BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1907
Page 1
Date of Hearing: March 24, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 1907 (Cook) - As Amended: March 16, 2010
SUBJECT : Charter schools: instruction.
SUMMARY : Retroactively exempts nonclassroom based charter
schools offering real-time synchronized instruction from the
requirements in the Education Code and regulations pertaining to
independent study, commencing in the 2005-06 fiscal year.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the teacher-student ratio in an independent study
charter school to be 25 to one or less. (Education Code
51745.6)
2)Specifies that a charter school is not eligible to receive
apportionments for independent study by pupils, unless it has
adopted and implemented written policies, that include the
following, among others:
a) The maximum length of time that may elapse between the
time an independent study assignment is made and the date
by which the pupil must complete the assigned work.
b) The number of missed assignments that will be allowed
before an evaluation is conducted to determine whether it
is in the best interests of the pupil to remain in
independent study.
c) A requirement that a current written agreement for each
independent study pupil shall be maintained on file.
(Education Code 51747)
3)Specifies that a charter school is not eligible to receive
apportionment for independent study attendance by any pupil
who is not otherwise identified in the written records of the
district or county board by grade level, program placement,
and the school in which he or she is enrolled. (Education Code
51748)
4)Requires nonclassroom-based instruction in charter school to
comply with the requirements of independent study pursuant to
Article 5.5 of Chapter 5 of Part 28. (California Code of
Regulation, Title 5, Section 11963.1)
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FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is keyed non-fiscal; however, the
Assembly Appropriations Committee has requested to hear this
bill and it will be referred if passed by this committee.
COMMENTS : This bill seeks to retroactively exempt the Choice
2000 Online Charter School (Choice 2000), which is a
nonclassroom based online charter school, from existing laws
requiring nonclassroom based charter schools to operate as
independent study programs in order to determine their average
daily attendance (ADA).
Background on Choice 2000 & Audit Findings . In the 2005-06
fiscal year (FY) audit of Choice 2000, an audit finding was
reported on the basis that the nonclassroom-based charter school
was not in compliance with independent study requirements.
Based on this audit finding, 100% of the school's reported ADA
apportionment of $1.1 million for that FY was disallowed. In
response, the school filed an appeal with the Audit Appeals
Panel. That appeal was denied by the Audit Appeals Panel. In
the final appeal, an administrative law judge found the school
was in substantial compliance and made a recommendation to the
Audit Appeals Panel to overturn the initial denial. The Audit
Appeals Panel did not accept the judgment made by the
administrative law judge and denied the final appeal. Since
that time, Choice 2000 has filed a superior court lawsuit
challenging the Audit Appeals Panel and the state's regulation
requiring nonclassroom based charter schools comply with
independent study requirements. This lawsuit is ongoing.
Despite the audit finding in the 2005-06 FY and subsequent
advice from the California Department of Education (CDE) that as
a nonclassroom-based charter school, Choice 2000 must comply
with independent study requirements, the school continued to
operate without establishing student independent study
contracts. As a result, the same audit finding was reported
again in the 2006-07 FY, 2007-08 FY and in the 2008-09 FY; and,
100% of the school's ADA apportionment in each of those years
was disallowed. Currently the 2006-07 FY and 2007-08 FY audit
findings are under final appeal with the Audit Appeals Panel and
a hearing with an administrative law judge is scheduled in May.
The 2008-09 FY audit is currently the process of being certified
by the Controller.
In January 2010, Choice 2000 applied for a State Board of
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Education waiver of the independent study requirements for
nonclassroom-based charter schools. The waiver request was
denied by the State Board.
Based on the history of audit findings dating back to the
2005-06 FY and notice from CDE that Choice 2000 must comply with
the independent study requirements since that time, the
committee should consider whether it is appropriate to
retroactively authorize Choice 2000 to operate as a nonclassroom
based charter school and exempt the school from independent
study requirements. The committee should note that granting
Choice 2000 this type of authorization will also relieve the
school of all fiscal penalties dating back to the 2005-06 FY,
despite the fact that they knowingly failed to comply with
independent study requirements.
Background on Online Instruction : The immediate supervision of
a certificated teacher not only lies at the heart of the
delivery of education services, but is also the foundation of
the state's current attendance accounting and revenue limit
funding system. Elimination of teachers through implementation
of online coursework that is conducted with either synchronous
(teacher and student online simultaneously) or asynchronous
(teacher checking the students work online at different times)
supervision by a teacher presents numerous risks to student
learning, particularly for students with special needs and
students in need of remediation. In addition, elimination of
immediate teacher supervision means that the state has no
mechanism to ensure that a student is actually engaged in the
coursework or if someone else is sitting behind the computer.
From the perspective of the state's interest, these are
situations where the state would be unable to ensure that its
investment in education is spent directly on instruction.
Currently, only in limited circumstances (for example
Independent Study) are schools funded for instruction that
occurs without a pupil being under the immediate supervision of
certificated staff; such circumstances are subject to rigorous
requirements and restrictions; those requirements and
restrictions generally ensure instructional quality in terms of
issues such as student-teacher ratios, curriculum and content,
and student assessment.
The usefulness of online curriculum and instruction is becoming
more apparent as delivery systems mature and more electronic
instructional materials are developed, and the potential use of
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online education in addressing issues regarding students with
low motivation, dropout and credit recovery, and remedial
instruction is heartening. However, it is not yet clear how the
state should move forward to further authorize and fund online
K-12 educational services, since it is necessary at the same
time to guarantee that the quality of the educational services
provided to a student online is equivalent to that provided in
the classroom and that the state's financial investment in a
pupil's education is served by online education.
Independent Study Requirements for Charter Schools . Charter
school independent study programs are required to maintain a 25
to one teacher to student ratio. They are also required to
implement both a school-wide and individual student independent
study plan that outlines the parameters of the program, how
student performance will be evaluated, and how students are
expected to perform in order to stay in the program. Attendance
accounting for independent study programs is based on the value
of the work performed by the student rather than actual student
attendance, since independent study programs are not classroom
based.
If this bill is passed by the committee, Choice 2000 would not
required to operate as an independent study program, would not
be required to maintain the 25 to one teacher to student ratio,
and would not be required to develop a school-wide and
individual student independent study plan outlined above. The
committee should consider whether it is appropriate to have
teacher to student ratios higher than 25 to one and whether the
school-wide and individual student independent study plan
benefits student learning, in an online educational environment.
If this bill is passed by the committee, the committee should
also consider by what method Choice 2000 should account for
their ADA. As a nonclassroom based charter school they are
exempt from the requirement that classroom based charter high
schools must provide students at least 80% of the 64,800 minutes
required to receive full ADA apportionment. If they are not
participating in the independent study program that counts each
student's work product in lieu of attendance accounting, and
they are not required to provide students the minimum minutes of
instruction, how will they count their ADA?
Choice 2000, which uses a synchronous instruction model, is
seeking legislation to retroactively relieve them of these
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additional requirements. The committee should consider whether
it is appropriate to consider nonclassroom-based instruction
anything other than independent study, since the teacher cannot
visually supervise who is completing the coursework. The
committee should also consider whether it is appropriate to
retroactively change state statute to eliminate financial
penalties an individual school faces due to their lack of
adherence to the law.
Previous legislation : AB 837 (Torlakson) from 2009, which was
held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, would have
established, beginning with the 2010-11 fiscal year, that a
school district or county office of education may claim average
daily attendance on the basis of a pupil's attendance at classes
in the classroom-based setting on that day, for the purpose of
learning online under certain circumstances.
AB 2457 (Walters), held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee
in 2008, would have re-established the Online Classroom Pilot
Program to monitor and evaluate pupil participation in
course-based, asynchronous, interactive instruction conducted
over the Internet.
SB 155 (Maldonado), introduced in 2007, was substantially
similar to AB 2457, except that SB 155 also required the
California Department of Education to give priority to
applicants ranked in the Academic Performance Index (API)
deciles 1 through 5, when approving the competitive applications
to operate an online course; SB 155 was later amended into a
different subject matter and signed into law as Chapter 702,
Statutes of 2008.
AB 885 (Daucher), Chapter 801, Statutes of 2002, authorized
participation by high school students in an online classroom
program using an asynchronous, interactive curriculum as
immediate supervision in order to count this participation as
instructional time for the purpose of generating average daily
attendance (ADA) and associated funding. AB 885 authorized up
to 40 participating school sites. Early versions of AB 885
would have authorized ADA credit for an online class operated by
Canyon High School in the Orange Unified School District; the
district had previously been found to be out of in compliance
with the requirement that attendance credit for funding may only
be earned by pupils under the "immediate supervision" of a
properly credentialed instructor, and was at risk of losing
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credit for ADA and thus funding. The bill was amended in Senate
appropriations to reflect the more general program.
AB 294 (Daucher), Chapter 429, Statutes of 2003, recast this
program as a pilot, added specified fiscal, record-keeping, and
reporting requirements and implemented other clean-up provisions
as requested in the Governor's AB 885 signing message.
AB 1985 (Daucher), held in the Senate in 2006, would have
established the Online Classroom Program, replacing the pilot
program with an ongoing, non-pilot program allowing school
districts to receive funds for average daily attendance (ADA) of
pupils who are receiving instruction via the internet and are
located at remote locations.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Chelsea Kelley / ED. / (916) 319-2087