Legislative Updates
Current
Updates
June 28 , 2011
AB 165 The Constitutional Free Public Education Guarantee
AB 165, the Constitutional Free Public Education Guarantee, has implications for the delivery of arts education programs, potentially impacting the collection of fees for materials in visual arts classes, instrument rental for school bands or orchestras, etc.
The Alliance recognizes and supports the principle of a free education for every student and encourages schools and districts to find compatible solutions to provide access to quality arts education.
Summary language, intended to capture the spirit of the bill, states, “The bill would provide that this prohibition of fees is not to be interpreted to prohibit an entire school, class, sports team, or club from voluntarily participating in fundraising or to prohibit school districts and schools from providing pupils prizes or other recognition for voluntarily participating in fundraising activities.”
This would seems to create adequate flexibility to allow arts teachers and parent support groups to invite voluntary participation in the raising of needed funds. We have provided suggestions as to how school districts and schools might respond to its restrictions if it becomes law, on our blog. The Committee on Legislation for the California Alliance voted not to take a position on the bill.
June 9 , 2011
SB 789 – Index for Creative and Innovative Education
Introduced by Senator Curren Price and sponsored by the Alliance, this bill would establish an Index of Creative and Innovative Education for K-12 public schools. After being passed by the Senate Education Committee, it moved to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Although the bill has been designated a ‘two year’ bill,, there are exciting developments happening that are moving the issue forward.
There is a much larger effort underway in the legislature to redefine the accountability system of schools and districts to better inform parents, students, teachers, school administrators, policymakers and the public on public education performance, using multiple indicators of pupil, school and district quality and performance. The Index proposed in SB789 clearly lends itself to that larger definition of what constitutes a comprehensive educational experience. We are working with Senator Price's office to promote the concept and implementation of an index that identifies best practices that support creativity and innovation, in arts education as well as other subjects, including science, math, technology, engineering and business.
We will keep you posted on where this efforts leads and how it can contribute to the larger discussion about the role that arts education plays in preparing our students to meet the expectations of the future.
AB 1330 - Graduation Requirements
AB 1330 (Furutani) passed on the Assembly floor with a vote of 60-0. While the passage of the bill was a disappointment, it is worth noting that there were twenty members of the assembly who chose to abstain or not vote on this issue. (Last year the same body passed a similar version of the bill, AB 2446, 78-0.)
Reading between the lines, the fact that twenty assemblymembers did not support AB 1330 indicates that we have made substantial progress in making the case against the bill. Your letters and our lobbying efforts have emphasized both the harm the bill would do to access to arts education.
We will continue to call on you to send a message to protect access to arts education. The bill now moves on to the Senate, where we intend to build upon the message we've been sending.
April 12 , 2011
ACR 25 (Campos) Arts Education Month
This Alliance-sponsored resolution picked up the support of ninety-seven co-authors and has been passed by the State Senate and Assembly. The resolution encourages all elected officials to participate with their educational communities in celebrating the arts, and would urge citizens to support to quality school arts programs for children and youth.
SB 789 (Price) Advisory Committee on Creative and Innovative Education
On April 6, the Senate Education Committee heard and approved SB 789, sponsored by the Alliance and authored by Senator Curren Price. This legislation proposes the creation of committee to develop an Index of Creative and Innovation Education, which will provide a tangible way to measure and inspire creativity and innovation in our public schools. Learn more. Talking points.
AB 1330 (Furutani) Graduation Requirements
The hearing before the Assembly Education Committee has been postponed until April 27. This bill is an almost exact replica of last year’s AB 2446. We oppose it because it will limit arts education by changing high school graduation requirements resulting in an “either / or” choice between Career Technical Education (CTE) and the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA). Read our talking points on the bill.
SB 402 (Correa) Education: curriculum frameworks
The Alliance supports this legislation.
Summary: legislation that would require each curriculum framework to describe how content can be delivered to intentionally build creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and communication into and across each content area, to the extent the description is deemed appropriate by the board.
SB 402 is compatible with the Common Core standards, which will help further the emphasis on performance assessments, having students “show what they know” through writing and speaking (including collaboration), which stimulates critical thinking.
SB 612 (Steinberg) Postsecondary education: instructional strategies
The Alliance supports this legislation. Summary: SB 612 would add two areas of emphasis for the subject matter project, providing teachers with instructional strategies for delivering career-oriented, integrated academic and technical content linked to high-priority industry sectors identified in the California Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards. In addition, the legislation would provide teachers with instructional strategies for ongoing collaboration on the delivery of career-oriented, integrated academic and technical content.
SB 612 expands the California Subject Matters Project to authorize professional development programs in physical education, health education, the visual and performing arts, and foreign languages. This will increase the depth and reach of the CSMP, strengthen the professional development network, and provide all of California’s teachers and school administrators with opportunity for high quality professional development in each of the academic disciplines that form the foundation of the California educational program.
February 25, 2011
The deadline for filing bills for this legislative session was Friday, February 18. The Alliance is currently sifting through the hundreds of bills that were filed to determine potential impact on arts education. In the meantime, we offer a brief update on bills of immediate interest:
ACR 25 (Campos) Arts Education Month
An Alliance-sponsored resolution, this measure would declare March 2011 to be Arts Education Month, would encourage all elected officials to participate with their educational communities in celebrating the arts, and would urge all residents to become interested in and give full support to quality school arts programs for children and youth. Read more.
SB 789 (Price) Advisory Committee on Creative and Innovative Education
The bill, sponsored by the California Alliance would establish an Advisory Committee on Creative and Innovative Education for the purpose of developing an Index of Creative and Innovative Education. The index would provide a way for schools throughout California with an opportunity to share evidence of their progress in teaching, encouraging and fostering creativity in students. As we have moved into an economy driven by ideas and innovation, our schools must respond by providing all our students with the opportunity to develop creative skills. The scores of individual schools and districts would be published, establishing incentives for schools to promote an overall environment that fosters creativity and innovation through visual and performing arts, science, humanities and other educational opportunities. Read more. Read the bill.
AB 1330 (Furutani) Graduation Requirements
This bill is essentially the same as AB2446, from the previous legislative session, which was opposed by the Alliance and vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. It would limit access to arts education by adding career technical education as an alternative to the existing "visual and performing arts or foreign language" graduation requirement.
January 25, 2011
California Alliance State Policy Issues Brief
With a new Governor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction and close to forty new Legislators, the California Alliance has drafted a state policies issues brief that articulates our position on a number of specific policy issues which will be taken up by new leadership and ultimately shape arts education in our public schools. The brief lists the priorities for K-12 education established by Governor Brown, alongside the Alliance’s perspective on each of those priorities. During January, Alliance executive director Laurie Schell, Alliance policy director Joe Landon, and legislative advocate Kathy Lynch met individually with the new legislators and their legislative staff in Sacramento to deliver the paper and discuss our positions
September 30, 2010
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed AB2446
On September 30, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed AB2446 (Furutani), citing cost as a primary reason for the veto. Arts education advocates have achieved a legendary “David and Goliath” victory in the defeat of this bill, which would have diminished access to the arts and foreign language courses for high school students. The Alliance is grateful to our staunch army of advocates for staying the course through a long campaign. The Governor’s signing message is as follows:
To the Members of the California State Assembly:
I am returning Assembly Bill 2446 without my signature. Improving and expanding Career Technical Education (CTE) opportunities has been among my highest priorities. While I am supportive of the author’s intent to give CTE a prominent place in high school graduation priorities, the final version of this bill omitted my Administration’s proposed amendments that were intended to limit the new costs to school districts. Therefore, I am concerned that this bill could be construed to impose higher costs without a fund source, which could also be interpreted as a state reimbursable mandate. Given that school budgets are very constrained due to the recession, adding new costs at this time is not advisable.
For these reasons, I am unable to sign this bill.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger
