Signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to concur with Assembly amendments and pass a bill that makes various amendments to education law, many of which constitute an effort to receive federal Race to the Top funds.

Highlights:

-Specifies that data available in the California Education Information System may be used to evaluate teachers and school administrators and to make employment decisions (Sec. 2). -Permits several entities, including, but not limited to, the State Department of Education, the University of California, and California State University, to enter into interagency agreements in order to implement a comprehensive longitudinal education data system for California (Sec. 4). -Establishes the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Career Technical Education Educator Credentialing Program, in order to provide alternative routes to credentialing (Sec. 5). -Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish an advisory committee to advise the Superintendent and the State Board of Education on various education matters, including, but not limited to, aiding in making recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor regarding the following (Sec. 7):

-A measure of the degree to which pupils graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to gain entry-level employment in business or industry and to succeed in postsecondary education; and -Approaches to increasing the emphasis of science and math in the calculation of the Academic Performance Index (API) and other measures.

-Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education to compile a list of low-achieving and persistently lowest-achieving schools, and to notify school governing boards, county superintendents, or the governing body of a charter school that one or more of the schools in its jurisdiction has been identified as persistently lowest-achieving (Sec. 8). -Establishes the Academic Content Standards Commission, which shall be charged with developing academic content standards in the areas of the language arts and in math (Sec. 15). -Specifies that this bill is operative only if SBx5 4 of the 2009-2010 Session is enacted and becomes operative (Sec. 24).

Full Bill Text

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that makes various amendments to education law, many of which constitute an effort to receive federal Race to the Top funds.

Highlights:

-Specifies that data available in the California Education Information System may be used to evaluate teachers and school administrators and to make employment decisions (Sec. 2). -Permits several entities, including, but not limited to, the State Department of Education, the University of California, and California State University, to enter into interagency agreements in order to implement a comprehensive longitudinal education data system for California (Sec. 4). -Establishes the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Career Technical Education Educator Credentialing Program, in order to provide alternative routes to credentialing (Sec. 5). -Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish an advisory committee to advise the Superintendent and the State Board of Education on various education matters, including, but not limited to, aiding in making recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor regarding the following (Sec. 7):

-A measure of the degree to which pupils graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to gain entry-level employment in business or industry and to succeed in postsecondary education; and -Approaches to increasing the emphasis of science and math in the calculation of the Academic Performance Index (API) and other measures.

-Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education to compile a list of low-achieving and persistently lowest-achieving schools, and to notify school governing boards, county superintendents, or the governing body of a charter school that one or more of the schools in its jurisdiction has been identified as persistently lowest-achieving (Sec. 8). -Establishes the Academic Content Standards Commission, which shall be charged with developing academic content standards in the areas of the language arts and in math (Sec. 15). -Specifies that this bill is operative only if SBx5 4 of the 2009-2010 Session is enacted and becomes operative (Sec. 24).

Full Bill Text

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that amends education law in various ways and requires the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the State Board of Education and participating local education agencies to jointly develop one or more plans to submit as part of a Phase 1 application for federal Race to the Top funds authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the"Stimulus" Act).

Highlights:

-Mandates that the plan or plans required to be developed as part of a Phase 1 application for federal Race to the Top funds include the following (Sec. 8):

-Criteria for identifying the lowest achieving 5 percent of the persistently lowest performing schools that are consistent with federal School Improvement Grant and Race to the Top guidelines; and -Strategies for turning around the persistently lowest performing schools that are consistent with federal Race to the Top guidelines.

-Allows data in the California Education Information System to be used to evaluate teachers and administrators and to make employment decisions (Sec. 1). -Removes the limitation on the number of charter schools that are authorized to operate in the state beginning with the 2009-2010 school year (Sec. 3). -Allows a parent of a pupil in a low-performing school to apply for the pupil to transfer to another public school in the same school district or in a different school district (Sec. 5). -Requires school districts to adopt specific, written standards for acceptance and rejection of applications for transfer from pupils in low-performing schools, and specifies that such standards may include consideration of the capacity of a program, class, grade level, or school building, but they may not include consideration of a pupil's previous academic achievement, physical condition, proficiency in the English language, sex, national origin, or race (Sec. 5). -Requires the Superintendent to recommend the revocation of the charter of a charter school and the state board to hold a hearing on such revocation within 90 days if that charter school is identified as being in the lowest achieving 5 percent of the persistently lowest performing public schools in the state (Sec. 6).

Full Bill Text