BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 1156
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|Author: |Huff |
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|Version: |March 28, 2016 Hearing |
| |Date: April 13, 2016 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Lenin Del Castillo |
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Subject: School accountability: Open Enrollment Act:
low-achieving schools
SUMMARY
This bill amends the Open Enrollment Act by replacing the
Academic Performance Index with new eligibility criteria for
identifying low-achieving schools. Specifically, the bill
provides that a low-achieving school is either a school that is
identified by the Superintendent of Public Instruction or the
State Board of Education for comprehensive support and
improvement, as specified, or a school that is receiving
mandatory assistance by the California Collaborative for
Educational Excellence.
BACKGROUND
Existing law:
1) Establishes the Open Enrollment Act as follows:
a) Allows the parent of a pupil attending a
school identified by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) as "low-achieving" to submit an
application for the pupil to attend another school
within the same district or transfer to another
school district (school district of enrollment). A
list of 1,000 "low-achieving schools" ranked by
increasing Academic Performance Index (API) is
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identified by the SPI each year.
b) Provides that a school district of
enrollment may adopt specific written standards for
acceptance and rejection of transfer applications,
including consideration of the capacity of a program,
class, grade level, or school building, or adverse
fiscal impact.
c) Prohibits a school district of enrollment
from considering a pupil's previous academic
achievement, physical condition, and proficiency in
the English language, family income or any of the
individual characteristics set forth in Section 200
of the Education Code, and shall ensure that pupils
are enrolled in a school with a higher API than the
school in which the pupil was previously enrolled.
d) Requires that pupils are selected through a
random, unbiased process, except that pupils applying
for transfer are assigned specific priorities, with
the first priority given to siblings of children who
already attend the desired school and second priority
for pupils transferring from a program improvement
school ranked in decile 1 on the Academic Performance
Index (API). (Education Code § 48350, et seq.)
2) Authorizes inter-district transfers known as "school
districts of choice" in which the governing board of a
school district may declare a district to be a district of
choice that is willing to accept a specified number of
inter-district transfers. A district of choice is not
required to admit pupils but the pupils that it does elect
to admit must be selected through a random process that
prohibits enrollment based on academic or athletic
performance. School districts of choice must give priority
for attendance to siblings of children already in
attendance in that district. A district of choice 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, but prohibits a district of choice from
rejecting the transfer of special needs pupils, individuals
with exceptional needs, and English learners. Districts of
choice are required to collect specific data about the
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students who transfer to their district and report that
data to surrounding districts and the state. These
provisions are currently scheduled to become inoperative on
July 1, 2017.
(Education Code § 48300, et seq.)
3) Establishes the California Collaborative for Educational
Excellence (CCEE) for the purpose of advising and assisting
school districts, county superintendent of schools, and
charter schools in achieving the goals set forth in a local
control and accountability plan (LCAP). (Education Code §
52074)
4) Requires the county superintendent of schools to provide
technical assistance, including any of the following, if
the county superintendent does not approve an LCAP or
annual update of a school district, or if the governing
board of a school district requests technical assistance:
a) Identification of the school district's strengths
and weaknesses in regard to the state priorities.
b) Assignment of an academic expert or team to
assist the school district in identifying and
implementing effective programs that are designed to
improve the outcomes for all student subgroups.
c) Request that the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) assign the CCEE to provide advice
and assistance to the school district.
(EC § 52071)
5) Requires the SPI to provide technical assistance,
including any of the following, if the SPI does not approve
an LCAP or annual update of a county office of education,
or if the county board of education requests technical
assistance:
a) Identification of the county board of
education's strengths and weaknesses in regard to the
state priorities.
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b) Assignment of an academic expert or team, or
the California Collaborative for Educational
Excellence (CCEE), to assist in identifying and
implementing effective programs that are designed to
improve the outcomes for all student subgroups. (EC §
52071.5)
6) Authorizes the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI) to direct the CCEE to advise and assist a school
district, county superintendent of schools, or charter
school in any of the following circumstances:
a) If the governing board of a school district,
county board of education, or governing body or a
charter school requests the advice and assistance of
the CCEE.
b) If the county superintendent of schools
determines, following the provision of technical
assistance, that the advice and assistance of the CCEE
is necessary to help the district or charter school
accomplish the goals described in the local control
and accountability plan (LCAP).
c) If the SPI determines that the advice and
assistance of the CCEE is necessary to help the school
district, county superintendent of schools, or charter
school accomplish the goals set forth in the LCAP.
(EC § 52074)
7) Requires the governing board of each school district and
each county board of education to adopt an LCAP, and to
update the plan annually. Existing law requires LCAPs to
include both of the following:
a) A description of the annual goals, for all
students and each subgroup of students, to be achieved
for each of the state priorities and for any
additional local priorities identified by the
governing board.
b) A description of the specific actions the
school district will take during each year of the LCAP
to achieve the goals, including the enumeration of any
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specific actions necessary for that year to correct
any deficiencies in regard to the state priorities.
(EC § 52060 and § 52066)
8) Requires the State Board of Education to adopt
evaluation rubrics, by October 1, 2016, for all of the
following purposes:
a) To assist a school district, county office of
education or charter school in evaluating its
strengths, weaknesses, and areas that require
improvement.
b) To assist a county superintendent of schools
in identifying school districts and charter schools in
need of technical assistance, and the specific
priorities upon which the technical assistance should
be focused.
c) To assist the SPI in identifying school
districts for which intervention is warranted. (EC §
52064.5)
9) Requires the evaluation rubrics to reflect a holistic,
multidimensional assessment of school districts and
individual schoolsite performance and include all of the
state priorities. Existing law requires, as part of the
evaluation rubrics, the State Board of Education to adopt
standards for school district and individual schoolsite
performance and expectations for improvement in regard to
each of the state priorities. (EC § 52064.5)
ANALYSIS
This bill:
1) Removes the existing definition of "low-achieving school"
under the Open Enrollment Act, effective July 1, 2017,
which means any school on the list created by the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) ranked by the
Academic Performance Index (API), as specified.
2) Establishes the definition of low-achieving school to mean
either of the following for purposes of the Open Enrollment
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Act:
a) A school that is identified by the SPI
and the State Board of Education for
comprehensive support and improvement pursuant to the
accountability system requirements of the federal
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as
amended by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act
(Public Law 114-95), including all of the following:
i) A school identified as being in the
lowest performing five percent of
all schools.
ii) A high school that fails to graduate
one-third or more of its pupils.
iii) A school subject to a mandatory
targeted support and improvement
plan.
b) A school receiving mandatory assistance
from the California Collaborative
for Educational Excellence, as directed by the SPI.
3) Removes the existing prohibition in which charter schools,
and court, community, or community day schools shall not be
included on the list of schools eligible for the Open
Enrollment Act.
4) Provides that a school district of enrollment shall ensure
that pupils enrolled pursuant to standards adopted pursuant
to this section are enrolled in a school that is not
identified as being low-achieving and are selected through
a random, unbiased process that prohibits an evaluation of
whether or not the pupil should be enrolled based on his or
her individual academic or athletic performance, or any of
the other characteristics set forth, except that pupils
applying for a transfer shall be assigned priority for
approval, as follows:
a) First priority for the siblings of
children who already attend the desired school.
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b) Second priority for unduplicated
pupils, as specified, transferring from a
low-achieving school.
c) If the number of pupils who request a
particular school exceeds the number of spaces
available at that school, a lottery shall be conducted
in the group priority order to select pupils at random
until all of the available spaces are filled.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill. According to the author's office, "the
Academic Performance Index (API), along with a specified,
sometimes confusing legislatively mandated calculation has
been the previous method for identifying the 1,000
low-achieving schools whose enrollment assignment would
trigger a student's eligibility for Open Enrollment. The
last published list of 1,000 is outdated with no new API's
being produced in the last two years. And, some schools
objected to the current formula, which resulted in some of
the lowest-performing schools in California not being on
the list at all. With the state adoption of a new system
called the California Assessment of Student Performance and
Progress (CAASPP), and the temporary and possibly permanent
hiatus on the publication of a new API, there is an
interest in using updated definitions and information more
accurately reflecting the concept of persistently low
school performance. The API is no longer being updated and
the last published list is based on the old STAR Program
instead of the CAASPP scores."
2) Federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reauthorizes and updates the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was signed into law
on December 10, 2015. The 2016-17 school year is a
transition year for local educational agencies (LEAs), as
most of the provisions of ESSA will take effect in the
2017-18 school year, including the new accountability
provisions. One notable change under ESSA is the
elimination of the requirement for LEAs to provide
low-income students attending Title I schools in Program
Improvement year 2 and beyond with supplemental educational
services and public school choice and spend a portion of
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their Title I funds for these purposes. In eliminating
these provisions, the ESSA will allow LEAs the flexibility
to choose what services and activities will be provided to
students using Title I funds. Another key difference under
ESSA is that states will have the ability to create their
own accountability system based on multiple measures and
not just on test scores. States will be required to
identify their lowest-performing schools-those falling in
the bottom five percent. However, there will be a reduced
federal role in determining interventions, leaving it up to
states to decide.
3) State's evolving accountability system. The exact details
of the state's new accountability system have not been
finalized, yet major themes have been determined, including
ensuring that the new system emphasizes a culture of
continuous support and on-going learning. And with the
enactment of ESSA, the state will have the opportunity to
streamline state and local requirements into a single,
coherent accountability and continuous improvement system.
A critical component of the accountability system will be
the evaluation rubrics, which the State Board of Education
is required to adopt by October 1, 2016. The rubrics are
intended to serve several purposes, including assistance
for local educational agencies (LEAs) to evaluate their
strengths, weaknesses, and areas that require improvement,
and also to assist the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI) in identifying school districts for which
intervention is warranted.
4) Committee amendments. In light of the recent changes in
federal law as well as the state's evolving accountability
system, staff recommends several amendments to this
measure, some of which are either technical or conforming
to federal law, while others are more substantive and
provide the state additional flexibility in determining its
own eligibility criteria upon adoption of the
accountability system.
a) With the evolving nature of the state's
accountability system, it is premature to amend the
eligibility criteria for the Open Enrollment Act? It
may be prudent to wait until after the state's
adoption of a new accountability system and more
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specifically, how that system will identify schools in
need of support or intervention. It is possible that
a more appropriate method of identifying low-achieving
schools (for purposes of the Open Enrollment Act)
could result. However, the bill proposes eligibility
criteria that are derived from new federal Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirements, which appear
to be reasonable because it is expected that the state
will adopt a more streamlined and coherent
accountability system, rather than having two separate
state and federal accountability structures. To
ensure an opportunity for the state to utilize its own
criteria to develop the list of eligible schools that
may result from its adoption of a new accountability
system, staff recommends that the bill be amended to
require the SPI to make recommendations on any
additional or revised eligibility criteria for the
Open Enrollment Act based on the new accountability
system no later than one year after adoption,
including the use of Local Control Funding Formula
unduplicated subgroup criteria.
b) In February 2009, the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act was passed, which among other things,
established $4 billion for one-time state incentive
grants known as Race to the Top (RTTP). One of the
eligibility requirements for RTTP is identifying
persistently lowest-achieving schools in the state and
requiring them to implement one of four intervention
models, which include closing a school, converting a
school to a charter school, and replacing a principal
and other staff. When the Legislature passed and the
Governor signed SBX5 4 (Romero, Chapter 3, Statutes
of 2010), which established the Open Enrollment Act
program, part of the rationale was that it would
enable the state's Race for the Top (RTTP) application
to be more competitive.
As indicated under comment No. 2, the new federal ESSA
eliminates the requirement for local educational
agencies to provide low-income students attending
Title I schools in Program Improvement year 2 and
beyond with the public school choice option. To the
extent that part of the rationale for establishing the
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Open Enrollment Act was in response to federal law at
the time and now that ESSA has changed some of those
provisions, the Committee may wish to revisit the
state's public school choice options. Therefore,
staff recommends that the bill be amended to require
the Superintendent of Public Instruction to complete
the evaluation of the Open Enrollment Act specified in
Education Code Section 48360 and provide that it may
also include recommendations on whether to continue
the program in light of recent changes to federal law.
c) The accountability provisions of the Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will not take effect until
the 2017-18 school year. While the State Department
of Education (SDE) anticipates it will begin
identifying the lowest five percent of schools during
that school year, it is unclear when the SDE will have
completed the list. The bill's provisions would become
operative, July 1, 2017, and specifies that enrollment
applications would be due by January 1st, so to the
extent that the list has not been completed by this
date, the bill's effective date may not be practical
to implement. For this reason, staff recommends that
the bill's operative date be amended to July 1, 2018.
d) Staff also recommends that the bill be amended to
clarify that the list of the bottom five percent of
schools be applied to only Title I schools, not all
schools, to be consistent with ESSA. Staff further
recommends that the bill be amended to prohibit
charter schools, and court, community, or community
day schools from being included on the list of
eligible schools, to be consistent with existing Open
Enrollment Act provisions.
5) Suspension of the API. The Academic Performance Index has
been suspended for several years now and in its absence,
the SDE has not compiled a new list of eligible schools for
the Open Enrollment Act. It is unclear at the local level
if school districts are continuing to use this "outdated"
list.
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6) Program evaluation. The Open Enrollment Act has been
operative for approximately six years. An evaluation of
the program by the Superintendent of Public Instruction was
due to the Legislature, Governor, and SBE by October 1,
2014, and was to include the changes in academic
achievement of pupils that transfer, fiscal and
programmatic effects on school districts, and demographic
and socioeconomic characteristics of pupils that transfer.
However, the evaluation was predicated upon federal funds
being appropriated for that purpose and that never
materialized.
7) Related legislation.
SB 1432 (Huff) repeals the sunset date of the District of
Choice program thereby extending the operation of the
program indefinitely. This bill was heard by and passed
this Committee on April 6, 2016, by a vote of 9-0.
8) Previous legislation.
SB 451 (Huff, 2013), proposed to expand the Open Enrollment
Act to authorize the parent of a pupil, regardless of
whether the pupil attends a "low-achieving school", to
submit an application for the pupil to attend another
school within the same district or to a school outside
their district of residence. SB 451 was heard by this
Committee on April 10, 2013 and failed passage, by a vote
of 2-4.
SBX5 4 (Huff, 2010), Chapter 3, Statutes of 2010,
established the Open Enrollment Act to allow any pupil in a
low-achieving school, as defined, to transfer to another
school in the district or any school outside of their
district of residence.
SB 680 (Romero), Chapter 198, Statutes of 2009, extended
the sunset date of the District of Choice program to July
1, 2016.
SUPPORT
EdVoice
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OPPOSITION
None received.
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