School finance: Broadband Infrastructure Fund: Innovation, Training, and Common Core Implementation Fund.

(1) Existing law establishes the K–12 High-Speed Network for the purpose of enriching pupil educational experiences and improving pupil academic performance by providing high-speed, high-bandwidth Internet connectivity to the public schools. This bill would establish the Broadband Infrastructure Fund Program, to be implemented if funds are received in the annual Budget Act or another statute, for the purpose of providing schools with adequate Internet capacity to support new content standards and technology-based instruction and assessments, as specified. The bill would require the State Department of Education to administer the Broadband Infrastructure Fund, which would be established by the bill. The bill would require the department to consider specified objectives in evaluating any proposed use of the funds, and would specify the purposes for which the funds may be allocated and used. (2) Existing law requires the Academic Content Standards Commission to develop, and the State Board of Education to adopt or reject, academic content standards in language arts and mathematics that are internationally benchmarked and built toward college and career readiness by high school graduation, and requires at least 85% of these standards to be the common core academic content standards developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative consortium or any association or related interstate collaboration, except as specified. This bill would establish the Innovation, Training, and Common Core Implementation Fund Act, to be implemented if funds are received in the annual Budget Act or another statute, as specified. The bill would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to allocate funds for the 2014–15 fiscal year to local educational agencies, as defined, on the basis of an equal amount per pupil based on the prior year's enrollment for specified purposes relating to the integration of common core academic content standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and English language development standards in schools, including, among others, the professional development of teachers, administrators, and paraprofessional educators or other classified employees involved in the direct instruction of pupils that is aligned to specified academic content standards. The bill would require a local educational agency that receives funds to meet specified requirements, including reporting detailed expenditure information to the State Department of Education, and would require the department to summarize and submit the information to the appropriate budget subcommittees and policy committees of the Legislature on or before July 3, 2016.