Pupil instruction: academic content standards: update of adopted standards.

Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt statewide academic content standards in the core curriculum areas of reading, writing, and mathematics, and requires the Academic Content Standards Commission to develop academic content standards in language arts and mathematics. Existing law authorizes the Superintendent of Public Instruction to recommend, and authorizes the state board to approve, modifications to the common core academic content standards in mathematics, as specified. Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to recommend to the state board revisions to the visual and performing arts content standards in the subjects of dance, theater, music, and visual arts, and to recommend visual and performing arts standards in the subject of media arts, and requires the state board to adopt, reject, or modify the recommendations. Commencing January 1, 2021, this bill would require the Superintendent, in consultation with the Instructional Quality Commission and based on certain considerations, to make a recommendation to the state board regarding the need, or lack of need, to revise the academic content standards in the subject of the curriculum framework that will be revised, and to notify the Governor and the Legislature of this recommendation. The bill would require the state board, at a public meeting, to adopt or reject the recommendation of the Superintendent in accordance with a specified procedure. If the state board determines that the academic content standards need to be updated, the bill would require the Superintendent to convene an academic content standards review committee to recommend to the commission updates to the standards, as specified. The bill would dissolve the committee after it provides this recommendation. The bill would require the Superintendent, following receipt of the recommendation by the Instructional Quality Commission, to recommend the revised standards to the state board. The bill would make the convening of each academic content standards review committee contingent upon an appropriation in the annual Budget Act for the appropriate fiscal year. The bill would require the state board, within 120 days, to adopt, reject, or modify the revised standards at a public meeting in accordance with a specified procedure. The bill would require the Superintendent, by January 1, 2021, and in consultation with the Instructional Quality Commission, to send a proposal to the state board and the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature for a modified process of revising standards for instances in which only very minor revisions to a set of academic content standards are necessary, and for which it would be inadvisable to dedicate the time and expense to comply with the process established by this bill.