BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1741
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 7, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 1741 (Coto) - As Amended: March 10, 2010
SUBJECT : Public schools: persistently lowest-achieving schools
SUMMARY : Requires a local educational agency (LEA) that
identifies a persistently lowest-achieving school (PLAS) and
chooses to implement a restart model, as described in federal
regulations, by converting the school or closing and reopening
the school under a charter school operator or a charter
management organization (CMO), to select a charter school
operator or CMO that demonstrates specified requirements
relative to meeting the needs of English learners (ELs).
Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes findings and declarations relative to enacted
legislation relative to school interventions for schools
identified as PLAS for purposes of implementing the federal
Race to the Top (RTTT) program and the deficiency of data
maintained about the success of ELs in charter schools.
2)Requires a LEA that identifies a PLAS and chooses to implement
a restart model, as described, by converting the school or
closing and reopening the school under a charter school
operator or a CMO, to select a charter school operator or CMO
that demonstrates all of the following:
a) In its program design, the charter school has programs
and core courses in place to meet the language and cultural
needs of ELs;
b) The charter school has administrators and staff
qualified to teach ELs;
c) The charter school has a relevant outreach program that
reaches parents and assists them in being involved in the
school and in understanding how the charter school process
works; and,
d) Programs and staffing are designed to enable
non-English-speaking parents to participate fully as
partners in their children's education.
EXISTING LAW :
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1)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), with
the approval of the State Board of Education (SBE), to develop
and implement the Academic Performance Index (API) to measure
the performance of schools, and to include a variety of
indicators, including achievement test results, attendance
rates, and graduation rates in that measure.
2)Provides that schools that failed to meet their API growth
targets in the previous school year relative to all other
public elementary, middle, or high schools, are invited by the
SPI to participate in the II/USP and the High Priority School
Grants Program. If a participating school has not met its
growth targets each year and has failed to show significant
growth as determined by the SBE, it is deemed a
state-monitored school. The SPI, in consultation with the SBE,
is authorized to take specified action with respect to the
operation of a state-monitored school, including but not
limited to, requiring the school district to enter into a
contract with a school assistance and intervention team or a
district assistance and intervention team, reassigning
principals, allowing pupils to attend other schools in the
district, allowing parents to apply for charter status,
reassigning certificated staff, and closing a school.
3)Defines, for purposes of the RTTT, a low-achieving school as a
school in Program Improvement (PI) under Title I of the
federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).
4)Defines PLAS as the following:
a) The lowest 5% of the low-achieving schools (schools in
PI);
b) The lowest 5% of secondary schools, as measured by the
Academic Performance Index (API), that are eligible for,
but do not receive Title I funds;
c) Any high school with a graduation rate less than 60% in
each of the last three years; and,
d) Excludes, to the extent allowable under federal law,
specified special needs or alternative schools and those
schools that have experienced academic growth of at least
50 points on the API, unless the SPI and the SBE jointly
overrule that exclusion. Also authorizes the SPI and SBE
to jointly exclude a community day school from this
definition.
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5)Requires the SPI to notify the governing board of a school
district, county superintendent of schools, or the governing
body of a charter school or its equivalent that one or more of
the schools in its jurisdiction have been identified as a
PLAS.
6)Requires, for purposes of implementing the federal RTTT
program, the governing board of a school district, county
superintendent of schools or the governing body of a charter
school or its equivalent to implement, for any school
identified by the SPI as persistently lowest-achieving, unless
the SPI and the SBE determines, to the extent allowable under
federal law, that the school has implemented a reform within
the last two years that conforms to the RTTT required
interventions, one of the following four interventions for
turning around PLAS, as described in Appendix C of the Notice
of Final Priorities, Requirements, Definitions, Selection
Criteria for the RTTT program published in Volume 74 of Number
221 of the Federal Register on November 18, 2009:
a) The turnaround model;
b) The restart model;
c) School closure; or,
d) The transformation model.
7)Requires a governing board, superintendent of schools, or the
governing body of a charter school or its equivalent with one
or more PLAS to, prior to selecting one of the four
interventions, hold two public hearings to seek input from
staff, parents, and the community regarding the option or
options most suitable for the applicable school or schools in
its jurisdiction; at least one of those hearings is required
to be a regularly scheduled meeting, and at least one is
required to be held on the site of a school deemed to be
persistently lowest-achieving.
8)Authorizes a school district, a county office of education or
the SBE to approve or deny a petition for a charter school.
Authorizes a charter to be granted for not more than five
years, and to be granted one or more renewals for five years.
Requires the renewals and material revisions of the charter to
be based upon the same standards as the original charter
petition.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
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COMMENTS : Earlier this year the Legislature passed and the
Governor signed into law SB 1 X5 (Steinberg), Chapter 2,
Statutes of 2009-10, Fifth Extraordinary Session, for purposes
of meeting part of the selection criteria of the federal RTTT
grant program. The Legislation addressed the four reform areas
called for under the RTTT guidelines: standards and assessments,
data systems to support instruction, great teachers and leader
and turning around low performing schools.
Turning around PLAS is one of the four major components of the
RTTT, which requires states to have legal, statutory or
regulatory authority to intervene in schools, identify PLAS, and
show how the state will support LEAs identified as persistently
lowest-achieving in implementing one of the following four
intervention models:
1)Turnaround model: Replace the principal and 50% of the
existing staff; implement strategies to recruit, place and
retain staff with the skills necessary to meet the needs of
students; use data to improve instructional program; provide
high-quality professional development that is aligned with the
school's instructional program; among others.
2)Restart model: Convert a school to a charter school, or close
and reopen a school under a charter school operator, a CMO, or
an education management organization (EMO).
3)School closure: Close a school and enroll the students in
other higher achieving schools in the LEA.
4)Transformation model: Similar to the Turnaround model,
replace the principal and develop strategies focusing on
principal and teacher effectiveness, instructional reform,
increasing learning time and creating community-oriented
schools, and providing operational flexibility and support.
The RTTT criteria defines a CMO as a non-profit organization
that operates or manages charter schools by centralizing or
sharing certain functions and resources among schools, and an
EMO as a for-profit or non-profit organization that provides
"whole-school operation" services to an LEA. Additionally the
criteria specify that a restart model must enroll, within the
grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend the
school.
The recently enacted RTTT legislation requires, for purposes of
implementing the federal RTTT that the bottom 5% of the State's
PLAS enter into one of four intervention models. It is up to
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the governing board of the affected LEA to decide which
intervention model it will implement for any PLAS identified
within the LEA. SB 1 X5 (Steinberg), Chapter 2, Statutes of
2009-10, Fifth Extraordinary Session, requires that two public
hearings be held regarding the intervention model that will be
implemented for the school. Additionally, pursuant to SB 4 X5
(Romero), Chapter 3, Statutes of 2009-10, Fifth Extraordinary
Session, an additional 75 schools, not identified as PLAS, will
be allowed to implement one of the four RTTT intervention models
or the Alternative Governance reform described in the federal
NCLB if 50% of the parents at that school submit a petition
indicating they would like to use one of the intervention
models. This bill does not apply to the latter set of schools.
It only affects the schools that would be identified to be in
the 5% PLAS.
This bill requires an LEA that has a school identified in the 5%
PLAS and chooses to implement the restart model as part of RTTT,
to select a charter school operator or CMO that demonstrates in
its program design the charter school has programs and core
courses in place to meet the language and cultural needs of ELs,
has administrators and staff qualified to teach ELs, a relevant
outreach program for parents, and programs and staffing designed
to enable non-English-speaking parent participation.
A charter school is usually created or organized by a group of
teachers, parents and community leaders, a community-based
organization, or an education management organization and they
bring a petition to an authorizing body for approval. Charter
schools are authorized by school district boards, county boards
of education or the SBE. Specific goals and operating
procedures for the charter school are detailed in an agreement
(or "charter") between the sponsoring board and charter
organizers. Current law requires the petition to include a
description of the educational program for the pupils to be
enrolled in the charter school. This bill requires an LEA to
select a charter school operator or CMO that demonstrates the
charter school has specific components in place. Because
charter schools do not operate unless they are authorized, it is
not possible to know that a charter school has some of these
components in place until the school is actually operating. It
appears that this bill assumes that a process - other than what
is in current law for starting or converting into a charter
school- would be followed by the LEAs that choose to implement
the restart model as part of the RTTT interventions. However,
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nothing in current law indicates that a different process will
be followed by LEAs that choose to convert a PLAS to a charter
school or to close and reopen as a charter school for purposes
of implementing the RTTT program. The author may wish to
consider that these components be addressed within a charter
petition. Staff recommends the bill be amended to provide for
the inclusion of the proposed elements in an initial charter
petition.
This bill requires LEAs that implement the restart model under
the RTTT criteria to select on an operator or CMO based on
specific criteria. The LEA is essentially required to select
only charter school operators or CMOs that demonstrate specific
elements relative to ELs. This raises the question as to
whether a charter operator or CMO could be selected for
demonstrating the proposed requirements under this bill even
though the operator or CMO may be deficient in other aspects of
the educational program or other areas. According to the
author's staff and the sponsor of this bill, Californians
Together, the intent of the bill is to allow for the inclusion
of the specified elements in a charter petition for
consideration and not to require the approval of charter
petitions that only meet the criteria proposed by this bill.
Staff recommends the bill be amended to clarify the author's
intent which is to allow for the inclusion of the proposed
elements in a petition and to require LEAs to consider them.
The author may additionally wish to consider amending the bill
to require a charter operator or a CMO to describe the track
record of other schools it has operated with regard to special
programs for EL students and that LEAs consider this
information. This approach does not require selection of a
charter operator or CMO based on specific elements but would
instead provide that a charter operator or CMO demonstrates its
ability to serve ELs in its charter petition and requires the
LEA to consider this information during the approval process.
ELs comprise approximately 25% of the student enrollment in the
State; nevertheless reports have shown that charter schools
enroll fewer ELs compared with noncharter schools. A 2009
EdSource report on charter schools found that charter high
schools enroll 13% fewer students who are either ELs or
redesignated as fluent English proficient (RFEP) students
compared to noncharter schools; charter middle schools enroll EL
and RFEP students at a 7% lower rate than noncharter schools;
and charter elementary schools enroll 11% fewer English learner
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and RFEP students compared with noncharter schools.
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A November 2009 report by The Civil Rights Project states,
"Without necessary safeguards against the segregating effects of
charter schools - already documented by the government in their
own charter school evaluations, in addition to research by other
scholars - families are left to comprehend and cope individually
with the complicated landscape of school choice. This is
challenging for families with limited resources, time, or
knowledge of the variety of educational options - even more so
for families "disadvantaged" by mainstream society, such as
having limited English proficiency or who dropped out of school
themselves." This bill provides that one of the elements that
charter operators or CMOs would have to address in a petition to
operate one of the PLAS is demonstrating availability of a
parent outreach program and of programs and staffing that are
designed to enable non-English-speaking parents to participate
fully in their children's education.
Other suggested amendments : The bill focuses on the language and
cultural needs of ELs but it does not specify that academic
achievement of ELs shall also be addressed by charter operators
or CMOs. Staff recommends an amendment to add academic
achievement of ELs to the elements that a charter school
operator or CMO shall include in the description of the initial
petition.
The bill requires an LEA that identifies a PLAS to take specific
actions, but the LEA does not identify PLAS. The SPI is charged
with identifying these schools by following a specific
methodology. Staff recommends the bill be amended to clarify
this oversight.
The Civil Rights Project report also makes policy
recommendations with regard to segregation in charter schools.
They recommend that charter schools could "use many of the same
provisions that helped magnet schools use choice to increase
diversity. These include providing full and extensive
information, outreach to all racial/ethnic, socioeconomic and
linguistic groups, no admissions/attendance/parent involvement
requirements, and free transportation." They also recommend
that "tracking and publicly reporting basic information about
students should be a requirement for any school that receives
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public funding. Charter schools should be evaluated to ensure
that they are enrolling, retaining, and graduating proportional
shares of students by race/ethnicity, EL status, socioeconomic
status, and students with disabilities as their surrounding
districts. Schools could also be required to report the number
of students in different subgroups who apply to the charter
school compared to those who actually enroll, among schools that
are over-subscribed. OCR [Office of Civil Rights] could and
should do this. The federal government should also reinstate its
former practice of providing annual reports on the state of
charter schools." Additionally, staff notes that one of the
reviewers of California's RTTT application acknowledged that in
the RTTT application, "The State did not thoroughly address how
charters are encouraged to serve high-need students."
Because this bill is seeking to ensure that charter schools are
able to serve ELs with appropriate programs to promote their
success, it may be appropriate to ensure that all charter
schools, and not just the PLAS that may potentially be converted
to charter schools, demonstrate that they will be able to serve
ELs. As currently drafted, this bill creates different
standards for a subset of charter schools.
According to the California Department of Education (CDE), the
2008-09 count of operating charter schools is 746 with student
enrollment of more than 285,000 in this state. This includes
four statewide benefit charters and eight SBE-approved charters.
Some charter schools are new, while others are conversions from
existing public schools. Charter schools are part of the
state's public education system and are funded by public
dollars. A charter school is generally exempt from most laws
governing school districts, except where specifically noted in
the law. CDE data shows that statewide, 80% of charter schools
are start-up schools while 16% are conversions.
The author states, "In California, charter school enrollment has
increased from 112,065 in 2001 to 238,226 in 2008. Of these,
only 17% are English Learners, compared to 25% of the total
school population. Little to no data are kept to reflect the
success of English Learners in charter schools. EL's [sic] a
critical part of California's achievement gap. The prospect
exists of using charter conversion to help a low achieving
school improve, and making matters worse in the process."
Arguments in support : Californians Together writes, "More than
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likely, English learners will be a significant percentage of
students enrolled in the 'persistently lowest achieving
schools.' It is critical therefore that the public schools
choosing to convert to charter schools are prepared and equipped
to provide the programs and core courses designed for these
students. AB 1741 (Coto) is a proactive approach ensuring
academic success for English learners."
The Association of California School Administrators has a
"support if amended" position on this bill and writes, "The
Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) support
AB 1741 if amended to include serving students with
disabilities."
Related legislation : AB 1950 (Brownley) requires enhanced
charter school fiscal and academic accountability standards. AB
1950 is pending in the Assembly Education Committee.
AB 2320 (Swanson) requires charter school petitions to describe
the different and innovative teaching methods the school will
use, how the school will provide vigorous competition and
stimulate continual improvements within the public school
system, and the means by which the school will achieve a balance
of pupils who live in poverty, are English learners or are
individuals with exceptional needs; deletes the authorization
for the state board of education (SBE) to approve charter school
petitions on appeal; and, limits state wide benefit charter
schools to those that partner with specific entities. AB 2320
is pending in the Assembly Education Committee
AB 2363 (Mendoza) requires, in addition to the existing
signature requirements for charter school petitions, a charter
school petition to include signatures from at least 50% of the
number of classified employees the petitioner estimates that
will be employed by the charter school in the first year of
operation; requires a conversion charter school petition to
include 50% of the permanent classified employees currently
employed at the school that is to be converted to a charter
school; and, requires the signature petition to prominently
display a statement that the classified employee has a
meaningful interest in working at the charter school. AB 2363
is pending in the Assembly Education Committee
Previous legislation : SB 1 X5 (Steinberg), Chapter 2, Statutes
of 2009-10, Fifth Extraordinary Session, proposes comprehensive
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changes to the Education Code (EC) consistent with the federal
Race to the Top (RTTT) program; this bill addresses the four
RTTT policy reform areas of standards and assessments, data
systems to support instruction, great teachers and leaders and
turning around the lowest-achieving schools.
SB 4 X5 (Romero), Chapter 3, Statutes of 2009-10, Fifth
Extraordinary Session, establishes an Open Enrollment Program,
which authorizes a pupil enrolled in a low achieving school, as
defined, to attend any higher achieving school in the state; and
establishes a Parent Empowerment Program that authorizes parents
of specified schools to sign a petition requiring a local
educational agency (LEA) to implement a school intervention
model, as specified.
AB 8 X5 (Brownley) from 2009 proposed comprehensive changes to
the Education Code consistent with the federal Race to the Top
(RTTT) program; this bill addressed the four RTTT policy reform
areas of standards and assessments, data systems to support
instruction, great teachers and leaders and turning around the
lowest-achieving schools. Deleted the statewide charter school
cap; proposed enhanced charter school fiscal and academic
accountability standards. This bill was held in the Senate
Education Committee at the request of the author.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Californians Together (Sponsor)
Association of California School Administrators (If amended)
California Association for Bilingual Education
California Federation of Teachers
California Teachers Association
Public Advocates
United Teachers of Los Angeles
Several individuals
Opposition
California Charter Schools Association
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Avi?a / ED. / (916) 319-2087
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