FINAL BILL REPORT

                                    SB 5474

PARTIAL VETO

                                  C 235 L 91

                              SYNOPSIS AS ENACTED

Brief Description:  Planning a data collection and reporting system on children.

SPONSORS:Senators Rinehart, Bailey, Murray, West and Bauer.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

BACKGROUND:

The state collects data about a wide variety of factors known to affect children's readiness to learn and perform to their potential in school, including poverty, child abuse and neglect, teenage pregnancy and childbearing, health status, etc.  Because the data is collected by several agencies, and various programs within agencies, there is little consistency in the way the data is collected or reported.  This limits the ability of local school districts and local and state government to use the data for the planning and evaluation of intervention programs.  It also limits the ability of policymakers to use the data in making resource allocation determinations.

It has been suggested that as education reform shifts greater control of education to the local level, the ability to readily access and use state data will become increasingly important, not only for planning by local school districts, but for state efforts to hold school districts accountable for their performance.

Improvements in technologies such as geographic information technology (which allows computerized data such as census data to be fed into a computer and displayed in map form) have opened new possibilities in data reporting.  Some state agencies have met informally to discuss ways of using such technology and taking other collaborative steps to improve the collection and reporting of state data regarding children. 

Under current law, school districts are required annually to report dropout statistics to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).  They must report the number of students in grades 9 through 12 who leave school during the year, by high school program, grade, ethnicity and reason for leaving school.  Some school districts have begun using the proposed student tracking definitions for their own analytic purposes.  These allow districts to account for the progress of all students, not just dropouts.

SUMMARY:

An interagency task force is created to improve the collection and reporting of data about conditions affecting the education and well-being of children.  The primary objective of the task force is to provide data aggregated by school districts for use by school districts and state and local policymakers in the planning and evaluation of local and state education programs, practices, and activities.

Task force membership will include representatives from specified state agencies, school districts, the courts, cities, counties, and legislative staff.  The Washington State Institute for Public Policy will coordinate and staff the task force.

The task force will:  identify the likely uses of demographic data on the education and well-being of children, and determine what type of data is needed, or would be useful, in the planning and evaluation of local and state education programs, practices, and activities; determine the feasibility, cost, and actions required to aggregate the data; determine the feasibility, cost, and actions required to report the data, providing for quality control and appropriate confidentiality and privacy safeguards; identify measures necessary to ensure the adequate collection and reporting of the data, including the use of common data definitions and reporting timelines; implement those actions that can be taken with little or no cost, and identify actions, with proposed timelines, for which additional resources are required; and examine related issues as the task force deems appropriate.  The task force will report its findings to the Legislature by December 1, 1991.

In addition to the dropout data they currently report, school districts annually must report to OSPI, for each of their high school programs:  number of students eligible for graduation in fewer than four years; number who graduate in four years; number who remain in school for more than four years but eventually graduate; number who remain in school for more than four years but do not graduate; number who transfer to other schools; number who enter from other schools; number in the ninth through twelfth grade who drop out of school over a four-year period; and number whose status is unknown.

School districts must report the dropout rates for students in each of grades 9 through 12 by ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and disability status.  The new dropout data collection provisions expire June 1, 1994.

VOTES ON FINAL PASSAGE:

Senate      45    1

House 61    37    (House amended)

Senate                  (Senate refused to concur)

House             (House refused to recede)

Conference Committee

House 72    26

Senate      22    25    (Failed)

Senate      29    18    (Reconsidered)

EFFECTIVE:  July 28, 1991

Partial Veto Summary:  The expiration clause of the new dropout data collection provisions is deleted.  (See VETO MESSAGE)