BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 172
AUTHOR: Huff
AMENDED: March 16, 2011
FISCAL COMM: No HEARING DATE: January 11, 2012
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez
SUBJECT : Open Enrollment Act.
SUMMARY
This bill substitutes the term "low-achieving school" with
"open enrollment school." In addition, changes the
application deadline from January 1 to January 5 of the
preceding school year for a parent wishing to transfer their
child from an "open enrollment school."
BACKGROUND
1) California enacted legislation (Chapter 3 of the 5th
Extraordinary Session, Statutes of 2010, Romero) in
response to the federal Race to the Top initiative,
including the Open Enrollment Act specific to pupils who
attend low-achieving schools. The Open Enrollment Act
(Education Code � 48350 - 48361):
Allows any pupil enrolled in one of 1,000 schools
identified annually by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI) 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 (68.7 percent),
middle (16.5 percent), and high schools (14.8 percent)
as existed in decile 1 in the 2008-09 school year.
However, 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, (b) community
schools, (c) community day schools, and (d) charter
schools.
SB 172
Page 2
Encourages each school district to keep an accounting of
all requests made for alternative attendance, records of
all action of those requests that may include, but are
not limited to, the number of requests granted, denied,
or withdrawn. In the case of denied requests, the
records may indicate the reasons for the denials.
Requires the 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; and (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.
2 The State Board of Education adopted regulations (Title
5 of the California Code of Regulations, � 4701 - 4703)
that provide:
a) Schools with less than 100 valid scores
reported on the 2009 Base API data file are also
excluded.
b) Because of the ratio specified in #1 above,
687 of the 1,000 on list are elementary schools,
165 are middle schools, and 148 are high schools.
c) Creating the list starts with the
identification of the elementary middle and 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
SB 172
Page 3
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.
ANALYSIS
This bill modifies the Open Enrollment Act, more
specifically:
1) Substitutes the term "low-achieving school" with "open
enrollment school." However, the bill does not change
the eligibility criteria used to identify the 1,000
schools under the Open Enrollment Act.
2) Changes the application deadline from January 1 to
January 5 of the preceding school year for a parent
wishing to transfer their child from an "open enrollment
school" to a school district of enrollment.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author's office
some school districts have raised concerns that the
"low-achieving schools" label in certain circumstances
may be unwarranted. The open enrollment act was never
intended to be a punitive program. Instead, it was
intended to be an opportunity for parents to transfer to
a better performing school. School choice, not
subjective labels, is the underlying purpose of the Open
Enrollment Act.
2) Prior policy discussions on Open Enrollment . The
discussions around the purpose of enacting an Open
Enrollment policy was generally to allow pupils
attending low-performing schools, as specified, to
attend schools in a different district and allowing
parents another option beyond the current transfer
policies. As a result, open enrollment had vigorous
debate on the implications for not only the
lowest-performing schools, but also the implications on
receiving districts of enrollment.
SB 172
Page 4
By changing the name of "low-achieving school" to "open
enrollment school" (1) the connection with the original
statute is significantly diluted - no mention of
"low-achieving school" will remain in the Act and a
rationale for passage of open enrollment will vanish;
and (2) it may create more confusion to parents and
pupils as the name changes.
3) Meaningful change? While this measure attempts to
change the labeling of schools that are affected by the
Open Enrollment Act, it does not provide a policy change
to the eligibility criteria used to identify the 1,000
schools impacted by the Act.
Schools that object to "low-achieving "status have
administrative recourse, under Education Code section
33050, schools can request a waiver from the Open
Enrollment Act. Since September 2010, 130 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, 103 waivers were
deemed approved and there are 27 new waivers before the
State Board for consideration.
If there is a concern the eligibility criteria for
identifying "low-achieving" schools is unwarranted or
punitive or that some schools are being mislabeled, this
bill does nothing to create a meaningful policy change.
4) Previous legislation .
AB 47 (Huffman, 2011), among other things, would
have modified the Open Enrollment Act to exempt
schools with Academic Performance (API) scores of at
least 700, schools with at least 50 points growth in
the prior year, and certain special education schools.
This measure was vetoed with the following message:
This bill modifies the eligibility criteria used to
identify schools under the Open Enrollment Act
which was enacted last year to provide parents with
enrollment options in 1000 public schools that fail
to meet defined student academic achievement
criteria.
SB 172
Page 5
The bill increases the threshold for identifying
open enrollment schools to exclude schools that
score above 700 on the Academic Performance Index
for two consecutive years. The California
Department of Education estimates that based on the
revised criteria only 150 schools would be included
in the new list of schools. I believe that the
proposed changes go too far and would undermine the
intent of the original law.
The State Board of Education has administrative
authority to exempt schools from the Open
Enrollment Act that document strong student
academic achievement. I expect the Board will
thoughtfully exercise this authority and believe we
should carefully review the implementation effects
of the program before making significant changes.
SB 266 (Huff) would enact the Open Enrollment Act
for the purpose of allowing pupils attending
low-performing schools, as specified, to attend
schools in a different district. This bill was held
in Senate Appropriations Committee.
6) Effect of open enrollment . 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.
7) Race to the Top competition . The federal U.S.
Department of Education (USDE) issued an invitation to
the States to compete for approximately $4.4 billion of
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) one-time
funding known as Race to the Top (RTTT) grants. The
RTTT grants were issued in three competitive phases.
RTTT was a competitive grant program designed to
encourage and reward States that are creating the
conditions for education innovation and reform;
achieving significant improvement in student outcomes,
including making substantial gains in student
achievement; closing achievement gaps; improving high
school graduation rates; and ensuring student
SB 172
Page 6
preparation for success in college and career; and
implementing ambitious plans in four core education
reform areas: (a) adopting high quality standards and
assessments to prepare students for higher education or
work, (b) recruiting, developing, retaining and
rewarding effective teachers and principals, (c)
creating data systems to measure student success and
support instruction, and (d) turning around the lowest
performing schools.
California was not selected for funding in any of the
three competitive phases.
SUPPORT
EdVoice.
OPPOSITION
Association of California School Administrators