BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 377
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 17, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Joan Buchanan, Chair
AB 377 (Grove) - As Introduced: February 14, 2013
SUBJECT : Charter schools: average daily attendance:
independent study: online charter schools
SUMMARY : Authorizes a virtual or online charter school to
claim independent study average daily attendance (ADA) for
pupils who are residents of the county in which the
apportionment is reported or who are residents of any other
county in the state.
EXISTING LAW
1)Allows charter schools to claim independent study ADA only for
pupils who are residents of the county in which the
apportionment claim is reported or who are residents of an
immediately adjacent county.
2)Defines a "virtual or online charter school" as one in which
at least 80% of teaching and student interaction occurs via
the Internet (California Code of Regulations, Title V).
3)Requires a virtual or online charter school to demonstrate the
following in order to be funded:
a) The school has met its overall and subgroup API growth
targets;
b) Instructional expenditures are at least 85% of the
overall school budget and at least 25% is spent on
technology that directly benefits students and teachers and
results in improved student achievement;
c) Computer-based instruction and assessment is provided to
each pupil and includes the use of an online instructional
management program, as specified;
d) Teachers are provided with specified technology tools
and print media;
e) All pupils are provided an individualized learning plan
that is based on initial testing and that is monitored
either remotely or in person by the teacher to evaluate
pupil progress;
f) All pupils are provided access to a computer, Internet
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service, printer, monitor, and standards-aligned materials;
g) All pupils eligible for special education supports and
services receive those supports and services in accordance
with their individualized education plan; and
h) Charter school admission practices will not favor high
performing pupils or recruit a pupil population that is of
a higher socioeconomic group or lower racial or ethnic
representation than the general population of the county or
counties served.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : This bill removes the restriction that virtual
charter schools serve only pupils within the county or in an
adjacent county, thereby allowing virtual charter schools to
enroll pupils statewide.
Virtual schools underperform "brick and mortar" schools. The
use of online instruction has grown in recent years, but there
have been few well-controlled studies of its effectiveness with
K-12 students. This is the main finding from a review of the
research reported by the U. S. Department of Education (USDOE)
in September 2010 ("Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in
Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning
Studies"). The USDOE report contains the findings of a
meta-analysis of research on online learning, which concludes
that "on average, students in online learning conditions
performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face
instruction." However, the report cautions against generalizing
this finding to the K-12 population, because only five of the 45
studies in the analysis involved K-12 instruction. (The others
involved medical training, higher education, and other non-K-12
instruction.) All of the five K-12 studies involved blended
instruction, in which online learning is combined with
face-to-face instruction. Because blended instruction often
includes additional instructional time, the positive effects
observed with this approach may be the result of the additional
time on task, and cannot be attributed to the media, per se,
according to the USDOE report.
More recent studies indicate online instruction alone is not as
effective as regular classroom instruction:
A 2011 study of charter school performance in
Pennsylvania by the Center for Research on Education
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Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that each of
that state's 8 online charter schools ("cyber schools")
significantly underperformed brick and mortar schools and
regular (non-virtual) charter schools in reading and math.
A review of virtual schools in Wisconsin by the Gannett
Wisconsin Media Investigative Team found that students
receiving online instruction "often struggle to complete
their degrees and repeat grades four times as often as
their brick-and-mortar counterparts," and they "trail
traditional students in every subject but reading."
A 2011 report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor
in Minnesota reported that full-time online students were
more likely to completely drop out of school and made less
progress on state standardized math tests than students in
traditional schools.
A 2011 report from the Ohio Department of Education
rated only three of Ohio's 27 virtual schools as
"effective" or "excellent."
A 2006 performance audit by the Colorado Department of
Education of that state's virtual schools found that, "in
the aggregate, online students performed poorly on the CSAP
(Colorado State Assessment Program) exams and had higher
repeater, attrition, and dropout rates."
The Florida Virtual Academy, a statewide virtual school,
reports that 81% of its students who complete their courses
receive a passing grade. However, the Tampa Bay Times
reports that the Virtual Academy's records show that
two-thirds of students who enroll in a course don't finish
it. When dropouts are included, the actual pass rate is
28%. The Times was unable to get Virtual School Florida
Comprehensive Assessment Test scores from either the
Virtual School or the Florida Department of Education.
The ADA-based system of school finance may not be appropriate
for virtual schools. Schools are funded on the basis of average
daily attendance (ADA). This is sometimes referred to as
"paying for student seat time," but this is a
mischaracterization. In fact, schools are funded largely for
the time teachers and other school employees need to provide
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instruction, instructional support, and other service. ADA is a
proxy for this, because the time that students spend in
attendance is the time they are receiving services.
"Attendance" at a virtual school, or the amount of time a
student spends online, bears no relationship to the time
teachers and other school employees spend to provide the online
instructional experience. The committee may wish to consider
whether a virtual school, which, compared to a traditional
school, has far more students per employee; negligible
facilities costs; and no expenses for services such as
transportation, food service, or extracurricular activities,
should receive the full ADA level of funding. The Florida
Virtual School, which is the largest state-funded online K-12
school in the nation, has a budget of $166.3 million, enrolls
130,000 students, and has nearly 1,500 employees, according to
the Tampa Bay Times. Accordingly, the staffing ratio is about
86 students per employee, and funding is nearly $111,000 per
employee and $1,280 per student. This bil l would provide
funding to California's virtual charter schools at an average
rate of about $8,200 per student.
Arguments in support . The author's office argues that the
growth of virtual schools in California is hindered by numerous
rules and regulations. A major obstacle is applying rules for
independent study to virtual schools, which prevents a virtual
charter school from enrolling students outside of its own county
or adjacent counties.
Related legislation. Prior legislation allowing districts to
claim apportionment ADA for online instruction includes AB 2027
(Blumenfield) in 2010, which died in the Senate Appropriations
Committee; and AB 802 (Blumenfield) in 2011, which died in the
Assembly Appropriations Committee. AB 644 (Blumenfield, Chapter
579, Statutes of 2012) was amended to allow ADA funding only for
synchronous instruction, subject to specified conditions.
AB 342 (Blumenfield), which is pending in the Assembly Education
Committee, allows all school districts to claim apportionment
ADA for online courses.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
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One individual
Opposition
None received
Analysis Prepared by : Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087