HBA-MPM, CCH H.B. 972 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 972 By: Grusendorf Public Education 3/18/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In 1995, law was passed that authorized an independent school district, a school campus, or an educational program to choose to operate under a charter. Since that time, open-enrollment charter schools have exhibited varying degrees of quality and success. Currently, opportunity to replicate successful charter schools may be limited by statutory restrictions placed on the number of charters that may be granted by the State Board of Education (board). Additionally, open-enrollment charter school boards have often been dominated by close family members, which can be an impediment to corrective action in cases when the school experiences financial difficulty. Finally, many open-enrollment charter schools serve at-risk children and specialize in drop-out recovery; however, their success is measured on the basis of overall TAAS performance, instead of student improvement. House Bill 972 eliminates the limit on the number of open-enrollment charters that may be granted by the board, prohibits charter school boards from having a majority membership of family members, and requires charter schools to be evaluated on the basis of individual student performance. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill expressly delegates rulemaking authority to the State Board of Education in SECTION 3 (Section 12.110, Education Code) and SECTION 5 (Section 12.121, Education Code) and the commissioner of education in SECTION 6 (Section 12.155, Education Code) of this bill. ANALYSIS House Bill 972 amends the Education Code relating to charter schools. H.B. 972 requires each regional education service center to develop, maintain, and deliver services to open-enrollment and college or university charter schools (Secs. 8.051, 8.053, 8.054, and 8.121). H.B. 972 provides that the charter school application form that the State Board of Education (board) is required to adopt must include the name of each proposed member of the charter school's governing body and any family relationships that exists between proposed members. To avoid the occurrence that close family members could constitute a quorum, the bill requires the board to require a sufficient number of additional members who have no family relationship with any other proposed member. The bill requires the board by rule to establish which family relationships would require additional members to be added to the governing body. Each governing body of an open-enrollment charter school is required to report the name of each member and any family relationship between members to the State Board of Education (Secs. 12.110 and 12.121). The bill also provides that an evaluation of open-enrollment charter schools must include any improvement in student performance (Sec. 12.118). H.B. 972 authorizes a governing board of a public senior college or university to grant a charter to an organization that is exempt from taxation for a college or university charter school to operate in a facility of the college or university, a commercial or nonprofit entity, or a school district, including a home-rule school district (Sec. 12.152). The bill provides that a charter for a college or university charter school be in the form of a written contract signed by the presiding officer of the governing board and the chief operating officer of the school (Sec. 12.154). The bill provides that a public senior college or university is entitled to three percent of the state and local funding received by each school to which the college or university has granted a charter. The commissioner is required to adopt rules as necessary to administer this provision (Sec. 12.155). The bill establishes which provisions apply to a college or university charter school as though it were an open-enrollment charter school, and which provisions apply, except the governing board granting the charter is required to assume the powers and duties assigned to the State Board of Education (Sec. 12.153). The bill repeals the provision prohibiting the board from granting more than 20 charters for an openenrollment charter school (Sec. 12.101). EFFECTIVE DATE September 1, 2001.