2009-2010 LEGISLATION
prepared by California Science Teachers Association

Last updated: October 5, 2010

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.	Passed, signed by governor	Unk.	Unk.
AJR 39 (Beall & Torlakson)	Common Core Standards for Science and Social Studies Urges the National Governors Association and CCSSO to replicate the process of developing common core language arts and math standards to develop common core social studies and science standards.		Passed Senate and Assembly; chaptered by Secretary of State	CSTA Calif. Council for the Social Studies			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 and Senate; chaptered by Secretary of State	CSTA BSMARTE American Chemical Society			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 and Senate; vetoed by governor. See governor's veto message.	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 This bill 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; require the superintendent to choose the members of the review panels via a random lottery; and require that the recommendations be made to the SBE directly by the teacher and expert panels.	Amended to reinstate the role of the Curriculum Commission in the adoption process. 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.; to Senate Appropriations Cmte.; hearing cancelled at request of author	CSBA CA County Boards of Ed. AFSCME ACSA San Diego COE Santa Clara COE Small School Dist. Assoc. CA Assoc. of Suburban School Dists.	Assoc. of American Publishers
AB 391 (Torlakson)	Pupil Testing and STAR Requires the state superintendent to contract for an independent evaluation of the STAR program to include analysis of its usefulness, and the feasibility and cost of developing and administering an alternative test.	The bill seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the current STAR program in providing useful formative data, among other things.	Passed legislature; vetoed by governor. See governor's veto message.	CSTA ACSA CSBA	Unk.		Support
AB 2019 (Torlakson)	Education Technology Task Force Would authorize the state superintendent to convene a task force to develop recommendations for a comprehensive state plan to increase the level of technology used to deliver instruction in public schools.		Passed Assembly; passed Senate Education Cmte.; in Senate Appropriations suspense file	CSTA BSMARTE American Assoc. of Publishers Calif. School Library Assoc. CTA Children Now	Unk.		Support
AB 2069 (Carter)	Instructional Materials Amended bill restarts the halted history-social science framework and establishes a timeline for the adoption of instructional materials when they are scheduled to start up in 2013. Schedules the next science adoption for 2017.	The original bill called for restarting the history-social science framework and reinstating the materials adoption halted in 2009, with the science adoption scheduled for 2016. The amended bill keeps the history framework language but eliminates the reinstatement of the adoption cycle, leaving last year's postponement in effect but establishing a new timeline, with science not being adopted until 2017.	Passed Assembly Education Cmte.; in Assembly Appropriations Cmte. suspense file	California Council for the Social Studies CSTA, if amended	Unk.		Support if amended
AB 2446 (Furutani)	Graduation Requirements Would add completion of a course in career technical education as an alternative to the requirement that a pupil complete a course in visual or performing arts or foreign language.		Passed Assembly Education Cmte.; in Assembly Appropriations suspense file	Calif. Business Ed. Assoc., ACSA CSBA Calif. Space Authority CTA	Calif. Alliance for Arts Ed., Calif. Language Teachers Assoc., CAHPERD		Support
SB 1278 (Wyland)	Instructional Materials Similarly to the Carter bill (AB 2069, above), restarts the development of the history-social science framework and establishes a new schedule for materials adoptions when they restart in 2013, with science scheduled for 2016.	The original bill would have repealed the delay of the adoption enacted in 2009 and required the science and history frameworks to be adopted in 2011. The bill was amended to eliminate mention of the science framework altogether, and only requires the history framework to be resumed.	Passed Senate; passed Assembly Education Cmte.; to Assembly Appropr. Cmte.; held under submission	CCSS CSTA, if amended	Unk.		Amend
SB 1444 (Hancock)	STEM Instruction Defines STEM courses for grades 1-12.	Bill doesn't require any action, but defines STEM subjects as courses or a sequence of courses that prepare pupils for occupations and careers that require technically sophisticated skills, including the application of math and science skills and concepts.	Passed Senate and Assembly; vetoed by governor. See governor's veto message.	CSTA CBEA	Unk.		Support