BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 2259 (Medina) - School accountability: dropout recovery high
schools
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|Version: February 18, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: June 20, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill extends the sunset by three years on the
ability of dropout recovery high schools to use an individual
student growth model for purposes of school accountability.
Fiscal
Impact: Extending the program's sunset would continue to allow
up to 10 dropout recovery high schools to propose an individual
student growth model to the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI). This bill could result in potentially significant
one-time General Fund costs to the California Department of
Education (CDE) to review and certify that any proposed growth
models submitted meet certain criteria. The CDE would also
incur lesser ongoing costs to develop and maintain a website
displaying the growth model data. To date, no models have been
submitted to the CDE. However, if in a given year 10 schools
submit a model, the CDE cites General Fund costs of up to
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$100,000 over two positions.
Background: Certain schools serve as alternatives to traditional schools
for students who could benefit from a different environment or
experience behavioral issues that prevent them from remaining in
their traditional school. A dropout recovery high school is
defined as a school offering instruction in any of grades nine
through 12 in which 50 percent or more of its students are
either designated as dropouts, as specified, or left a school
and were not otherwise enrolled in a school for a period of at
least 180 days. The school must also provide instruction in
partnership with any of the federal and state programs specified
in current law aimed at preparing youth for entry into the
workforce.
Since the enactment of the Local Control Funding Formula and the
new statewide student assessment system, the state has been
shifting to a new school accountability system. Under this
system, the State Board of Education (Board) was charged with,
among other things, developing and adopting a local control and
accountability template which local educational agencies must
complete describing their annual goals and progress towards
achieving goals in eight state priority areas.
A key component of the prior accountability system, that has
since been suspended, is the Academic Performance Index (API).
The API is an annual measure of test score performance of
schools and school districts. Additionally, the Alternative
Schools Accountability Model (ASAM) was established to provide
accountability for alternative schools serving highly mobile and
at-risk students. These schools could apply to be held
accountable using the ASAM and would receive an API score, but
were prohibited from being included in the API rankings of
schools. The ASAM was defunded in 2009 due to budget
constraints.
Proposed Law: This bill extends the sunset, from January 1,
2017 to January 1, 2020, of the requirement that the SPI and the
Board allow up to 10 dropout recovery high schools to report the
results of an individual student growth model that is proposed
by the school and certified by the SPI, in lieu of other
indicators. Staff notes if a school were to submit a proposed
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individual student growth model, it is unclear which indicators
the model would replace as the law does not specify.
Staff
Comments: In its review of a proposed individual student growth
model, the SPI must certify that it:
Measures learning based on valid and reliable nationally
normed or criterion-referenced reading and mathematics tests.
Measures skills and knowledge aligned with state standards.
Measures the extent to which a student scored above an
expected amount of growth based on the individual student's
initial achievement score.
Demonstrates the extent to which a school is able to
accelerate learning on an annual basis.
Traditional accountability measures focus on schoolwide, and
point-in-time performance such as statewide student assessments
and four year cohort graduation rates. However, students
attending dropout recovery high schools are typically credit
deficient, and enter and exit high school on an irregular
schedule. For these reasons, using an annual point-in-time
measure to gauge the performance of these schools does not yield
useful data, particularly for evaluation of a school's
performance. An individual student growth model measures
student growth over time allowing the school's performance to be
assessed more meaningfully.
The Board recognized the unique characteristics of alternative
schools in their February 2016 information memorandum that
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provided an analysis of a proposed methodology for using
graduation rates as an accountability indicator. Schools that
were formerly part of the ASAM were excluded from the
methodology citing the need for further analysis.
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