AN ACT Relating to integrating career readiness standards and instruction into the program of basic education; amending RCW 28A.700.070 and 28A.655.070; creating new sections; and providing an expiration date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 2.  RCW 28A.700.070 and 2014 c 217 s 101 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall support school district efforts under RCW 28A.230.097 to adopt course equivalencies for career and technical courses by:

(a) Recommending career and technical curriculum suitable for course equivalencies;

(b) Publicizing best practices for high schools and school districts in developing and adopting course equivalencies; and

(c) In consultation with the Washington association for career and technical education, providing professional development, technical assistance, and guidance for school districts seeking to expand their lists of equivalent courses.

(2) The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall provide professional development, technical assistance, and guidance for school districts to develop career and technical course equivalencies that also qualify as advanced placement courses.

(3) The office of the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with one or more technical working groups convened for this purpose, shall develop curriculum frameworks for a selected list of career and technical courses that may be offered by high schools or skill centers whose content in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is considered equivalent in full or in part to science or mathematics courses that meet high school graduation requirements. The content of the courses must be aligned with state essential academic learning requirements in mathematics as adopted by the superintendent of public instruction in July 2011 and the essential academic learning requirements in science as adopted in October 2013, and industry standards. The office shall submit the list of equivalent career and technical courses and their curriculum frameworks to the state board of education for review, an opportunity for public comment, and approval. The first list of courses under this subsection must be developed and approved before the 2015-16 school year. Thereafter, the office may periodically update or revise the list of courses using the process in this subsection.

(4) The office of the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with one or more technical working groups convened for this purpose, shall develop a curriculum framework for a career and technical education course that may be offered by high schools, in which the content in social studies education is considered equivalent in full or in part to social studies courses that meet high school graduation requirements, including those that incorporate instruction in civics and financial literacy. The framework should also include the development of a high school and beyond plan satisfying the requirement of RCW 28A.230.090. The content of the course must be aligned with state essential academic learning requirements in social studies as adopted by the superintendent of public instruction, and be aligned with standards of career readiness as established in RCW 28A.655.070. The office shall submit the curriculum framework to the state board of education for review, an opportunity for public comment, and approval, and shall be available for implementation before the 2018-19 school year.

(5) Subject to funds appropriated for this purpose, the office of the superintendent of public instruction shall allocate grant funds to school districts to increase the integration and rigor of academic instruction in career and technical courses. Grant recipients are encouraged to use grant funds to support teams of academic and technical teachers using a research-based professional development model supported by the national research center for career and technical education. The office of the superintendent of public instruction may require that grant recipients provide matching resources using federal Carl Perkins funds or other fund sources.

Sec. 3.  RCW 28A.655.070 and 2015 c 211 s 3 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The superintendent of public instruction shall develop essential academic learning requirements that identify the knowledge and skills all public school students need to know and be able to do based on the student learning goals in RCW 28A.150.210, develop student assessments, and implement the accountability recommendations and requests regarding assistance, rewards, and recognition of the state board of education.

(2) The superintendent of public instruction shall:

(a) Periodically revise the essential academic learning requirements, as needed, based on the student learning goals in RCW 28A.150.210. Goals one and two shall be considered primary. ((To the maximum extent possible)) Before the 2018-19 school year, the superintendent shall ((integrate)) develop a set of career readiness standards to guide the full integration of goal four and the knowledge and skill areas in the other goals in the essential academic learning requirements; and

(b) Review and prioritize the essential academic learning requirements and identify, with clear and concise descriptions, the grade level content expectations to be assessed on the statewide student assessment and used for state or federal accountability purposes. The review, prioritization, and identification shall result in more focus and targeting with an emphasis on depth over breadth in the number of grade level content expectations assessed at each grade level. Grade level content expectations shall be articulated over the grades as a sequence of expectations and performances that are logical, build with increasing depth after foundational knowledge and skills are acquired, and reflect, where appropriate, the sequential nature of the discipline. The office of the superintendent of public instruction, within seven working days, shall post on its web site any grade level content expectations provided to an assessment vendor for use in constructing the statewide student assessment.

(3)(a) In consultation with the state board of education, the superintendent of public instruction shall maintain and continue to develop and revise a statewide academic assessment system in the content areas of reading, writing, mathematics, and science for use in the elementary, middle, and high school years designed to determine if each student has mastered the essential academic learning requirements identified in subsection (1) of this section. School districts shall administer the assessments under guidelines adopted by the superintendent of public instruction. The academic assessment system may include a variety of assessment methods, including criterion-referenced and performance-based measures.

(b) Effective with the 2009 administration of the Washington assessment of student learning and continuing with the statewide student assessment, the superintendent shall redesign the assessment in the content areas of reading, mathematics, and science in all grades except high school by shortening test administration and reducing the number of short answer and extended response questions.

(c) By the 2014-15 school year, the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with the state board of education, shall modify the statewide student assessment system to transition to assessments developed with a multistate consortium, as provided in this subsection:

(i) The assessments developed with a multistate consortium to assess student proficiency in English language arts and mathematics shall be administered beginning in the 2014-15 school year. The reading and writing assessments shall not be administered by the superintendent of public instruction or schools after the 2013-14 school year.

(ii) The high school assessments in English language arts and mathematics in (c)(i) of this subsection shall be used for the purposes of earning a certificate of academic achievement for high school graduation under the timeline established in RCW 28A.655.061 and for assessing student career and college readiness.

(iii) During the transition period specified in RCW 28A.655.061, the superintendent of public instruction shall use test items and other resources from the consortium assessment to develop and administer a tenth grade high school English language arts assessment, an end-of-course mathematics assessment to assess the standards common to algebra I and integrated mathematics I, and an end-of-course mathematics assessment to assess the standards common to geometry and integrated mathematics II.

(4) If the superintendent proposes any modification to the essential academic learning requirements or the statewide assessments, then the superintendent shall, upon request, provide opportunities for the education committees of the house of representatives and the senate to review the assessments and proposed modifications to the essential academic learning requirements before the modifications are adopted.

(5) The assessment system shall be designed so that the results under the assessment system are used by educators as tools to evaluate instructional practices, and to initiate appropriate educational support for students who have not mastered the essential academic learning requirements at the appropriate periods in the student's educational development.

(6) By September 2007, the results for reading and mathematics shall be reported in a format that will allow parents and teachers to determine the academic gain a student has acquired in those content areas from one school year to the next.

(7) To assist parents and teachers in their efforts to provide educational support to individual students, the superintendent of public instruction shall provide as much individual student performance information as possible within the constraints of the assessment system's item bank. The superintendent shall also provide to school districts:

(a) Information on classroom-based and other assessments that may provide additional achievement information for individual students; and

(b) A collection of diagnostic tools that educators may use to evaluate the academic status of individual students. The tools shall be designed to be inexpensive, easily administered, and quickly and easily scored, with results provided in a format that may be easily shared with parents and students.

(8) To the maximum extent possible, the superintendent shall integrate knowledge and skill areas in development of the assessments.

(9) Assessments for goals three and four of RCW 28A.150.210 shall be integrated in the essential academic learning requirements and assessments for goals one and two.

(10) The superintendent shall develop assessments that are directly related to the essential academic learning requirements, and are not biased toward persons with different learning styles, racial or ethnic backgrounds, or on the basis of gender.

(11) The superintendent shall consider methods to address the unique needs of special education students when developing the assessments under this section.

(12) The superintendent shall consider methods to address the unique needs of highly capable students when developing the assessments under this section.

(13) The superintendent shall post on the superintendent's web site lists of resources and model assessments in social studies, the arts, and health and fitness.

(14) The superintendent shall integrate financial education skills and content knowledge into the state learning standards pursuant to RCW 28A.300.460(2)(d).

(2)(a) The work group shall be convened by the office of the superintendent of public instruction and must include representatives from the state board of education, business and labor members of the state workforce training and education coordinating board, the office of the superintendent of public instruction, the state board for community and technical colleges, and the student achievement council.

(b) The work group may invite, at its discretion, representatives from public and private Washington institutions of higher education and other agencies to provide advice and expertise.

(3) The purpose of the work group is to:

(a) Review examples of definitions and standards of career readiness adopted by other states;

(b) Review policies and practices in place in other states to integrate standards of career readiness into classroom instruction provided throughout the primary and secondary stages of public school;

(c) Review policies and practices in place in other states to integrate the development of a high school and beyond plan into the course-taking options and the identification of career pathway options for students; and

(d) Recommend a set of career readiness standards for consideration by the state board of education and the workforce training and education coordinating board, and eventual adoption by the superintendent.

(4)(a) The work group shall present its recommendations developed pursuant to subsection (3) of this section jointly to the state board of education and the workforce training and education coordinating board by September 15, 2017.

(b) The state board of education and the workforce training and education coordinating board shall report recommendations approved by both boards in a report to the education committees of the legislature by December 1, 2017.

(c) The superintendent shall adopt standards according to the requirements and timeline in RCW 28A.655.070.

(5) This section expires July 1, 2018.

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