BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1919
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Date of Hearing: May 9, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1919 (Brownley) - As Amended: April 23, 2012
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:6-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires the SDE to provide a school district, upon
request, a secondary Academic Performance Index (API) that
includes scores of the charter schools for which the district is
the chartering authority. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires a district's secondary API score to be used only for
district purposes and not for any statewide accountability
purposes.
2)Provides a school district access to individual pupil
demographic, program, and achievement data relating to pupils
who attend a charter school for which the district is the
chartering authority. Requires the achievement data, to
include, but not be limited to, the results of standards-based
achievement tests that are part of the Standardized Testing
and Reporting (STAR) program, the California High School Exit
Exam, and the California English Language Development Test.
3)Requires SDE to provide this data, to the extent it has it,
along with the unique pupil identification number of each of
those pupils, to the school district.
4)Authorizes school districts to view and download individual
pupil records in the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement
Data System for pupils who attend a charter school for which
the district is the chartering authority.
FISCAL EFFECT
GF administrative costs to SDE, between $42,000 and $125,000, to
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SDE to meet the requirements of this measure.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . Existing law deems any pupil's STAR results to be
private. Scores may not be released to any person (other than
the pupil's parent/guardian and a teacher, counselor, or
administrator directly involved with the pupil) without the
express written consent of either the parent/guardian of the
pupil if the pupil is a minor or the pupil if he or she is of
age or is emancipated.
Statute also authorizes a parent/guardian to release a pupil's
STAR results to a postsecondary educational institution for
the purposes of credit, placement, or admission, as specified.
In 2010, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
requested student level assessment data for pupils attending
charter schools that it authorized. In October 2012,
Superintendent Jack O'Connell cited current law, which does
not allow a pupil's STAR results to be released, as specified
above. Specifically, Mr. O'Connell stated: "Because of the
legal restrictions imposed on the release of student-level
assessment data, SDE is unable to fulfill your current
request. If you received these data in the past they were
delivered in error."
According to LAUSD, sponsor of this bill, "Access to
individual student demographic and achievement data is
important to assess how our students are faring. For charter
schools that are authorized by a school district, current law
only allows the district access to aggregate school-level
data. Given that school districts are responsible for
renewing school charter agreements, access to pupil data for a
district's charters is necessary to properly evaluate the
performance of students at the charter school. Without this
information, it is difficult for districts to know if the
charter school is meeting the needs of certain groups of
students."
2)Background . A charter school is a public school that provide
instruction in any of grades K-12. It is usually created or
organized by a group of teachers, parents and community
leaders or a community-based organization. A charter school
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may be authorized by an existing local public school board,
county board of education, or the State Board of Education.
Specific goals and operating procedures for the charter school
are detailed in an agreement (charter) between the sponsoring
board and charter organizers. A charter school is generally
exempt from most laws governing school districts, except where
specifically noted in the law. As such, charter schools are
not required to provide pupils with a nutritionally adequate
free or reduced-price meal.
According to the State Department of Education (SDE), there
were 919 charter schools with an enrollment of 375,358 pupils
in 2010-11.
Statute authorizes a charter school to be granted one or more
renewals for a five-year period.
Current law further requires a charter school to meet one of
the following specified criteria (for the purposes of
renewal): (a) attained its API growth target in the prior year
or in two of the last three years; (b) ranked in deciles 4 to
10 on the API in the prior year or in two of the last three
years; (c) ranked in deciles 4 to 10 on the API for a
demographically comparable school in the prior year or in two
of the last three years; and (d) the chartering authority
determines the academic performance of the charter school is
at least equal to the performance of the public schools the
charter pupils would have otherwise attended, as specified.
3)Committee amendment . This bill requires SDE, upon the request
of a school district, to provide a secondary API that includes
API scores of charter schools for which the district is the
chartering authority. Costs to implement this bill could be
approximately $125,000 due the requirement that the district
request this information from SDE. According to SDE, the
uncertainty of not knowing whether a district is going to
request the secondary API will cause them to devote additional
staff to process requests and gather this information. If,
however, SDE is required to do this annually as part of their
duties in implementing the API, the cost of the bill would be
reduced to $42,000 GF annually.
The committee recommends the author amend the bill as follows:
AB 1919
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Page 7, line 35 - 36, delete "upon the request of the school
district."
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081