BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 532
AUTHOR: Hernandez
AMENDED: March 21, 2011
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 13, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : Advanced Placement Program
SUMMARY
This bill requires, beginning in 2013-14, that school
districts offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses in five
specified areas of study at each high school in the
district that did not offer those courses during the
2012-13 school year; requires some school districts to
consider alternative means of providing these courses,
including "high quality on-line courses," and requires the
California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California
State University (CSU) to grant specified course credit to
students who achieve specified scores on International
Baccalaureate (IB) exams.
BACKGROUND
The Advanced Placement (AP) program was established over 40
years ago by the College Board, a national nonprofit
organization. AP consists of college-level courses in 21
subject areas. AP programs provide incentives for public
high schools in California to provide access to rigorous,
college-level courses for interested and prepared students.
With such programs, students may pursue college-level work
while still in secondary school and receive college credit,
advanced academic standing, or both.
Current law makes a number of findings regarding AP
courses, and declares the Legislature's intent that state
funding be made available to provide financial assistance
to economically disadvantaged pupils in the payment of AP
examination fees. Current law authorizes a school district
to use Economic Impact Aid funding for this purpose and
also establishes a program, to be administered by the
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California Department of Education (CDE), for the purpose
of awarding grants to cover the costs of AP fees or IB exam
fees, or both, for eligible economically disadvantaged high
school pupils. This grant program sunsets on January 1,
2013. (Education Code 52240-52244)
Current law recognizes the IB Diploma and declares the
Legislature's intent to establish incentives to encourage
high schools to offer, and students to enroll in, and
complete these programs. Current law also requires the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to annually
allocate up to $25,000 for school districts for each
participating high school and middle school for
professional development costs and to pay testing fees for
financially needy students, pursuant to annual Budget Act
funding. (Education Code �52920-52922)
Funding for both the AP grant program and IB professional
development costs is now currently in categorical program
flexibility pursuant to SBX3 4 (Chapter 12, Statutes of
2009).
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Requires, beginning with the 2013-14 school year, that
school districts offer advanced placement (AP) courses
in five specified areas of study (English, History,
Foreign Language, Mathematics, Science) at each of its
high schools that did not offer those courses during
the 2012-13 school year.
2) Requires a school district to consider alternative
means for providing these courses if an AP teacher is
unavailable or if fewer than 10 pupils would be
enrolled in the course.
3) Provides that "alternative means" include, but not be
limited to high quality online courses.
4) Provides that a "high quality online course" must meet
the following requirements:
a) Be approved and certified by the
local educational agency's (LEAs) governing body,
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through a board adopted resolution, to be as
rigorous as a classroom based course and to meet
or exceed state content standards.
b) Be offered either synchronous or
asynchronous subject to specified requirements.
c) Meet or exceed the same ratio of
full-time equivalent certificated teachers to
pupils as that in traditional classroom study of
the same subject matter, as specified.
d) Maintain the same course content
in the online course as that for the traditional
class room-based course when a course of the same
title exists within the LEA.
e) Be taught by a teacher that is
appropriately subject matter credentialed and
meets highly qualified teacher requirements under
specified federal law.
f) Report and assign statewide
testing results to the LEA enrolling the student
in regular classroom courses.
g) Be offered by a high school,
continual school county office of education, or
charter school.
h) Prohibit the following:
i) Assignment of a
student to an online class on other than a
voluntary basis and with parental consent
prior to enrollment.
ii) Denial of access on the basis that
the student lacks the necessary hardware or
software.
iii) Charging the student for
participation in the course.
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i) Tests pupils by proctor or other
reliable methods that insure integrity, maintains
records of pupil work and uses the same methods
and assessments as classroom-based courses.
j) Maintain, at the LEA,
contemporaneous records of the time spent by the
pupil in the course and related activities, and
the time the teacher is online.
5) Requires the CCC and the CSU to grant students who
scored 5, 6, or 7 on an IB exam the same amount of
course credit to students who score 4 or 5 on the
equivalent AP exams.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author current
law encourages but does not require students to take
challenging AP and honors courses. Access to these
courses/programs continues to be limited because there
are no standards or requirements for schools to
satisfy. In addition, the author contends that the CCC
and the CSU do not have a consistent process and/or
policy in place to award credits for students who have
completed IB courses. This bill requires that IB
courses be granted the same credit as equivalent AP
courses.
2) Status of AP course offerings in CA high schools ?
According to the CDE, 36 different kinds of AP courses
were offered in over 1,000 California high schools in
2008-09. Approximately 470,000 students statewide
enrolled in over 17,000 classes. While the number and
type of courses offered vary across the state and
within schools, courses in AP English Language,
English Literature and Composition, Spanish, Calculus,
Biology, US Government and Politics and US History,
were offered by over 500 schools.
3) Differential access to rigorous college preparatory
curriculum . Both UC and CSU require students to take
a minimum of 15 "a-g" pattern of courses to become
eligible to attend one of their institutions. Although
AP courses can meet the a-g requirements, a course
does not have to be designated as AP in order to meet
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these eligibility requirements.
According to a 2006 report by UC ACCORD and UCLA/IDEA,
Removing the Roadblocks: Fair College Opportunities
for All California Students, fewer than half (45%) of
the state's comprehensive high schools provided all
students a sufficiently rigorous academic curriculum
because they failed to offer enough college
preparatory (a-g) classes to enable all students to
take them. These shortages are reportedly much more
likely in schools where African American and Latino
students are in the majority. In its January 2010
report, Conditions, Opportunities, and Outcomes in
California Public Schools, it was noted that in 22.8%
of high schools, more than 20% of college preparatory
courses are taught by teachers teaching outside their
subject area expertise.
While some districts have adopted the a-g curriculum
as the mandatory course pattern required for
graduation the state does not currently require
districts to offer this curriculum. Is it reasonable
to require districts that may not yet offer sufficient
a-g courses to offer AP courses?
4) At the expense of?..what ? Current law requires the
adopted course of study for grades 7-12 to include
courses in specified subject areas, and other studies
as may be prescribed by the local governing board.
This committee has historically resisted legislation
that restricts a local governing board's discretion to
offer the courses that best meet the needs of their
students, whether these are a-g college preparatory
courses or Career Technical Education courses. Given
the state's current budget situation, rather than
expanding current course offerings to include AP
courses, this bill could result in the elimination of
other course offerings in order to meet the
requirements of the bill. Are AP courses the highest
priority of this committee?
5) Mandate . Legislative Counsel has identified
potentially reimbursable state-mandated costs. The
bill has been drafted to apply its provisions to
schools who did not offer AP courses in at least 5
subject areas in 2012-13, raising a number of
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questions. Does the bill create an inequity by
rewarding districts who did not offer sufficient AP
courses while penalizing districts that did? Does the
bill create an incentive for eliminating AP course
offerings in 2012-13 in order to be able to claim
mandated costs in the future? Would a district that
offered the prescribed courses prior to the bill's
enactment be able to pursue reimbursement for courses
it must maintain in order to be in compliance with the
bill's provisions, or is that school relieved of any
obligation to offer those courses in the future?
6) On-line courses . Currently, districts may offer
online curriculum either in a classroom setting,
through independent study, or through a charter
school.
This bill establishes requirements to be met in order
to be considered an "online high quality course" for
purposes of offering AP courses. While not explicit,
it appears to be the intent to authorize ADA funding
for classes that might not otherwise qualify for state
support.
The provisions of this bill relative to "high quality
online courses" are similar to those proposed in AB
2027 (Blumenfield, 2010), which passed this committee
by a vote of 8-0 in June 2010 and was subsequently
held under submission in the Senate Appropriations
Committee. A similar bill AB 802 (Blumenfield) is
currently awaiting hearing in the Assembly Education
Committee.
The issues raised regarding the funding and quality of
online courses apply whether or not the course being
offered is for AP purposes. Shouldn't a single policy
govern the standards of quality and funding for any
online course offered by a school district? It is
unclear why a separate standard for funding online AP
courses is necessary. Staff recommends the bill be
amended to delete the provisions relative to online AP
course offerings.
7) What options currently exist ? What can schools that
offer few AP courses do to help their students access
this or other rigorous curriculum? The following offer
some options:
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The UC has adopted an online policy intended
to be flexible
enough to accommodate synchronous, asynchronous,
and blended online course providers, while
addressing issues of quality. In addition to
providing a list of UC approved online providers,
in June 2010, the UC adopted a policy authorizing
high school principals to certify that non-UC
approved online courses are comparable to other
college preparatory courses offered at the high
school, thereby allowing for their recognition in
the UC application and admissions process.
The UC College Prep Online (UCCP) provides
access to UC
faculty-developed courses aligned to California
content standards and "a-g" requirements and that
have passed a College Board AP audit. These
courses may be licensed by California schools,
school districts and county offices of education
at no cost.
The California Virtual Campus (CVC)
develops, constructs, and
maintains services and relationships that support
distance education efforts at all California
colleges for all students. CVC partners with K-12
schools, community colleges, CSUs, UCs, private
universities, and other CCC projects to support
the development of high-quality online courses
and programs and services. The UC recognizes
certain CVC courses as satisfying a-g
requirements for eligibility and admissions
purposes.
K12HSN, a state program funded by the CDE,
offers Calaxy, a
comprehensive set of tools to support teaching
and learning in California classrooms. Among
other things, it provides free access to
multimedia tools for AP courses available through
UCCP. These lessons are intended to supplement a
teacher's instructional delivery in traditional
courses.
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Staff recommends the bill be amended to delete the
mandated offering of AP courses and instead require
the SPI to update the CDE website to expand the
information currently provided on AP to include
information on the various means available to school
districts to offer or access these courses. Staff
further recommends that the SPI be directed to
communicate with high schools that offer AP courses in
fewer than 5 subjects, the various options for making
these and other rigorous courses available to students
that may benefit from them.
1) Prescribing course credit in statute ? This bill
requires that the local governing board of a community
college district and the CSU assign the same academic
credit given for AP courses to equivalent IB courses.
Notwithstanding the reputation for quality associated
with IB programs, determination of academic credit for
coursework has traditionally been the purview of the
Academic Senates of the respective institutions.
In June 2003, the UC Academic Senate reviewed and
compared all IB and AP curriculum guides and developed
a list of honors designations for IB classes. In May
2009, the Academic Senate of the CSU adopted a
resolution to encourage its faculty to develop
systemwide standards for acceptance of IB courses and
exams for baccalaureate and general education credit.
In 2009, the Academic Senate of the CCC adopted a
resolution to develop a systemwide policy regarding
the use of IB exams for meeting general education
requirements, to encourage local academic senates to
adopt the policy and, in fall 2010, to make this
information available in college catalogs, schedules
and websites.
Staff recommends the bill be amended to delete the
current language in Section 3 of the bill and to
instead encourage the Academic Senates of each of the
public systems of higher education to continue their
efforts to adopt consistent systemwide guidelines for
the acceptance and granting of credit for IB
coursework.
SUPPORT
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Advancement Project
California Association of International Baccalaureate World
Schools
California Immigrant Policy Center
College Board
OPPOSITION
None received.