School accountability: low-performing public schools.

(1) The Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with approval of the State Board of Education, to develop the Academic Performance Index (API) , consisting of a variety of indicators, to be used to measure the performance of schools. Existing law requires the Superintendent to develop, and the state board to adopt, expected annual percentage growth targets for all schools based on their API baseline score and prescribes a minimum percentage growth target of 5% annually. The act also establishes the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (IIUSP) . Schools that score below the 50th percentile on certain achievement tests are invited to participate in the program and are provided program funding. Twenty-four months after receiving IIUSP funding, a school that fails to meet its growth targets each year, but demonstrates significant growth, as determined by the state board, continues to participate in the program for an additional year and to receive funding. If a school fails to meet its growth targets each year and does not demonstrate significant growth, it is deemed a state-monitored school and the Superintendent is required to take specified actions with regard to the school. Federal law, the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires that a school district provide certain notifications to parents and employees. Federal law also requires at least one alternative governance arrangement or major restructuring effort for any school that fails to make adequate yearly progress after one full school year of corrective action. This bill would establish an advisory committee to the Superintendent for the purpose of making recommendations to the state board on how to identify 10 historically low-performing public schools in the state, subject to the requirements of federal law, as specified. The bill would require the advisory committee to make these recommendations to the Superintendent by July 1, 2010. The Superintendent would be required to make recommendations to the state board by August 15, 2010, and the Superintendent and the state board would be required to jointly approve the criteria to be used in identifying 10 historically low-performing public schools in the state, as specified. The bill would require the state board and the Superintendent, on or before November 1, 2010, to identify 10 of the historically low-performing public schools in the state. The bill would require the Superintendent, within 30 days of making this determination, to ensure each employee and parent or guardian of a child enrolled or requesting to be enrolled in a school identified is provided with federally required notices containing specified information. The bill, contingent upon the availability of federal funding for these purposes, would require the Superintendent and the state board to direct each identified school to take at least one of 3 specified alternative governance or restructuring actions required by federal law. The bill would provide for the Superintendent to recommend revocation and for the state board to hold a hearing on revocation within 90 days if the school is a charter school. The bill would require the State Department of Education to contract for an independent evaluation of the accountability measures established by this bill's provisions, and to submit this evaluation to the chairpersons of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the Assembly Committee on Budget, the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, the Assembly Committee on Education, the Senate Committee on Education, the Governor, and the Director of Finance by no later than March 1, 2015. Because this bill would require schools identified as historically low-performing public schools in the state to take specified actions, it would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.(3) This bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2016, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2017.