year cycle. Work on revising the science framework has begun, and the final approval by the State Board of Education is January 2010.	CSTA and the K-12 Alliance have developed a document with suggested changes to the framework which will be presented to the Curriculum Framework and Criteria Committee (CFCC) when it begins its work. CSTA has helped recruit members for the CFCC and for the statewide focus group meetings that took place last year. For a full report and ongoing updates of the framework revision process, see Framework on the CSTA website.	Governor Schwarzenegger cut funding for the Curriculum Commission and put all framework development, along with all materials adoptions, on hold for five years.	N/A	N/A	2013
	Follow-up Adoption of Instructional Materials The State Board of Education approved going forward with an interim adoption of instructional materials in 2010. Five publishers of science instructional materials have indicated their intention to submit materials for the follow-up adoption: • It's About Time, for grade 7 • Pearson Scott Foresman & Prentice Hall, for grades K–8 • Red Brick Learning, for grades K–8 • The College Entrance Examination Board, for grades 6–8 • Publishing, Inc., for grades K–8	Education Code calls for adoptions to occur “not less than two times every six years” for language arts, mathematics, science, and social science. The first instructional materials adoption—in the case of science, the 2006 adoption—is termed a “primary adoption” and creates a new adopted list of instructional materials. Any additional adoption conducted during the six-year period is termed a “follow-up adoption” and is conducted using the same evaluation criteria as the primary adoption. A follow-up adoption adds instructional materials to the existing adoption list for the remainder of the list’s term.	Governor Schwarzenegger put all adoptions on hold for five years.			2013