It's great to see politicians working to fix the current deficiencies in charter school law. Although it looks like the real heroes here are the ones at the federal level. They are theatening to pull $300 million in federal grant money for CA charter schools over the next 3 years for being out of compliance with the Public Charter Schools Grant Program.
From the text of the bill:
"The authority that granted the charter shall consider increases in pupil academic achievement for all groups of pupils served by the charter school as the most important factor in determining whether to grant a charter renewal."
So I suppose a charter school that had essentially maxed out API and thus couldn't achieve increases wouldn't be renewed. Interesting...
New accountability demands coming for charters—startups and renewals
...SB 1290 by Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, would require that charter authorizers must consider pupil academic achievement for all subgroups as measured by the API “as the most important factor” for renewal and revocation.
...Federal officials had argued that charters must have a binding contract with their authorizing agency on student performance. Authorizers must also place increases in student achievement for all subgroups as the most important factor when determining whether to renew or revoke a school’s charter—that includes the progress of economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial and ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency.
The California Charter School Association has said in the past that they did not believe California’s current law is out of compliance with federal rules, but nonetheless became a supporter of the final version of SB 1290 to protect the federal grant money.
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