Legal and Policy Barriers to Redesigning California High Schools
April 2006
Mitch Price
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In 2005, education program officials at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation asked attorneys at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) to explore legal and policy issues affecting high school reform and redesign efforts in the state of California. The interest of the Gates Foundation in these issues is directly attributable to the foundation’s major presence in funding and supporting redesigned high schools. To date, the foundation has invested nearly $1.2 billion in efforts to improve education for all young people, including supporting the creation of more than 2,000 highquality schools in 41 states and the District of Columbia.
In an effort to identify legal, regulatory, and policy barriers to the creation and successful operation of redesigned high schools in California, CRPE staff interviewed high school principals, teachers, union officials, state and district policymakers, reform advocates, and others involved in high school redesign work in California. These interviews were structured to identify barriers to school reform, as perceived by educators on the front lines.
CRPE staff then analyzed relevant laws and regulations to determine how valid these perceptions were. Both state and federal laws were analyzed, including the California Education Code and the federal No Child Left Behind statute. Collective bargaining agreements, as well as policy statements and speeches by state education officials, were also examined. This report presents the results of the analysis of perceived barriers to high school redesign and impediments located in federal and state statutes and regulations, as well as local district policies.
