Pupil retention.

Existing law requires the governing board of each school district and each county superintendent of schools to adopt policies regarding pupil promotion and retention. Existing law requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the state board, and the department to provide to the State Chief Information Officer the individual nonpersonally identifiable or aggregate data related to adequate yearly progress, graduation rates, pupils who drop out of school, and demographics of pupils and teachers. This bill would require the Superintendent, on or before August 1, 2011, and annually thereafter, to submit to the Governor, the Legislature, and the state board, a report called the Annual Report on Dropouts in California. The bill would require, among other things, that the report contain specified information on dropout rates, graduation rates, pupil promotion rates, course enrollment patterns, and behavioral data. The bill would require that the report include data from the most recent year and, at a minimum, the two prior years. The bill would also require the Superintendent to make an oral presentation of the contents of the report to the state board and to make the contents of the report available on the department's Internet Web site. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature that the report be usable by specified groups for analyzing the high rate of dropouts in California. Existing law, operative only if local educational agencies receive a per pupil allocation prior to the 2010–11 fiscal year for implementation of the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, as specified, requires, beginning July 1, 2011, that the Academic Performance Index (API) for a school or school district include test scores and other data from pupils who were referred to alternative education programs and include school and school district dropout rates, as specified. This bill would remove the requirement that local educational agencies receive the specified allocation in order for these provisions to become operative.