BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 47
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Date of Hearing: April 13, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 47 (Huffman) - As Amended: April 4, 2011
Policy Committee: Education Vote:7-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
YesReimbursable:Yes
SUMMARY
This bill makes the following changes to the Open Enrollment (OE)
Act:
1)Clarifies a local education agency (LEA) shall have no more than
10% of its schools identified as "low achieving" for the purposes
of developing the OE Act list.
2)Prohibits a school from being identified as "low achieving" on the
OE Act list, if either of the following conditions exist: (a) a
school has an Academic Performance Index (API) score of 700 or
above or (b) a school has prior year API growth of 50 points or
more.
3)Allows charter schools to be identified as "low achieving" on the
OE list and requires a school to be identified as "low achieving,"
only if the school is on the list for two consecutive years.
4)Prohibits an enrolling school district from rejecting the transfer
of pupils with exceptional needs and English language learner
(ELL) pupils, if they are randomly selected through a lottery
process.
5)Requires each school district to keep an accounting of all
requests made for alternative attendance under the OE Act (e.g.,
pupils transferring out and into the school district).
6)Requires every school district, no later than May 15 of each year,
to report OE related information collected to each school district
that is geographically adjacent to the district electing to accept
transfer pupils, to the county office of education (COE) in which
the district is located, and to the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI). This measure also requires the SPI to annually
report the information to the Legislature and the Governor.
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7)Sunsets the OE Act on June 30, 2015.
FISCAL EFFECT
Annual GF/98 state reimbursable mandated costs, likely between
$180,000 to $200,000, to school districts to complete requirements
specified in this measure, including collecting data and reporting
it to other districts, COEs, and the SPI, as specified.
COMMENTS
1)Background . SB 4 X5 (Romero), Chapter 3, Fifth Extraordinary
Session, Statutes of 2010, enacted the OE Act, which authorizes a
parent of a pupil enrolled in a "low-achieving school," as
determined by a list of schools developed by the SPI, to submit an
application for the pupil to transfer out of the school district
and into a higher achieving school in another district.
Existing law requires the SPI to annually create a list of 1,000
schools ranked by increasing API scores with the same ratio of
elementary, middle, and high schools as existed in decile 1 in the
2008-09 school year. Statute also prohibits a LEA from having
more than 10% of its schools on the OE Act list, as specified.
Charter, county community, juvenile court, and community day
schools are required to be excluded from the list.
According to the State Department of Education (SDE), the
methodology used to develop the OE Act list begins with
identifying the number of schools ranked in decile one of the API
and within these schools determining the ratio of elementary,
middle, and high schools. The number of elementary, middle, and
high schools on the OE Act list is based on this ratio. Once this
is completed, schools are ranked from lowest API score to highest
(excluding charter, county community, juvenile court, and
community day schools). Also, SDE is required to ensure an LEA
has no more than 10% of schools under its jurisdiction on the
list. LEA's schools with the highest API scores are dropped from
the list until the LEA has no more than its 10% number of schools
on the list. When a school is removed from the list, SDE replaces
it with another school ranked from lowest to highest on the API
until the OE Act list reaches 1,000 schools.
2)Purpose . In October 2010, LEAs were informed they had schools
under their jurisdiction that were identified as "low achieving
schools" for the purpose of the OE Act. As a result of the current
methodology (which excludes schools and calculates a 10% cap in
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specified school districts) and the mechanics of ranking schools
under the API (as referenced above), many schools identified on
this list have API scores of 700 and 800. Absent the OE Act,
these schools are considered to be among the highest performers in
the state. According to the author, "This process has created an
unintended result where we find schools that are clearly not low
performing schools (schools with API scores in the 800s) being
identified as low performing."
Since September 2010, 96 high achieving schools identified on the
OE Act list have requested a waiver from the State Board of
Education, which would allow them to be removed from this list.
According to the SDE, 96 schools have been approved for this
waiver and therefore, these schools are no longer identified as
"low achieving" for the purposes of the OE Act.
This bill makes several statutory changes to ensure high achieving
schools, as ranked by the API, are not identified as "low
achieving" for the purposes the OE Act. It also attempts to
ensure that schools that are making progress of 50 points or more
on the API are not subject to the requirements of the OE Act.
3)Related legislation . SB 172 (Huff), pending in the Senate
Education Committee, changes the term "low achieving school" to
"open enrollment school" under the OE Act.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916) 319-2081