BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-12 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 401
AUTHOR: Ammiano
AMENDED: May 12, 2011
FISCAL COMM: No HEARING DATE: June 15, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : Charter Schools.
SUMMARY
This bill limits, until January 1, 2017, the maximum number
of charter schools authorized to operate in the state to
1,450 and prohibits charter schools operated by a private
entity from employing relatives of charter school personnel,
as specified.
BACKGROUND
Existing law, the Charter Schools act of 1992, provides for
the establishment of charter schools in California for the
purpose, among other things, of improving student learning
and expanding learning experiences for pupils who are
identified as academically low achieving. Charter schools
may be authorized by a school district governing board, a
county board of education, or the State Board of Education.
Existing law limited the maximum number of charter schools
authorized to operate in the 1998-99 school year to 250 and
authorizes an additional 100 charter schools to operate in
each year thereafter. There are over 900 authorized charter
schools with statewide student enrollment of more than
323,000 pupils. (Education Code § 47601 et. seq.)
Existing law authorizes anyone to develop, circulate, and
submit a petition to establish a charter school, and requires
charter developers to collect certain signatures in support
of the petition, as specified. Current law requires
governing boards to grant a charter if it is satisfied that
the charter is consistent with sound educational practice and
authorizes the governing board to deny a charter petition if
the governing board makes written factual findings that
demonstrate that the petition does not meet certain criteria
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and does not provide reasonably comprehensive descriptions of
16 required elements, including descriptions of the
qualifications to be met by individuals to be employed at the
school. (EC § 47605)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Specifies that in the 2012-13 school year and in each
successive school year thereafter, the maximum total
number of charter schools authorized to operate in
California is 1,450. Specifies that the cap is to
remain in effect until January 1, 2017, and repeals the
cap as of that date unless a later enacted statute that
is enacted before January 1, 2017, deletes or extends
that date.
2) Prohibits specified personnel that work for a charter
school operated by a private entity, from appointing,
employing, promoting, advancing, or advocating for the
appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement in or
to a position in the charter school over which the
charter school personnel exercise jurisdiction or
control, any individual who is a relative.
3) Specifies that an individual shall not be appointed,
employed, promoted, or advanced in or to a position in a
charter school if the appointment, employment,
promotion, or advancement was advocated by charter
school personnel who serve in or exercise jurisdiction
or control over the charter school and who is a relative
of the individual, or if the appointment, employment,
promotion, or advancement is made by the governing body
of which a relative of the individual is a member.
4) Requires a petition for a charter school to include full
disclosure of the identity of each individual who is or
plans to be employed by the charter school and who is a
relative of charter school personnel as defined.
5) Specifies that a "position in a charter school" includes
contracts for services for the benefit of a charter
school.
6) Defines "charter school personnel" to include the
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charter school owner, president, chairperson of the
governing body, superintendent, governing body member,
principal, assistant principal, or any other person
employed by the charter school who has equivalent
decision making authority.
7) Defines "relative" as a parent, child, sibling, uncle,
aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, spouse,
father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law,
daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law,
stepparent, stepsibling, stepchild, half brother or half
sister.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill : According to the author's office,
"many reports, including a 2009 report by the Center for
Research and Education Outcomes (CREDO) demonstrate that
charter schools are not the panacea for closing the
achievement gap." The CREDO study, based on
longitudinal student achievement data in 15 states
(including California) and the District of Columbia
found charter school performance varied widely; only 17
percent of charter schools performed significantly
better than traditional public schools, with 46 percent
of charter schools demonstrating no significant
difference.
According to the sponsor of this bill, the California
Federation of Teachers (CFT), "charter schools and their
governing boards face little accountability. Charter
school board members do not have to sign conflict of
interest forms and administrative leaders can employ or
promote relatives in the charter school, potentially
resulting in unqualified employees being paid for jobs
they are unable or unwilling to perform." The
California Federation of Teachers (CFT) also maintains
that "without proper oversight of school board members
and the charter administration, issues of nepotism and
financial misconduct arise, leading to inconsistency in
the quality of the charter schools being authorized and
opportunities for malfeasance with taxpayer money."
According to the CFT, the purpose of AB 401 is to
strengthen accountability of charter schools and to
limit on the number of charter schools that may be
authorized until greater accountability is achieved.
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2) Charter school cap . The Charter School Act of 1992
provided for the establishment of 100 charter schools in
California. Subsequent legislation, AB 544 (Lempert,
Chapter 34, Statutes of 1998) increased the charter
school cap from 100 to 250 in the 1998-99 fiscal year
and specified "an additional 100 charter schools are
authorized to operate each successive school year." If
100 new charters had been authorized in each of those
years, the total number of authorized charters would be
1,450.
According to the California Department of Education (CDE),
there are approximately 910 active charter schools. In
the last ten years, on average, there were 86 charter
schools authorized each year. Assuming the number of
new authorizations continues at that rate, one could
estimate that the cap of 1,450 established by this bill
could be reached on the natural during the 2016-17
fiscal year, suggesting this bill may not have the
effect of constraining the establishment of new charter
schools. However, it is also possible that the rate of
increase could accelerate in coming years as a result of
the federal focus on using charter schools to leverage
educational reform and California's recent legislation
that enables parents to "trigger" the conversion of a
low-performing school into a charter school. The CDE
reports that there were 124 new authorizations in
2009-10 and 113 new charter schools have been authorized
in 2010-11. If the number of new charters authorized
each year is closer to 100, the cap proposed by this
bill would have the effect of restricting charter school
growth in the out years.
In recent years, state and federal policies have supported
the expansion of charter schools. In the competition
for the federal Race to the Top incentive grant program
(RTTP), for example, states that had restrictions on the
growth of charter schools, or had laws or regulations
that effectively inhibit the number of charter schools
were at a disadvantage in the application process, which
awarded points to states that had successful conditions
for high performing charter schools. Although the
proposed cap of 1,450 would allow for nearly 500 new
charters to be added by the sunset date, could
establishing a cap "send the wrong message" and make it
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more difficult for California to be successful in future
federal grant programs?
As a practical matter, it is not clear how the cap would
work, as most charter schools are approved by local
district or county governing boards. Since the state
does not have a single authorizer, the State Board of
Education or CDE does not control how many charters are
authorized. Would authorization for a new charter
school have to be revoked simply because the local board
unknowingly approved #1451? Moreover, the CREDO study
noted earlier in this analysis found that "states that
have limits on the number of charter schools permitted
to operate, known as caps, realize significantly lower
academic growth than states without caps." Finally, by
establishing a firm limit, could this bill result in
future legislation seeking exemptions from the cap for
particular types of charter schools such as dropout
recovery schools or for career-themed schools that
prepare students for college and careers? Given the
practical issues that could be raised by imposing a cap,
does it make sense to place a hard cap on charter
schools, even if the limit is temporary? Staff
recommends amendments to delete Section 1 of the bill.
3) Employment practices . This bill establishes
anti-nepotism employment standards for charter schools.
Proponents of this measure argue that as public schools,
charters should follow similar conflict of interest
practices as other entities funded with public dollars.
The provisions in this bill model existing charter
school law in Florida regarding employment prohibitions
and disclosure. Florida's charter law requires an
initial petition for a charter school to include full
disclosure of any relatives that have been hired by the
decision makers at the school, and it prohibits decision
makers at operational charter schools from hiring
relatives. While an argument can be made that as
recipients of public funds, charter school operators and
personnel who are in decision-making positions should
abide by the same conflict-of-interest rules as other
school officials, should exceptions be allowed for small
"start-up" schools or small and rural communities where
the most qualified individual or provider may be related
to a charter school official or member of its board?
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4) New petition requirement . This bill adds a new
requirement to the existing 16 required elements of the
charter school petition. Under the provisions of this
bill, charter school petitions would need to disclose
the identity of each person who is to be employed by the
charter school and who is a relative of specified
charter school personnel. While disclosing these
identities and relationships in the petition process may
provide governing boards more complete information
during the approval process, the last sentence of the
requirement appears to apply the requirement to any
contract for services for the benefit of the charter.
Given that paragraph (c) Section 47604.2 of this bill
extends the prohibition against appointing, employing,
promoting, or advancing relatives of charter school
personnel to contracts for services, and given that
there may not be any contract for services in place at
the time a petition to establish a charter school is
submitted for approval, is this provision necessary?
Should the Committee wish to pass this bill, staff
recommends amendments that would delete the last
sentence from subparagraph (Q) on page 7 of the bill.
5) Related and prior legislation . This bill is
substantially similar to AB 1982 (Ammiano, 2010), which
would have limited until January 1, 2017, the total
number of charter schools authorized to operate at 1450
and prohibits charter schools operated by a private
entity from employing relatives, as specified. This
bill was heard by the Senate Education Committee and
failed passage on a 3-4 vote.
SB 433 (Liu) would require charter schools to comply with
state statutes governing the suspension and expulsion of
pupils. This measure was heard in this Committee on May
4, 2011 and was held at the request of the author.
SB 645 (Simitian) establishes new academic criteria for
charter school renewal. This measure was passed as
amended by this Committee on May 4, 2011 on a 7-1 vote.
AB 86 (Mendoza) expands signature requirements for charter
school petitions to include classified employees. This
measure is pending before this Committee.
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AB 360 (Brownley) makes charter schools subject to the Ralph
M. Brown Act or Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, depending
on the entity operating the school. Also subjects
charters to the California Public Records Act and the
Political Reform Act. This measure is pending before
this Committee.
AB 440 (Brownley) establishes various academic and fiscal
accountability standards related to charter schools.
This measure is pending before this Committee.
AB 1034 (Gatto) requires charter schools to report specified
information relating to pupil demographics and academic
progress, requires charter schools to collect data
regarding pupils who transfer out of the school, and
modifies existing law regarding charter school
admissions. This measure is pending before this
Committee.
AB 1741 (Coto, 2010), would have required charter schools
that expect 15% of their pupil population to be English
learners to meet additional petition requirements
relating to the education of those students. This bill
was heard and passed as amended by the Senate Education
Committee and was subsequently held in the Senate Rules
Committee.
AB 1991 (Arambula, 2010) would have authorized charter school
renewals to be granted for five to ten years. This bill
failed passage in the Assembly Education Committee.
AB 2363 (Mendoza, 2010) would have required charter school
petitioners to obtain the signatures of half of the
number of teachers and half of the number of classified
employees, as specified. This bill was heard by the
Senate Education Committee and failed passage on a 2-6
vote.
AB 2320 (Swanson, 2010) would have added new requirements to
the charter school petition process, deletes the
authority of a charter school petitioner to submit a
petition to a County Board of Education to serve pupils
that would otherwise be served by the County Office of
Education, and eliminates the ability of the State Board
of Education to approve charter school petition appeals.
This bill was heard by the Senate Education Committee
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and failed passage on a 2-3 vote.
AB 572 (Brownley, 2009) would have required charter schools
to comply with the Brown Act open meeting law, the
California Public Records Act, and the Political Reform
Act. This bill was passed by the Senate Education
Committee and subsequently vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger.
ABX5 8 (Brownley, Fifth extraordinary session of 2009) would
have deleted the cap on charter schools and would have
made other changes to provisions governing audit and
fiscal standards, and the authorization, renewal and
revocation of charter schools. The Senate Education
Committee hearing for this bill was canceled at the
request of the author and the bill was subsequently held
by the Committee.
SUPPORT
California Federation of Teachers
California Labor Federation
California School Boards Association
California School Employees Association
California Teachers Association
San Francisco Unified School District
United Teachers Los Angeles
OPPOSITION
ACE Charter Schools
California Catholic Conference
California Charter Schools Association
Capistrano Connections Academy
Central California Connections Academy
Charter Schools Development Center
Coastal Grove Charter School
EdVoice
Granada Hills Charter High School
King-Chavez Neighborhood of Schools, CEO
Latino College Preparatory Academy
Leonardo Da Vinci Health Sciences Charter School
Lewis Center for Educational Research
Los Angeles Unified School District
MAAC Community Charter School
Mission Preparatory School
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Monarch Learning Center
Rocketship Education
School for Integrated Academics and Technologies