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By Kimberly Beltran
Monday, September 09, 2013
With just one week remaining before fall recess, AB 484 – the bill that would end the state’s decades-old K-12 student testing system and begin a new modern one – was still undergoing last-minute “technical” amendments on Friday but is likely to reach the Senate floor for a vote tomorrow.
The bill, sponsored by California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and authored by Concord Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, heralds a new era in student evaluation by moving from paper-and-pencil multiple choice testing to computer-adaptive assessments that will track a pupil’s academic growth over the course of his or her educational journey.
The bill has Gov. Jerry Brown’s blessing, as well as broad support in the Legislature, and is expected to move through both the Senate and Assembly – and on to Brown’s desk – by this Friday’s deadline.
According to legislative staffers working on the bill, the amendments being made last Friday were technical in nature – known as ‘chaptering amendments,’ they are designed to eliminate potential conflicts with provisions in other legislation addressing the same Education Code statute.
With the state’s schools transitioning to a new funding system, new Common Core State Standards and new assessments aligned to those standards, there are several bills moving concurrently that are needed to enact all the necessary changes. Among them: SB 344 authored by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, that outlines new requirements related to the Local Control Accountability Plans – mandated under the new Local Control Funding Formula – that
A bill that would require school administrators to report within 30 days a change in a teacher’s employment status due to an allegation of misconduct was signed into law Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
