BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 47
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 47 (Huffman and Brownley)
As Amended May 27, 2011
Majority vote
EDUCATION 7-2 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|Ayes:|Brownley, Ammiano, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Blumenfield, |
| |Buchanan, Butler, Carter, | |Bradford, Charles |
| |Eng, Williams | |Calderon, Campos, Davis, |
| | | |Gatto, Hall, Hill, Lara, |
| | | |Mitchell, Solorio |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Halderman, Wagner |Nays:|Harkey, Donnelly, |
| | | |Nielsen, Norby, Wagner |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Makes changes to the Open Enrollment (OE) Act.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to
annually create a list of up to 1,000 schools that are
eligible for OE.
2)Clarifies the means by which the SPI shall calculate the
maximum number of schools that a local educational agency
(LEA) may have on the OE list, as specified.
3)Prohibits schools to be on the OE list if the school has an
Academic Performance Index (API) score of 700 or above or if
the school has prior year API growth of 50 points or more.
4)Specifies that county offices of education (COEs) operating a
special education program and state special schools shall not
be included on the OE list.
5)Authorizes charter schools to be included on the OE list.
6)Specifies that a school shall only be identified for the OE
program if the school is identified on the list for two
consecutive years.
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7)Specifies that a school district of enrollment (DOE) shall not
reject the transfer of an individual with exceptional needs or
an English learner if he or she is randomly selected through a
lottery.
8)Requires each DOE to keep transfer records; requires the
records to be reported to the governing board of the district
of enrollment, to each school district that is geographically
adjacent to the district of enrollment and to the COE in which
the district is located by May 15 each year; requires, by May
15 of every other year, the school district to report the
records to the SPI; and, requires the SPI to be biennially
report to the Legislature and the Governor.
9)Establishes a sunset date for the Open Enrollment program of
July 1, 2015, and repeals the program as of January 1, 2016.
EXISTING LAW establishes the OE program which allows any pupil
enrolled in one of 1,000 schools identified by the SPI as low
achieving to enroll in a higher performing school anywhere in
the state. The list of 1,000 schools is established by ranking
schools based on the API, making the following exclusions from
the list: county community schools, community day schools,
juvenile court schools, charter schools, any school that would
make a school district have more than 10% of its schools in the
program, and any school that would disrupt the balance of
elementary, middle and high schools ranked in decile one based
on the API in the 2008-09 school year. DOEs are authorized to
adopt written standards for acceptance and rejection of
applications, including consideration of adverse financial
impact pupil transfers may have on a school district; and,
requires that the standards adopted by the DOE for accepting or
rejecting student transfers not include consideration of a
pupil's family income, or any of the individual characteristics
set forth in Education Code Section 200, and encourages
districts to keep records on the personal characteristics of
students that transfer under this program. The SPI is required
to contract for an independent evaluation of the program, and
provide the final report of the evaluation to the Legislature,
Governor, and State Board of Education (SBE) on or before
October 1, 2014 (Education Code 48350-48361).
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, annual General Fund/Proposition 98 state reimbursable
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mandated costs, likely between $50,000 to $100,000, 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 :
Higher achieving schools on the OE list: Since the
implementation of the OE program began, many schools and
districts have come forward expressing frustration with their
identification as a "low performing school" despite their
success in achieving API scores in the 700-800+ range. This
bill prohibits schools with an API score above 700 from being
identified for OE. This bill also includes a growth component
to the identification criteria, by prohibiting schools that have
attained 50 points of growth on the API in the prior year from
being identified for OE. Also, the bill limits the schools
identified to those that fall below these criteria for two
consecutive years, in order to account for fluctuations in a
school's API score.
Conforming changes: This bill makes several conforming changes
between the OE program and the District of Choice program.
These conforming changes include a sunset date for the program;
specifying explicitly that a DOE may not reject the transfer of
special needs pupils or English learners; requiring each DOE to
keep specified records; requiring these records to be reported
to the governing board of the DOE and to each school district
that is geographically adjacent to the DOE, the COE in which the
district is located and the SPI; and, requiring the SPI to
report to the Legislature and the Governor.
The 10% cap: Existing law limits the number of schools that can
be identified for the OE program within a district to 10% of the
total number of schools in the district. This bill clarifies
that if the number of schools in the district is not divisible
by 10, then the number of schools of schools eligible for OE
shall be established by rounding to the next whole number of
schools.
Ongoing open enrollment program concerns: When the Assembly
Education Committee heard SB 4 X5 (Romero), Chapter 3, Statutes
of 2009, Fifth Extraordinary Session, which establishes the OE
program, the following concern was expressed and continues to
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persist. It is unclear whether the OE program requires
districts of enrollment to accept any transfers under this
program. The program specifies that a district can create
standards for accepting and rejecting students, and provides
protections for discrimination against individual students, but
the program may not prohibit a school district from rejecting
all transfers under this program. For example, could a district
create a policy that says they will not accept any transfers
and/or a policy that rejects all students from a specific
district or school?
Analysis Prepared by : Chelsea Kelley / ED. / (916) 319-2087
FN: 0001071