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DB12:001
January 3, 2012

Contact: Nicole Winger
(916) 653-6575

Education Initiative Enters Circulation

Online K-12 Education. College Preparatory Courses. Initiative Statute.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

ONLINE K-12 EDUCATION. COLLEGE PREPARATORY COURSES. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Authorizes school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools to claim average daily attendance funding for student participation in approved online courses. Authorizes school districts to contract with public and private providers to deliver online courses taught by credentialed teachers. Allows students to take online courses offered by any school district, regardless of student’s residence. Provides students access to courses required for admission to state universities, and establishes the California Diploma, which demonstrates completion of courses required for University of California and California State University admission. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: In the long term, local school district savings potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually if schools experience efficiencies and widespread participation in the use of online courses. These savings would be offset in small part by administrative costs to implement the measure, including local costs for developing online curriculum, contracting with online providers, and ensuring students access to online courses as well as state costs for changing the existing school payment system and issuing California Diplomas to qualifying students. (11-0062.)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1539 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 11-0062.

The proponent for this measure, Philip D. Kohn, must collect signatures of 504,760 registered voters – the number equal to five percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 150 days to circulate petitions for this measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by June 1, 2012.

The initiative proponent can be reached at (714) 641-3415.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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