BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 1156 Page 1 SENATE THIRD READING SB 1156 (Huff) As Amended June 30, 2016 Majority vote SENATE VOTE: 39-0 ------------------------------------------------------------------ |Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------| |Education |7-0 |O'Donnell, Olsen, | | | | |Kim, McCarty, | | | | |Santiago, Thurmond, | | | | |Weber | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------| |Appropriations |20-0 |Gonzalez, Bigelow, | | | | |Bloom, Bonilla, | | | | |Bonta, Calderon, | | | | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | | | | |Gallagher, Eduardo | | | | |Garcia, Holden, | | | | |Jones, Obernolte, | | | | |Quirk, Santiago, | | | | |Wagner, Weber, Wood, | | | | |McCarty | | | | | | | SB 1156 Page 2 | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------ SUMMARY: Makes changes to the Open Enrollment Act by replacing the Academic Performance Index with new eligibility criteria for identifying low-achieving schools. Specifically, this bill: 1)Deletes the existing definition of "low-achieving school" and instead establishes the definition of low-achieving school to mean either of the following, effective July 1, 2018, for purposes of the Open Enrollment Act: a) A school that is identified by the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) or 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 5% of all Title I 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 (CCEE), as directed by the SPI. 2)Provides that a low-achieving school shall not include court, community or community day schools. 3)Specifies that the list of low achieving schools not exceed 1,000 schools; and, specifies that no more than 10% of schools in a local education agency shall be identified on the list of low achieving schools. SB 1156 Page 3 4)Provides that a school district of enrollment shall ensure that pupils enrolled are enrolled in a school that is not identified as being a low-achieving school 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, 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. 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. 5)Requires communications to parents by school districts of enrollment to be factually accurate and not target individual parents or residential neighborhoods on the basis of a child's actual or perceived academic or athletic performance or any other personal characteristic; and requires all communications from the school district of enrollment regarding the transfer opportunities pursuant to this article shall be available in all languages required for the school district of residence. 6)Specifies that a school district of enrollment shall not prohibit a transfer of a pupil based upon a determination by the governing board of that school district that the additional cost of educating the pupil would exceed the amount of additional state aid received as a result of the transfer. A school district of enrollment shall not reject the transfer of a special needs pupil, including an individual with SB 1156 Page 4 exceptional needs, as defined, or an English learner. 7)On July 1, 2018, authorizes a school district of residence, upon notification of the pupil's acceptance to the school district of enrollment, to prohibit the transfer of a pupil or limit the number of pupils so transferred if the governing board of the school district of residence determines that the transfer would negatively impact any of the following: a) The court-ordered desegregation plan of the school district of residence. b) The voluntary desegregation plan of the school district of residence, consistent with the provisions of Proposition 209, an initiative measure adopted by the voters at the November 5, 1996, General Election. c) The racial and ethnic balance of the school district of residence, consistent with the provisions of Proposition 209, an initiative measure adopted by the voters at the November 5, 1996, General Election. 8)Requires each school district of enrollment to keep an accounting of all requests made for alternative attendance and records of all disposition of those requests; requires the data to be reported to the school board, the school boards of adjacent school districts, the county board of education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction; and, requires this data to be reported annually to the Legislature and Governor, as specified. 9)Requires the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to complete an evaluation of the open enrollment program, as specified, and to make recommendations on any additional or revised eligibility criteria based on the state's new accountability system adopted for purposes of complying with federal law, including the use of local control funding formula SB 1156 Page 5 unduplicated subgroup criteria. Provides that the LAO may also include recommendations on whether other open enrollment program provisions should be altered, expanded, or deleted. Requires the final evaluation report to be submitted to the Legislature, Governor, and State Board of Education on or before December 1, 2021, and for the SPI to provide the data necessary to complete the report to the LAO by December 1, 2020, or on an otherwise agreed upon date between the SPI and the LAO. 10)Extends the sunset date to July 1, 2022 and repeal date to January 1, 2023. EXISTING LAW: 1)Establishes the Open Enrollment Act as follows: a) Allows the parent of a pupil attending a school identified by the 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 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 Education Code Section 200, and shall ensure that pupils are enrolled in a school with SB 1156 Page 6 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 API. (Education Code (EC) 48350, et seq.) 2)Establishes the 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). (EC 52074) 3)Authorizes the 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 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) FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations SB 1156 Page 7 Committee, administrative costs to the California Department of Education (CDE) of approximately $230,000, starting July 1, 2018, to maintain a list of open enrollment schools, develop a template to assist districts with the collection and maintenance of data on transfers, and to comply with reporting requirements to the Legislature, Governor and LAO. Unknown, potentially reimbursable, state mandated costs for school districts of enrollment to track and report data on transfer requests and report information to their school board, county office of education and the SPI. Unknown costs to the LAO, likely in the tens of thousands, however, for existing staff to produce an evaluation and recommendation of the Open Enrollment program. COMMENTS: The Open Enrollment Act was created during a time when the State was competing for Federal funding called Race to the Top. Despite making several changes to state law, California was not awarded Race to the Top funding. The statutory changes made at the time have continued despite the State's lack of participation in the Race to the Top program. The Open Enrollment program requires the SPI to create a list of the 1,000 lowest achieving schools based on the API and requires that parents at those schools be notified that their child attends a school on this list. Students that attend the 1,000 lowest achieving schools are then authorized to transfer to higher achieving schools. The State has replaced the API with a new assessment system and the API is now outdated. The Open Enrollment program has largely been duplicative of federal law which, until the recent reauthorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), allowed students who attend schools in program improvement to transfer to higher achieving schools. Federal law no longer specifies that students in low achieving schools must be allowed to transfer, therefore this program is no longer a requirement of federal law. This bill changes the calculation of how the schools are identified to participate in the Open Enrollment program. Specifically, this bill provides that a low-achieving school is SB 1156 Page 8 a school that is identified in the lowest 5% of Title 1 schools, has high dropout rates, 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 (CCEE). According to the author, "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 out dated with no new APIs 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 assessment 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. SB 1156 updates the eligibility for additional public school options for students enrolled in persistently low performing schools by maintaining the Open Enrollment Act, and referencing definitions of persistently low performance in the newly enacted federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and state Local Control Funding Formula statutes as the criteria for defining low performing schools. The Open Enrollment Act provides students who are otherwise zip-code assigned to the lowest performing schools a choice to attend a higher performing public school even if the neighborhood school is persistently low performing. Accordingly, SB 1156 helps the state protect students' constitutional guarantee to equitable opportunity for a quality public education in California." SB 1156 Page 9 Racial Segregation in Schools. According to an April 2016, Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled, Better Use of Information Could Help Agencies Identify Disparities and Address Racial Discrimination, "The percentage of K-12 public schools in the United States with students who are poor and are mostly Black or Hispanic is growing and these schools share a number of challenging characteristics. From school years 2000-01 to 2013-14 (the most recent data available), the percentage of all K-12 public schools that had high percentages of poor and Black or Hispanic students grew from 9 to 16%, according to GAO's analysis of data from the Department of Education. These schools were the most racially and economically concentrated: 75 to 100% of the students were Black or Hispanic and eligible for free or reduced-price lunch-a commonly used indicator of poverty. GAO's analysis of Education data also found that compared with other schools, these schools offered disproportionately fewer math, science, and college preparatory courses and had disproportionately higher rates of students who were held back in 9th grade, suspended, or expelled." The Assembly should consider whether the Open Enrollment program will exacerbate racial segregation in California schools as limited evidence shows is happening with the similar District of Choice program. Analysis Prepared by: Chelsea Kelley / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0004094 SB 1156 Page 10