Under The Dome

Active Bills

Bills that failed to pass out of the house of origin by June 8 are considered “dead” for the year and will become two-year bills, while those that have passed are awaiting hearings in the second house.

Here’s the status at press time of active bills sponsored or co-sponsored by CSBA:

AB 925 (Hancock) School accountability: Proficiency
This bill would change the definition of “proficient” for purposes
of NCLB.
Passed Assembly floor on a 45-33 vote; now pending in the Senate Rules Committee.

AB 1281 (Soto) Charter schools
This bill would protect school districts from absorbing the cost of special education students who are enrolled in charter schools.
Passed Assembly floor on a 45-32 vote; now pending in the Senate Education Committee.

AB 1379 (Brownley) High schools: Requirements for graduation
This bill would augment the current California High School Exit Exam by using a multiple-measures approach to determine if a student should be given a high school diploma.
Passed Assembly floor on a 47-31 vote; now pending in the Senate Education Committee.

AJR 23 (Hancock) No Child Left Behind Act: Reauthorization
This resolution would ask Congress to give states flexibility in implementing the federal education law. It also would request changes in the identification of schools in need of improvement so that resources and interventions would be directed toward those schools and districts in greatest need, and it would call for full funding of requirements tied to NCLB.
Passed out of the Assembly Education Committee on a 10-0 vote; now pending on the Assembly floor.

SB 1003 (Romero) Instructional materials
This bill would require the state Board of Education to adopt elementary-level instructional materials at the request of school districts unless it finds that they fail to meet specific criteria.
Passed Senate floor on a 27-11 vote; now pending on the Assembly desk.

SJR 3 (Aanestad) Federal Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000: Extension
This resolution would call for Congress to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 for
five years.
Passed Senate floor on a 37-0 vote; now pending in the Assembly Education Committee.
The following are other noteworthy bills:

AB 131 (Beall) Middle and High School Supplemental Counseling Program
This bill would make the Middle and High School Supplemental Counseling Program available to county offices of education. County offices of education programs provide educational support services to high-risk students, and they should not be excluded from receiving funding from a program that is designed to ensure that students receive the support and guidance they need to complete the necessary coursework to successfully finish middle school and graduate from high school.
Passed Assembly floor on a 78-1 vote; now pending in the Senate Education Committee.
CSBA Position: Support

AB 1403 (Arambula) Local education agencies: Administration
As amended, this bill would establish the Central Valley District Improvement Pilot Program, authorizing a Central Valley county superintendent of schools to assume additional responsibilities for overseeing academic success. This bill would mandate that school districts in Fresno and Tulare counties participate if selected by the county superintendent.
Passed Assembly floor on a 74-5 vote; now pending in the Senate Rules Committee.
CSBA Position: Oppose

AB 1591 (Ma) The Corporation Tax Law: Allocation and apportionment
This bill would allow corporations that have employees or sales or that own property outside of California (as well as within California) to elect to use an alternative formula for determining the amount of taxes owed to California. The Franchise Tax Board estimates that the bill would result in general fund revenue losses of $550 million in 2007–08, $1.3 billion in 2008–09 and $1.95 billion in 2009–10. This bill would reduce school funding by hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing total revenue to the state general fund.
Pending in the Assembly Revenue and Tax Committee.
CSBA Position: Oppose

ACR 55 (Mullin) Public schools: Character education
This bill would urge the state Board of Education, county offices of education and local school governing bodies to examine their current practices and to increase emphasis on character, citizenship and ethics.
Passed out of the Assembly Education Committee on a 10-0 vote; now pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
CSBA Position: Support

SB 20 (Torlakson) Pupil nutrition: Free and reduced-price meals
As proposed to be amended, this bill would provide for an increase in meal reimbursement for free and reduced-price meals from 15 cents per meal to 21 cents. In order to receive the increase in funding, districts would have to certify that they will not fry food items and that the food items will not contain
trans fats.
Passed Senate floor on a 27-10 vote; now pending on the Assembly desk.
CSBA Position: Support

SB 679 (Romero) Public education: Independent study and alternative accountability systems
This bill would require school districts and county offices of education, as a condition of using independent study, to participate in a newly established independent study monitoring program to evaluate the performance of low-performing students. In addition, this bill would require independent study programs to use pre- and post-tests to evaluate all students, with the testing to occur every 30 days. The testing scores would be included in the Academic Performance Index.
Passed Assembly floor on a 26-13 vote; now pending in the Assembly Education Committee.
CSBA Position: Oppose

The state budget remained unresolved at press time, despite constitutional deadlines for the Legislature to adopt a revenue and spending plan by June 15 and the governor to sign it by July 1. For the latest state budget news with an education perspective, log on to www.csba.org and look under “What’s New”—and, for important background on the budget’s implications for school districts and county offices of education, visit our Governmental Relations page at www.csba.org/gr/index.cfm.