BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 47
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          Date of Hearing:   March 30, 2011

                           ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
                                Julia Brownley, Chair
                  AB 47 (Huffman) - As Introduced:  December 6, 2010
           
          SUBJECT  :   Schools: open enrollment.

           SUMMARY  :   Makes changes to the Open Enrollment (OE) Act, as 
          specified.  Specifically,  this bill  :  

          1)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to 
            annually create a list of up to 1,000 schools that are 
            eligible for open enrollment.

          2)Deletes the requirement that a local educational agency (LEA) 
            shall not have more than 10% of its schools on the OE list; 
            and, deletes the specification that the number of schools 
            identified within a LEA for the OE program be divisible by 10.

          3)Requires schools on the open enrollment list to be ranked in 
            decile one of the most current year's growth Academic 
            Performance Index (API).

          4)Specifies that county offices of education operating a special 
            education program and state special schools shall not be 
            included on the open enrollment list.

           EXISTING STATE LAW  :  

           1)Open Enrollment Act  : The Open Enrollment program allows any 
            pupil enrolled in one of 1000 schools identified by the SPI as 
            low achieving to enroll in a higher performing school anywhere 
            in the state.  The list of 1000 schools is established by 
            ranking schools based on the academic performance index (API), 
            making the following exclusions from the list: county 
            community schools, community day schools, juvenile court 
            schools, charter schools, any school that would make a school 
            district have more than 10% of its schools in the program, and 
            any school that would disrupt the balance of elementary, 
            middle and high schools ranked in decile one based on the API 
            in the 2008-09 school year.  Districts of enrollment (DOE) are 
            required to ensure that communications to parents do not 
            target individual families or neighborhoods.  DOEs are 
            authorized to adopt written standards for acceptance and 








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            rejection of applications, including consideration of adverse 
            financial impact pupil transfers may have on a school 
            district; and, requires that the standards adopted by the DOE 
            for accepting or rejecting student transfers not include 
            consideration of a pupil's family income, or any of the 
            individual characteristics set forth in Education Code Section 
            200, and encourages districts to keep records on the personal 
            characteristics of students that transfer under this program.  
            The SPI is required to contract for an independent evaluation 
            of the program, and provide the final report of the evaluation 
            to the Legislature, Governor, and state board of education 
            (SBE) on or before October 1, 2014.  (Education Code 
            48350-48361)

           2)District of Choice  : Under the District of Choice (DOC) 
            program, a school board may declare the district to be a DOC 
            willing to accept a specified number of inter-district 
            transfers.  The DOC program provides protections against 
            districts targeting students in specific residential 
            neighborhoods, on the basis of a child's actual or perceived 
            academic or athletic performance or any other personal 
            characteristic.  A DOC may reject the transfer of a pupil if 
            the transfer of that pupil would require the district to 
            create a new program to serve that pupil, except that a DOC 
            shall not reject the transfer of a special needs pupil, 
            including an individual with exceptional needs, and an English 
            learner.  DOCs are required to collect specific data about the 
            students who transfer to their district and report that data 
            to surrounding districts and to the state.  This data is 
            required to be reported annually to the Legislature and the 
            Governor, and the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) is 
            required to prepare a comprehensive evaluation of the program. 
             (Education Code 48300-48316)

           EXISTING FEDERAL LAW  :

          1)Requires schools identified under program improvement (PI) to 
            provide pupils the option to transfer to another school within 
            the district that has not been identified for PI.  Requires 
            school districts, where schools within the district have been 
            identified for PI, to provide transportation for pupils who 
            transfer to other schools within the school district. 

          2)Requires school districts identified for corrective action to 
            authorize pupils to transfer from a school operated by the 








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            school district to another higher performing school operated 
            by another school district, and provide transportation for the 
            pupil to that school.  The obligation of the school district 
            to provide transportation for the pupil ends at the end of the 
            school year if a school district determines that the school 
            from which a pupil transferred is no longer identified for PI. 
             

           FISCAL EFFECT  :   This bill is keyed non-fiscal, however, the 
          Assembly Appropriations Committee has requested to hear this 
          bill.  If this bill is passed by the Assembly 
          Education Committee, it will be referred to the Committee on 
          Appropriations to consider the fiscal implications.

           COMMENTS  :  This bill makes changes to the Open Enrollment 
          program by: specifying that the SPI shall identify up to 1000 
          schools for OE; deleting the 10% cap on the number of schools 
          identified in any individual school district; specifying that 
          schools on the OE list shall be ranked in decile one of the most 
          current year's growth API; and, specifying that county offices 
          of education operating a special education program and state 
          special schools shall not be included on the OE list.

           Higher Achieving Schools on the Open Enrollment List  :  Since the 
          implementation of the OE program began, many schools and 
          districts have come forward expressing frustration with their 
          identification as a "low performing school" despite their 
          success in achieving API scores in the 700-800+ range.  The 
          committee should consider whether it is appropriate to identify 
          schools with API scores in the 700-800+ range as "low achieving" 
          for purposes of the OE program.  The committee should also 
          consider whether to implement an API cutoff, so that schools 
          with an API over a certain number cannot be identified for the 
          OE program.  In addition, the committee may wish to consider 
          adding a growth component to the identification criteria, for 
          example, if the school is below the an API cutoff score of 700, 
          but has achieved growth of 50 points on their API in the prior 
          year, perhaps the school should not be identified on the OE 
          list.  Also, the committee should consider limiting the schools 
          identified to those that fall below these criteria for two 
          consecutive years, in order to account for fluctuations in a 
          school's API score.  

           The 10% Cap  :  Existing law limits the number of schools that can 
          be identified for the OE program within a district to 10% of the 








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          total number of schools in the district.  Existing law also 
          specifies that if the number of schools in a school district is 
          not evenly divisible by 10, then the number of schools shall be 
          rounded to the next whole number of schools. This means that if 
          a district has between one and 10 schools, a maximum of one 
          school can be identified on the OE list; and, if a district has 
          between 11-20 schools then a maximum of two schools can be 
          identified, etc.  Since these provisions of current law provide 
          basic protections for school districts from having a majority, 
          or even all, of their schools identified for OE at one time, the 
          committee should consider reinstating these sections.

           Ongoing Open Enrollment Program Concerns  :  When the Assembly 
          Education Committee heard SB 4 X5 (Romero), which established 
          the OE program, the following concerns were expressed and 
          continue to persist:
          1)The DOC program, on which the OE program is modeled, includes 
            several safeguards that are not included in the OE program.  
            The committee should consider whether to include the same 
            safeguards in the OE program that exist for the DOC program, 
            which include: 
             a)   Including a sunset date for the program, so the 
               Legislature can consider the results of the evaluation and 
               decide whether to continue the program based on those 
               results.
             b)   Specifying explicitly that a district of enrollment may 
               not reject the transfer of a special needs pupil, and an 
               English learner.
             c)   Requiring each district of enrollment to keep records 
               of: 1) The number of requests granted, denied, or withdrawn 
               as well as the reasons for the denials; 2) The number of 
               pupils transferred out of the district; 3) The number of 
               pupils transferred into the district; and, 4) The race, 
               ethnicity, gender, self-reported socioeconomic status, and 
               the school district of residence of each of the pupils 
               described above.  
             d)   Requiring the information listed above to be reported to 
               the governing board of the district of enrollment and to 
               each school district that is geographically adjacent to the 
               district of enrollment, the county office of education in 
               which the district is located, the SPI, and the Department 
               of Finance (DOF). 
             e)   Requiring the information listed above to be annually 
               reported to the Legislature and the Governor.
          2)It is unclear whether the OE program requires districts of 








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            enrollment to accept any transfers under this program.  The 
            program specifies that a district can create standards for 
            accepting and rejecting students, and provides protections for 
            discrimination against individual students, but the program 
            may not prohibit a school district from rejecting all 
            transfers under this program.  For example, could a district 
            create a policy that says they will not accept any transfers 
            and/or could a district create a policy that rejects all 
            students from a specific district or school?  
          3)Existing law excludes charter schools from the list of schools 
            required to participate in the open enrollment program.  Of 
            the 945 schools ranked in decile one based on the API in 
            2008-09, there were 103 charter schools.  This means that 103 
            of California's lowest achieving charter schools are be 
            excluded from the open enrollment program and an equal number 
            of higher achieving traditional public schools are required to 
            participate in this program.  Since charter school pupils who 
            leave a charter school only have enrollment rights in their 
            district of residence, this exclusion will limit the 
            opportunity for charter school students to move to a 
            higher-performing school if they choose to leave their low 
            performing (charter) school.  There is no clear rationale for 
            limiting the opportunity for charter school pupils to leave a 
            low-performing school, and treating charter pupils differently 
            than non-charter pupils in this respect.

           Arguments in Support  :  According to the Association of 
          California School Administrators (ACSA), "On behalf of more than 
          15,000 school, district and county office education leaders ACSA 
          is pleased to co-sponsor and support AB 47 which makes changes 
          to the methodology for identifying what are considered "low 
          performing schools" for the purpose of the new Open Enrollment 
          Act.  The unintended consequence of this law is that many higher 
          performing schools are currently labeled as "failing" when they 
          are not.  In the rush to create a political compromise during 
          last year's Race to the Top discussions the Open Enrollment Act 
          was created with significant flaws.  AB 47 intends to remedy 
          those flaws keeping intact the basic premise of the statute."

           Previous Legislation  : SB 4 X5 (Romero) created the Open 
          Enrollment program, which allows any pupil enrolled in one of 
          1000 schools identified by the SPI as low achieving to enroll in 
          a higher performing school anywhere in the state, as specified. 

           Committee Amendments  :  Staff recommends the following 








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          amendments: 
          1)Include a sunset date of June 30, 2015 for the program. 
          2)Specify explicitly that a district of enrollment may not 
            reject the transfer of a special needs pupil, including an 
            individual with exceptional needs as defined in Education Code 
            56026, and an English learner.
          3)Require each district of enrollment to keep transfer records 
            and require the records to be reported to the governing board 
            of the district of enrollment and to each school district that 
            is geographically adjacent to the district of enrollment, the 
            county office of education in which the district is located, 
            the SPI, and DOF; and, require the information listed above to 
            be annually reported to the Legislature and the Governor.
          4)Require districts of enrollment to create standards for 
            accepting and rejecting students that includes a process for 
            accepting some number of students according to capacity.
          5)Include charter schools on the OE list.
          6)Delete the requirement that schools on the open enrollment 
            list be identified in decile one and instead specify that 
            schools with an API score of more than 700 and schools with a 
            prior year API growth of 50 points or more shall not be 
            included on the list.  Also specify that schools shall only be 
            eligible for OE if they are identified on the OE list for two 
            consecutive years.
          7)Reinstate the 10% cap on the number of schools that can be 
            identified for OE in a school district and clarify the process 
            for calculating the 10% cap for school districts for which the 
            number of schools in the district is not evenly divisible by 
            10.  This language will clarify that school districts with 
            between one and 10 schools shall have a maximum of one school 
            identified on the OE list, districts with 11-20 schools shall 
            have a maximum of two schools identified, etc.

           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :   

           Support 
           
          Alhambra Unified School District
          Association of California School Administrators
          California Association of Suburban School Districts
          California State PTA
          Central Unified School District
          Clovis Unified School District 
          Eastside Union School District
          Fremont Unified School District








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          Los Angeles County Office of Education
          Moorpark Unified School District
          Newhall School District
          Ocean View School District
          Park Middle School
          Pasadena Unified School District
          Plumas Unified School District
          Public Advocates, Inc.
          Riverside County School Superintendents' Association
          San Jose Unified School District
          San Rafael City Schools
          San Ysidro School District
          Silver Valley Unified School District
          Small School Districts' Association
          Special Education Local Plan Area Administrators
          Upland Unified School District
          Several Individuals

           Opposition 
           
          None on file.
           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    Chelsea Kelley / ED. / (916) 319-2087