BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 47
AUTHOR: Huffman
AMENDED: May 27, 2011
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 29, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Lynn Lorber
SUBJECT : Open enrollment.
SUMMARY
This bill modifies open enrollment provisions to exempt
schools with Academic Performance Index scores of at least
700, schools with at least 50 points growth, certain
special education schools, and make charter schools subject
to being on the list of low-achieving schools.
BACKGROUND
California enacted legislation in response to the federal
Race to the Top initiative, including the Open Enrollment
Act specific to low-achieving schools.
The Open Enrollment program:
1) Allows any pupil enrolled in one of 1,000 schools
identified annually by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction as low achieving to apply for enrollment
in a higher performing school anywhere in the state.
The list of 1,000 schools is established by ranking
schools based on the Academic Performance Index (API),
with the same ratio of elementary, middle, and high
schools as existed in decile 1 in the 2008-09 school
year. A district cannot have more than 10% of the
schools within that district placed on the list.
Specifically excluded from the list are the following
types of schools:
a) Court schools.
AB 47
Page 2
b) Community schools.
c) Community day schools.
d) Charter schools. (Education Code � 48352)
2) Requires pupils applying for a transfer to be assigned
priority for approval by the receiving school as
follows:
a) First priority for the siblings of children
who already attend the desired school.
b) Second priority for pupils transferring from
a program improvement school ranked in decile 1.
c) If the number of pupils who request a
particular school exceeds the number of spaces
available at that school, a lottery must be
conducted in the group priority order listed
above to select pupils at random until all of the
available spaces are filled. (EC � 48356)
3) Encourages each school district to keep an accounting
of all requests made for alternative attendance and
records of all disposition of those request that may
include, but are not limited to, all of the following:
a) The number of requests granted, denied, or
withdrawn. In the case of denied requests, the
records may indicate the reasons for the denials.
b) The number of pupils who transfer out of the
district.
c) The number of pupils who transfer into the
district.
d) The race, ethnicity, gender, self-reported
socioeconomic status, and the district of
residence of each of the pupils who transfer in
or out of the district.
AB 47
Page 3
e) The number of pupils who transfer in or out
of the district who are classified as English
learners or identified as individuals with
exceptional needs. (EC � 48359)
4) Authorizes the information described above to be
reported to the governing board of the district at a
regularly scheduled board meeting. (EC � 48359)
5) Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI) to contract for an independent evaluation, which
must at a minimum consider all of the following:
a) The levels of, and changes in, academic
achievement of pupils in school districts of
residence and school districts of enrollment for
pupils who do and do not elect to enroll in a
district of enrollment.
b) Fiscal and programmatic effects on districts
of residence and districts of enrollment.
c) Numbers and demographic and socioeconomic
characteristics of pupils who do and do not elect
to enroll in a district of enrollment.
The SPI is to provide the final evaluation to the
Legislature, Governor and State Board of Education by
October 1, 2014. (EC � 48360)
6) The State Board of Education adopted regulations that
provide:
a) Schools with less than 100 valid scores
reported on the 2009 Base API data file are
excluded.
b) Because of the ratio specified in #1 above,
68.7% (687 of the 1,000 on list) are elementary
schools, 16.5% (165 of the 1,000 on list) are
middle schools, and 14.8% (148 of the 1,000 on
AB 47
Page 4
list) are high schools.
c) Creating the list starts with the
identification of the 687 elementary schools, 165
middle schools, and 148 high schools that have
the lowest API scores within the criteria
described above. This list is ranked from lowest
API score to highest API score. When a school
district on the list has reached its 10% cap, the
district's schools with the highest API scores
are dropped from the list until the district has
no more than 10% of its schools on the list.
Schools with the next lowest API scores remaining
in the pool are then added to create the next
list of 1,000 schools that maintains the required
ratio of schools. This process continues until a
final list of 1,000 schools is achieved that both
maintains the ratio of 68.7% elementary schools,
16.5% middle schools, and 14.8% high schools and
does not exceed any district's 10% number of
schools.
Schools that are closed are exempt. (Title 5 of the
California Code of Regulations, � 701)
ANALYSIS
This bill modifies open enrollment provisions to exempt
schools with Academic Performance Index scores of at least
700, schools with at least 50 points growth, certain
special education schools, and make charter schools subject
to being on the list of low-achieving schools.
Specifically, this bill:
1) Creates a cap of up to 1,000 schools that are to be on
the list of schools subject to open enrollment.
Current law requires the list to include 1,000
schools.
2) Adds to those schools exempt from being on the list:
a) Schools with an Academic Performance Index
(API) score of at least 700.
AB 47
Page 5
b) Schools with prior year growth of at least
50 points.
c) County office of education schools for
special education.
d) State special schools.
3) Removes the existing exemption for charter schools.
4) Prohibits a school identified as low-achieving from
being on the list of schools subject to open
enrollment until the second consecutive year that
school is identified as low-achieving.
5) Prohibits a receiving school district (district of
enrollment) from rejecting the transfer of a pupil
with exceptional needs or an English learner if he or
she is randomly selected through a lottery.
6) Requires instead of encourages districts to keep an
accounting of requests. This bill also requires
instead of authorizes the information described in
Background #3 to be reported to the district board at
a public hearing.
7) Requires districts with schools subject to open
enrollment to report, by May 15 annually, the
information to adjacent districts that accept transfer
pupils, and to the county office of education. This
bill requires districts to report the information to
the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) by May
15 biennially. This bill also requires the SPI to
report the information to the Legislature and Governor
biennially.
8) Sunsets the Open Enrollment Act on July 1, 2015.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Purpose of the bill . According to the author, the
AB 47
Page 6
existing process to identify 1,000 low-performing
schools "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."
2) Effect of open enrollment . The 2010-11 school year
was the first year that the Open Enrollment Act was
implemented. The effect of open enrollment on
schools, districts and pupils is unknown because this
option is so new and because current law authorizes
specific data to be collected but does not require
this data to be collected or reported to the state.
This bill would require this data be collected,
reported to district boards, county offices of
education, and the state.
3) Number of schools subject to open enrollment . Current
law requires 1,000 schools to be identified as
low-achieving and subject to open enrollment. This
bill provides that the list may include up to 1,000 to
address the issue of schools with high API scores
being included on the list. Since September 2010, 96
schools identified on the open enrollment list have
requested a waiver from the State Board of Education,
which would allow them to be removed from this list.
According to the California Department of Education,
all 96 schools have been approved for this waiver and
are no longer subject to open enrollment provisions.
4) Charter schools . Current law excludes charter schools
from the list of schools subject to open enrollment.
Of the 945 schools ranked in decile one based on the
API in 2008-09, there were 103 charter schools. This
means that 103 of California's lowest achieving
charter schools are being excluded from the open
enrollment program and an equal number of higher
achieving traditional public schools are subject to
open enrollment.
5) One-year pass . Current law requires schools that are
identified as low-achieving to be included on a list
of schools subject to open enrollment. This bill
AB 47
Page 7
prohibits a school from being subject to open
enrollment unless the school has been identified as
low-achieving for two consecutive years. This allows
schools to show improvements in their API scores and
reduces the instances where a school is placed on the
list one year and taken off the next. Should this be
reserved for schools with higher APIs?
6) Conforming changes . Under the District of Choice
program, a school district board may declare the
district to be a District of Choice willing to accept
a certain number of inter-district transfers. This
bill makes several changes that conform portions of
the open enrollment program and the District of Choice
program. These conforming changes include:
a) Explicitly prohibiting a district of
enrollment from rejecting the transfer of special
needs pupils or English learners (if that pupil
was randomly selected in a lottery).
b) Requiring, rather than authorizing, each
district of enrollment to keep specified records.
c) Requiring these records to be reported to
the district board, to each school district that
is geographically adjacent, the county office of
education, and the SPI.
d) Requiring the SPI to report to the
Legislature and the Governor.
e) Adding a sunset clause.
7) Fiscal impact . According to the Assembly
Appropriations Committee, this bill would impose
annual General Fund (Proposition 98) state
reimbursable 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, county offices of
education, and the Superintendent of Public
Instruction.
AB 47
Page 8
SUPPORT
Alameda County Board of Education
Association of California School Administrators
California Association of Suburban School Districts
Kern County Superintendent of Schools
Los Angeles County Office of Education
Public Advocates
Riverside County School Superintendents' Association
San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools
San Francisco Unified School District
Small School Districts' Association
Numerous individuals
OPPOSITION
None on file.