Pupil assessments: public hearings.

(1) Existing law requires each school district, charter school, and county office of education to administer to each of its pupils in grades 2 to 11, inclusive, designated achievement tests. Existing law establishes the Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 and requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop an Academic Performance Index (API) , which consists in part of the results of the tests administered pursuant to the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program, to measure the performance of schools and to rank schools based on the value of the API. Existing law requires schools to report their ranking, including a description of the components of the API, in their annual school accountability report card. Existing law requires the governing board of each school district to discuss the results of the annual ranking at the next regularly scheduled meeting following the annual publication of the API and school rankings by the Superintendent and encourages that meeting to include a discussion that examines STAR test results by school, grade, and subgroup, as specified. This bill would require the governing board of a school district to conduct a public hearing to discuss, analyze, and compare the results of the API, STAR test scores, and school rankings and would instead require that public hearing to include a discussion that examines STAR test results by school, grade, and subgroup, as specified. Existing law authorizes the governing board of a school district to conduct an assessment of the reasons for a school's performance results, by grade, and adopt an improved performance plan, as specified, for specified low performing schools. This bill would instead require the governing board of a school district to perform these functions. (2) This bill would require the governing board of a school district to notify in writing specified persons and entities if it chooses to hold a public hearing at one of its regularly scheduled meetings to discuss pupil achievement on the reading, English language arts, and mathematics portions of the achievement tests administered pursuant to the STAR program and pupil progress toward meeting the optimum performance levels on those tests. (3) By requiring school districts to perform additional duties relating to public hearings for pupil assessments, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.