SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Dropout recovery high schools provide significant social, economic, and academic benefits to their pupils and to California’s population as a whole.

(b) Research by the Alliance for Excellent Education demonstrates that if only one-half of the dropouts were recovered in California’s six largest metropolitan areas, the economic benefits to California would be staggering: those recovered dropouts would invest an additional $247 million a year; increase home sales by $2.92 billion during their careers; support an additional 6,800 jobs to the midpoint of their careers; and increase state and local tax revenues by $129 million every year.

(c) Research further demonstrates that reengaged learners demonstrate higher civic engagement, contribute to the cultural strengths of their communities, and are significantly less likely to be unemployed, on public assistance, or arrested for a violent crime.

(d) Research further demonstrates that dropout recovery high schools face a number of challenges in reengaging students into academic endeavors, including:

(1) Dropouts who reenter high school are significantly below grade level.

(2) Students who drop out display a gradual process of disengagement from school that encompasses years of academic and behavioral difficulties, absenteeism, and stressful life circumstances.

(3) Reengagement into a high school setting can be difficult and take a significant amount of time.

(4) Students who have dropped out once are significantly more likely to drop out again. Research by WestEd found that one-half of the dropouts who return to school stay for one year or less and that one-third of returning dropouts fail to complete even one course after they reenroll. The school district WestEd studied had a graduate rate of 18 percent for recovered dropouts.

(e) Successful dropout recovery high schools utilize multiple strategies including state-of-the-art technology and career technical education to reach the variety of learning modalities of the population that they serve.

(f) Successful dropout recovery schools typically enroll students for less than four years, provide competency-based rather than seat time-based instruction, and operate with open entry or open exit enrollment.

(g) Standardized testing depends on all students being present on a fixed schedule with learning competencies within a narrower band of averages than represented by dropouts. Research by the National Governor’s Association recognizes that seat time education in the dropout recovery context is a substantial and unnecessary barrier. The use of competency-based and open entry strategies result in dropout recovery students not being in school at the time that standardized tests are administered.

(h) Support for successful dropout recovery high schools should include an alternative assessment mechanism that measures the individual growth in students which can be administered at the school level when students are available.