BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 359 Page 1 SENATE THIRD READING SB 359 (Mitchell) As Amended August 28, 2015 Majority vote SENATE VOTE: 40-0 ------------------------------------------------------------------ |Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------| |Education |7-0 |O'Donnell, Chávez, | | | | |Kim, McCarty, | | | | |Santiago, Thurmond, | | | | |Weber | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------| |Appropriations |17-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, | | | | |Bloom, Bonta, | | | | |Calderon, Chang, | | | | |Nazarian, Eggman, | | | | |Gallagher, Eduardo | | | | |Garcia, Holden, | | | | |Jones, Quirk, Rendon, | | | | |Wagner, Weber, Wood | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------ SB 359 Page 2 SUMMARY: Requires local educational agencies (LEAs) and charter schools serving students entering grade nine to adopt a fair, objective, and transparent mathematics placement policy. Specifically, this bill: 1)Makes findings and declarations regarding students' inappropriate placement in mathematics courses at the secondary level. 2)States that the act shall be known as the California Mathematics Placement Act of 2015. 3)Requires governing boards of LEAs serving students entering grade 9 that do not have a fair, objective, and transparent mathematics placement policy as of January 1, 2016, to develop and adopt in a regularly scheduled public meeting a fair, objective, and transparent mathematics placement policy before the beginning of the 2016-17 school year that: a) Systematically takes multiple, objective academic measures into consideration. b) Defines "objective academic measures" to mean measures such as statewide mathematics assessments, including interim and summative assessments; placement tests that are aligned to state-adopted content standards in mathematics; classroom assignments and grades; and report cards. c) Includes at least one placement checkpoint within the first month of the school year to ensure accurate placement. SB 359 Page 3 d) Requires annual examination of aggregate pupil placement data to ensure that students who are qualified to progress in mathematics courses based on their performance on objective academic measures are not held back in a disproportionate manner on the basis of their race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic background. e) Requires LEAs to report the aggregate results of this examination to their governing boards. f) Offers clear and timely recourse for each student and his or her parent or guardian who questions the student's placement. g) For non-unified school districts, addresses the consistency of mathematics placement policies between elementary and high school districts. 1)States that LEAs serving students who are transitioning between elementary and middle or junior high schools may develop and implement policies meeting the criteria above. 2)Requires LEAs to post their mathematics placement policies on their Web sites. 3)Defines "local educational agency" to mean a county office of education, school district, state special school, or charter school. FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations SB 359 Page 4 Committee, unknown Proposition 98/General Fund state mandated costs, likely in the low millions, for LEAs without a mathematics placement policy to develop and implement one in accordance with the requirements of this bill. Costs to the state would depend on the number of LEAs that would be required to develop a placement policy. For illustration, assuming roughly half of all school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools serving students entering 9th grade were required to implement a policy, statewide costs would range from $2.8 million to $5.8 million. This assumes average LEA administrative costs in the range of $4,000 to $8,000 per LEA. COMMENTS: Need for the bill. According to the author's office, "Math misplacement occurs when 9th grade students are held back to repeat their 8th grade math course despite achieving a "B" grade or better, or testing at proficient or advanced on state assessments, instead of being placed in the next course in the recommended math sequence as a freshman in high school. Most universities, including the California State University and the University of California, require at least three years of math for college eligibility and prefer students who have taken high-level math courses such as Calculus or Advanced Placement Statistics. Failing to take high level math classes in high school can have significant ramifications on the student's future economic success." Study finds many students who successfully pass algebra in 8th grade placed in same course in 9th grade. A 2010 study by the Noyce Foundation which examined the math placement practices of nine school districts and their effect on 1,700 students found: 1)Forty-six percent of 8th grade algebra students who earned a SB 359 Page 5 grade of B- or better were placed in Algebra again in 9th grade, or dropped to a less advanced course. 2)Forty-five percent of 8th grade algebra students who met or exceeded standards on standardized assessments (California Standards Test or the formative Mathematics Assessment Resource Service assessments) were placed in algebra again in 9th grade. 3)Nearly half of the students who were successful in algebra in the 8th grade and who were placed again in Algebra in 9th grade were no more successful in their second experience. 4)Evidence suggesting (but is not generalizable because of the methodology of this study) that Latino, African American, and Pacific Islander students who were successful in 8th grade algebra were less likely than other students to be placed in algebra again in 9th grade. A new definition of "math misplacement". Prior to the publication of the above data, "math misplacement" was typically considered to mean the placement of students in courses for which they were academically unprepared. The state's Mathematics Framework states that "[math] misplacement is common," and devotes the discussion of this problem predominantly to the problem of students' lack of readiness for the course. Enrollment in 8th grade algebra has increased dramatically in recent years, from 32% to 54% between 2003 and 2009, according to the CDE. Scores on the California Standards Test in algebra increased for students overall during this period, but scores have risen more dramatically for low income, English learner, African American, and Latino students, as well as students with disabilities. SB 359 Page 6 Yet concerns persist about inappropriate placement in this course. These concerns are based in part on proficiency scores on the California Standards Test, but also on the observations that many students retake algebra in 9th grade, and that many retake the algebra CST (which occurs each time a student takes the course). The misplacement data presented above raises the question: could some part of California's students' math "failure" actually be success in disguise? How do schools determine math placement? Current law is silent with regard to mathematics placement policies and practices. The state's Mathematics Framework states: Most districts typically rely on teacher recommendations and course grades to determine course placement (Bitter and O'Day 2010, page 6), with standardized mathematics test scores, student/parent preferences, and counselor recommendations also factoring into the decision (Hallinan 2003). Teacher and counselor placement recommendations include subjective judgments about "students' personalities, behavior and motivation" in addition to test score performance. [emphasis added] What causes math misplacement? There are several factors which have been identified as leading to students' misplacement in math courses in 9th grade. Among them are: 1)Over-reliance on subjective measures. Use of subjective measures to determine placement may be a significant factor in math misplacement. Research on math placement illustrates the potential consequences of over-reliance on subjective judgments in placement decisions: SB 359 Page 7 a) A 2014 longitudinal study of placement of students in algebra in 8th grade investigated the relationship between standardized test scores and teacher evaluation of students' math skills on math placement. It found that African American students had two-thirds the chance of being placed in algebra than other students of the same ability. For white students, test scores were a stronger predictor of algebra placement than teacher evaluation, but for African American students, teacher evaluations significantly outweighed test scores. Students who had high test scores but low teacher evaluations had only one-tenth the rate of algebra placement as students who had high test scores and high teacher evaluations. For high-achieving African American students, the rate of algebra placement was 40% lower than for high-achieving white students. Even for African American students with high test scores and high teacher evaluations, the rate of placement was no higher than for those African American students with average scores and evaluations. b) Another study of math placement in an urban school district found that among 8th grade students scoring in the highest quartile on a statewide standardized assessment of mathematics, placement in the 9th grade "gatekeeper" mathematics courses differed dramatically by schools within the same district. Overall, 27% of high scoring students were not placed in appropriate courses, and low socio-economic students were three times as likely as wealthier students to be denied appropriate placement. The school observed to have a culture of low expectations placed the least number of high-achieving students in the appropriate courses. 2)Poor timing of data availability from some objective measures. Data from statewide assessments has historically been available only after placement recommendations have been made. This should improve, however, with the state's new, SB 359 Page 8 computer-based assessments, which will produce test scores for non-performance items within weeks after test administration. 3)Absence of consistently-applied policies. There is no statewide data on school districts' math policies. Some districts, such as Capistrano Unified School District, do have clear placement policies posted on their Web sites. But anecdotal evidence suggests that some school districts either lack a formal, publicly-accessible placement policy, or that their existing policies are not applied consistently. 4)Lack of coordination between middle and high schools. A 2012 report by WestEd, "College Bound in Middle School and High School? How Math Course Sequences Matter," found poor coordination between middle and high schools in math placement, reporting that of the districts studied, "none had focused on the relationship between students' math performance in early middle school and later course taking and achievement," reflecting a "disjuncture, or lack of communication, between middle- and high-school staff." It noted that "middle-school staff never learned how their students fared in high school; high-school teachers do not systematically seem to know how their students had performed in middle school before transitioning to high school." 5)Wide variation in course names. As noted above, there are many names for mathematics courses used by school districts, and this variation may result in improper course placement in the transition between schools and districts. 6)Parental involvement. Research has demonstrated that more educated parents are more likely to intervene in mathematics course placement decisions affecting their children. SB 359 Page 9 7)Concern in high schools about quality of 8th grade algebra courses. A 2009 EdSource report notes a concern, expressed by the CDE, that "some students who pass algebra I in grade eight might be placed in the course again by high schools that criticize the quality of 8th grade courses." 8)Non-unified districts. For non-unified school districts, math placement policies may not consistently align between elementary feeder districts and high school districts. 9)Lack of sufficient counselors. Likely contributing to the problem of math misplacement is California's poor counselor-to-student ratio. In 2010-2011, the state ranked last in the nation, with one counselor for every 1,016 students. What happens when districts implement a math placement policy based on objective measures? According to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, twenty-two school districts are actively working to improve their math placement practices. One of these, the Sequoia Union High School District, reviewed its math placement practices and found that math misplacement was occurring almost exclusively among students of color coming from a lower income area. They examined the reasons why teachers were recommending that students who had succeeded in algebra were being placed in algebra again, and found a variety of reasons, from concerns that students didn't pay enough attention in class, to poor homework completion, to a general perception that students weren't ready to face academic challenges. Sequoia Union High School District began placing students in math courses based on test scores, and within a year had achieved "accurate placement" aligned to ability between 96% and 99% of the time. SB 359 Page 10 Math misplacement may begin even earlier than 8th grade. While there is no statewide data on math placement practices in the transition between elementary and middle school, limited evidence suggests that math misplacement may occur at this juncture as well. For example, the Fremont Unified School district Web site states that sixth grade students must take a math placement test, and that "no changes may be made to a student's math course pathway until after 9th grade." It also states that absent students must take the placement test on the day they return to school or they will "will lose the opportunity to accelerate and will automatically be placed in the non-accelerated course." While the 8th to 9th grade transition is a critical one, math misplacement may occur long before. This bill includes a permissive statement on the inclusion of the elementary to middle school transition in math placement policies. Analysis Prepared by: Tanya Lieberman / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0001829