BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Carol Liu, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 1143
AUTHOR: Liu
INTRODUCED: February 20, 2014
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 24, 2014
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez
SUBJECT : Pupil instruction: independent study.
SUMMARY
This bill (1) makes various changes to independent study (IS),
as specified, (2) creates a new course based IS option and a
new schoolsite-based blended learning IS option, as specified,
and (3) deems for purposes of charter school funding, that the
new IS options are considered classroom-based instruction.
The language in this bill is identical to 2014 budget trailer
bill language (TBL) proposed by the administration. Due to
the significant policy implications of the TBL, the author
wished to subject the language to the legislative policy
process.
BACKGROUND
Current law provides for independent study, which is provided
as an alternative instructional strategy. Independent study
students work independently, according to a written agreement
and under the general supervision of a credentialed teacher or
teachers. While independent study students follow the
district-adopted curriculum and meet the district graduation
requirements, independent study offers flexibility to meet
individual student needs, interests, and styles of learning.
Because students in independent study work closely with their
teachers, in one-on-one meetings or small group instruction,
independent study can be a highly personalized form of
instruction. In all cases, students are supervised by a
certificated teacher who assigns and evaluates student work on
a periodic basis. Since IS students do not attend school on a
daily basis, funding for IS programs is based on students'
academic work products. For each assignment, the supervising
teacher equates a students' work to an equivalent amount of
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seat time. An IS program can claim full per-pupil funding if
the seat-time equivalent of the students' work is the same as
the time the students would have spent in a classroom setting.
(Education Code � 51745 et. seq.)
Under existing law, the Charter Schools Act of 1992 provides
for the establishment of charter schools in California for the
purpose, among other things, to improve student learning and
expand learning experiences for pupils who are identified as
academically low achieving. A charter school that does not
meet the requirements to be a classroom-based instruction is
considered to be nonclassroom-based instruction and must have
a funding determination approved by the State Board of
Education (SBE). Classroom-based instruction occurs only when
pupils are under the immediate supervision and control of a
certificated teacher. The charter school must offer at least
80 percent of its instructional time at the school site
(principally for classroom instruction) and attendance must be
required at the school site for at least 80 percent of the
minimum instructional time required to be offered.
(Education Code � 47601 et seq.)
ANALYSIS
This bill (1) makes various changes to independent study (IS),
as specified, (2) creates a new course based IS option and a
new schoolsite-based blended learning IS option, as specified,
and (3) deems for purposes of charter school funding, that the
new IS options are considered classroom-based instruction.
More specifically, this bill:
1) Specifies the pupil to certificated employee ratio in IS
or schoolsite blended learning shall not exceed the ratio
of pupils to certificated employees for all other
educational programs operated by the school district or
county office of education, as specified, for the
applicable grade span, unless a new higher or lower grade
span ratio is collectively bargained. The following
grade spans apply:
a) Kindergarten and grades 1 to 3, inclusive;
b) Grades 4 to 6, inclusive;
c) Grades 7 to 8, inclusive;
d) Grades 9 to 12, inclusive.
2) Specifies that only those units of average daily
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attendance (ADA) that reflect a pupil-teacher ratio that
does not exceed applicable grade span ratios, as
specified above, shall be eligible for state
apportionment funding. For charter schools the applicable
ratio of pupils-to-teacher shall be a fixed 25 to one, or
a ratio of less than 25 pupils to one certificated
employee.
3) Eliminates the requirement that all student assignments
be signed and dated by a supervising teacher. The
underlying requirements for teachers to evaluate student
assignments, keep a record of all work assigned, and
maintain representative samples of student work would
remain in place.
4) Authorizes school districts, county offices of education,
and charter schools to offer a new course based IS
option beginning with the 2015-16 school year for pupils
enrolled in grades 9 to 12, pursuant to the following
conditions:
a) The local governing board adopts policies,
at a public hearing, that comply with the
requirements of this section, as specified.
b) A signed learning agreement is completed, as
specified.
c) Courses are taught under the general
supervision of certificated employees, as specified;
and are employed by the school district, county
office of education, or charter school or by a local
educational agency (LEA) that has a memorandum of
understanding to provide the instruction, as
specified.
d) Courses are annually certified by the local
governing board, as specified, to be of the same
rigor and educational quality as equivalent
classroom-based courses, including all relevant
local and state content standards.
This certification, at a minimum, must include the
duration, number of equivalent daily instructional
minutes for each school day that a pupil is
enrolled, number of equivalent total instructional
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minutes, and number of course credits for each
course. This information shall be consistent with
that of equivalent classroom-based courses.
e) Pupils enrolled in courses authorized by
this measure must meet applicable residency,
enrollment and age requirements, as specified.
f) Requires at least once per week pupil /
teacher communication, as specified, assessing
whether each pupil is making satisfactory
educational progress. Satisfactory educational
progress includes, but is not limited to, applicable
statewide accountability measures and assessments
and the completion of assignments, examinations, or
other indicators that evidence that the pupil is
working on assignments, learning required concepts,
and progressing toward successful completion of the
course, as determined by certificated employees
providing instruction. In addition, the bill
prescribes a process if satisfactory educational
progress is not being made, as specified.
g) Examinations given to pupils must include a
proctor or other reliable method to ensure exam
integrity.
h) Pupil shall not be required to enroll in a
course based IS.
i) Pupil-to-certificated employee ratio
limitations identified in #1 above apply.
j) For each pupil, the combined equivalent
daily instructional minutes for enrolled courses
authorized by this section and enrolled courses
authorized by all other laws and regulations must
meet the applicable minimum instructional day
requirements. Pupils enrolled in courses authorized
by this section shall be offered the minimum annual
total equivalent instructional minutes, as
specified.
aa) Specifies the computation of ADA for each
pupil enrolled in one or more courses authorized by
this section, as specified.
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1) Authorizes school districts, county offices of education,
and charter schools to offer a new schoolsite-based
blended learning IS option beginning with the 2015-16
school year for pupils enrolled in kindergarten and
grades 1 to 12, pursuant to the general conditions as
specified in # 4 above with the following exceptions:
a) Courses are taught under the general
supervision of certificated employees, as specified,
and are employed by the school district, county
office of education, or charter school.
Pupils must be at a physical schoolsite each day
school is in session and under the immediate
supervision of a school district, county office of
education, or charter school paraprofessional, in
coordination with the certificated employee teaching
the course or under the immediate supervision of the
certificated employee teaching the course.
b) Specifies the computation of ADA for each
pupil enrolled in one or more courses authorized by
this section, as specified, taking into account the
requirement that a pupil must be at a physical
schoolsite each day school is in session.
1) Requires each school district, county office of
education, or charter school, before enrolling a pupil in
either a course based or schoolsite-based blended
learning IS program to provide the pupil (or pupil's
parent or legal guardian) with a written learning
agreement that includes all of the following:
a) A summary of the policies and procedures
adopted by the local governing board, as specified.
b) The duration of the enrolled course or
courses, the duration of the learning agreement, the
number of course credits for each course. The
duration of a learning agreement cannot exceed a
school year or span multiple school years.
c) The learning objectives and expectations for
each course including, but not limited to, a
description of how satisfactory educational progress
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is measured and when a pupil evaluation is required
to determine whether the pupil should remain in the
course or return to a regular school program.
d) The specific resources, including materials
and personnel that will be made available to the
pupil.
e) A statement that the pupil is not required
to enroll in these courses.
The learning agreement must be signed by the pupil and
pupil's parent or legal guardian, as applicable, and all
certificated employees providing instruction before
instruction may commence.
A physical or electronic copy of the signed learning
agreement must be retained by the school district, county
office of education or charter school for at least three
years.
Defines an electronic copy to include a computer or
electronic stored image of an original document,
including, but not limited to, portable document format
(PDF), JPEG, or other digital image file type, that may
be sent via fax machine, e-mail, or other electronic
means.
1) Deems for purposes of charter school funding that the new
IS options described in #4 and #5 are considered
classroom based instruction.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill. The original intent of the author was
to pursue changes to independent study law to streamline
requirements and eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks where
audit exceptions typically made the offering of IS
difficult and costly. In the meantime, the
administration offered other IS changes; however only via
the budget trailer bill language (TBL) process. Due to
the significant policy implications of the TBL, the
author wished to subject the language to the legislative
policy process.
2) Schoolsite-based blended learning . The bill attempts to
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create a variant of the course-based IS option to serve
certain types of site-based blended learning programs.
This option includes all of the elements from the
course-based option, but contains two major differences.
First, students would be required to be on a school site
on a daily basis, similar to students in a traditional
classroom-based program. However, unlike a
classroom-based program, students could be supervised
during this time by their certificated teacher or an
instructional aide (paraprofessional). Second, this
option would be available to IS programs serving grades
K-12, rather than limited to grades 9 to 12.
It would seem that the schoolsite-based blended learning
option would provide little, if any, added benefit,
especially if the course-based IS option were extended to
include kindergarten through grade 8. In addition, the
requirement for pupils to be at a physical schoolsite is
less flexible than existing IS or the new course-based
option.
Finally, the flexibility the schoolsite-based blended
learning may offer in less restrictive pupil supervision
creates a questionable educational and learning
environment and may diminish the quality of interaction
between the teacher and the student. Furthermore, a study
by the American Educational Research Association,
entitled Teacher Aides and Students' Academic Achievement
indicates that there is strong evidence to suggest that
teacher aide classes are not as effective as small
classes with regard to student achievement. It could be
further argued that paraprofessionals (teacher aides)
should be a supplement to and not a replacement for
certificated teachers.
3) The Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) report . According
to the LAO, about 140,000 California students took at
least half of their coursework through IS in 2012-13, and
an additional 25,000 students took at least one but fewer
than half of their courses through IS. Collectively
these students represent about 2.6 percent of all K-12
enrollments. About two-thirds of total IS enrollments are
high school students and one-third elementary students.
Regarding providers, about two-thirds are charter schools
and one-third are district-run programs. In recent years,
enrollment in charter school IS programs has grown
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rapidly while enrollment in district-run programs has
remained stable. In their review of the administration's
proposal, the LAO found merit in many aspects of it.
Generally, the LAO recommended the following:
a) Adopt the proposal to allow local governing
boards to covert entire courses (rather than
individual assignments) to seat time and extend this
option to all grade levels.
b) Adopt the proposal to compute school
districts' student-teacher ratios by grade span and
allow caps to be exceeded if collectively bargained.
LAO, however, did suggest alternative changes to
the charter school ratios.
c) Reject the proposal to create a modified IS
option for site-based blended learning (as these
programs could be accommodated by extending the
course-based IS option to all grades).
d) Reject the proposal to exempt charter
schools using the course-based IS option from
special fiscal review and instead simplify the
fiscal review or strengthen fiscal oversight of
certain IS charter schools.
e) Adopt the elimination of the requirement
that all student assignments be signed and dated by
a supervising teacher, adopt electronic
recordkeeping, and adopt the provision allowing for
IS contracts to last up to one year.
1) Charter schools pursuing broader discussion . Charter
schools are currently re-examining their instructional
delivery. The Charter School Association indicated they
are in the process of examining a continuum of
instructional delivery, blended learning being part of
this continuum. The charter school advocates prefer to
have the discussion about blended learning and its
implications on charter schools take place in the policy
of AB 2178 (Levine), which is the legislative vehicle for
this examination and discussion. This bill is scheduled
for hearing in the Assembly Education Committee later
this month.
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2) There is general consensus around the need to streamline
the IS conditions of apportionment and, in the case of
this measure, in allowing for a course based IS option,
permitting of electronic signatures (as prescribed),
allowing for one-year master agreements, and allowing for
locally-bargained pupil to teacher ratios by grade span.
Alternatively, there was broad agreement that the concept
of schoolsite-blended learning needed more analysis and
dialogue particularly on behalf of the charter school
community. Accordingly, based on the feedback from
multiple entities, including the administration, staff
recommends amendments as follows:
a) On pages 2 through 5, strike all of Section 1
in its entirety, consistent with the LAO
recommendation.
b) On page 5, lines 27 and 30, strike "or
schoolsite-based blended learning"
c) On page 6, lines 1,4, and 26, strike "or
schoolsite-based blended learning"
d) On page 8, line 3, strike "grades 9 to" and
insert: kindergarten and grades 1 to
e) On pages 10 through 13, strike Section 5 in its
entirety
f) On page 13, line 38, strike "or 51749.6"
g) On page 14, lines 5, 11, 12, and 22, strike "or
51749.6"
SUPPORT
Butte County Office of Education
California Association of Gifted and Talented
California Consortium for Independent Study
California Continuation Education Association
California Educational Technology Professionals Association
EdVoice
Napa County Office of Education
San Diego County Office of Education
San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools
San Francisco Unified School District
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Santa Clara County Office of Education
Santa Cruz County Office of Education
School Employers Association of California
Small School Districts' Association
The Education Trust-West
OPPOSITION
California Teachers Association
California Federation of Teachers