BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 47 Page 1 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 AB 47 Page 2 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 AB 47 Page 3 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 AB 47 Page 4 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 AB 47 Page 5 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 AB 47 Page 6 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 AB 47 Page 7 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