BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2089
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Date of Hearing: April 21, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 2089 (Coto) - As Amended: April 5, 2010
SUBJECT : American Indian Education Oversight Committee
SUMMARY : Extends the inoperative and repeal date of the
California American Indian Education Center (CAIE center)
program to January 1, 2018 and makes a revision relative to
filling vacancies of the American Indian Education Oversight
Committee (AIEO committee). Specifically, this bill :
1)Authorizes the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to
appoint to the AIEO committee an educator that is not a
director of a CAIE center to fill a vacancy in one of the four
positions designated for directors of CAIE centers, if the SPI
is unable to find a qualified individual to fill a vacancy
within 30 days of the vacancy arising.
2)Extends the inoperative and repeal date of the CAIE center
program by six years, thus extending the operative date to
January 1, 2018.
3)Renumbers and reorganizes a section of the Education Code
relative to the CAIE center program and makes other technical
amendments.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the CAIE center program to serve as
community-based educational resource centers to American
Indian pupils, parents, guardians, and the public schools in
order to promote the academic and cultural achievement of
American Indian pupils.
2)Provides that an application for the establishment of a CAIE
center may be submitted to the California Department of
Education (CDE) by any tribal group or incorporated American
Indian association, separately or jointly, and specifies that
funding for existing centers or a new center shall not exceed
funding provided for these purposes in the annual Budget Act
or another statute. Requires CDE to evaluate and rank the
proposals for funding purposes based on the specified
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criteria.
3)Requires the approval of an application for the establishment
of a CAIE center to be effective for a period of five calendar
years and requires, one calendar year before the expiration of
the five-year period, the CDE to commence an evaluation of the
center in order to determine whether to renew the application
of the existing center or approve a new application to
establish a CAIE center.
4)Provides that the CAIE center will become inoperative on
January 1, 2012 and requires the CDE, by January 1, 2011, to
conduct an evaluation of the centers to determine whether to
renew the application of each existing center or instead to
approve a new center.
5)Requires the SPI with input from existing center directors to
appoint an AIEO committee by January 30, 2007, composed of at
least seven educators, four of whom shall be CAIE center
directors, and requires all members to possess proven
knowledge of current educational policies relating to, and
issues faced by, American Indian communities in California.
6)Requires the AIEO committee to provide input and advice to the
SPI on all aspects of American Indian education programs
established by the state.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : The CAIE centers serve as educational resource
centers for American Indian students, their families, and the
public schools. The primary focus of the CAIE centers is to
provide direct services to improve the achievement and lowering
dropout rates among of American Indian students. The CAIE
center staff assist schools with professional development,
counseling, tutorial services, or parent education and may also
provide supplemental and extended day instructional programs to
meet the needs of American Indian students.
CDE data shows that in 2008-09 enrollment of American Indian
pupils was 46,446 or 0.7% of the student population.
The American Indian Education Oversight Committee : Current law
requires the SPI to appoint an American Indian Education
Oversight Committee to provide input and advice to the SPI on
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American Indian education programs. The Committee must be
comprised of at least seven educators, four of whom shall be
American Indian education center directors and shall possess
proven knowledge of current educational policies relating to,
and issues faced by, American Indian communities in California.
When the AIEO committee was first convened in 2007, the
membership was in compliance with statute requiring that four of
the seven members of the committee had to be CAIE center
directors. According to information provided by the CDE, two of
the members that were CAIE center directors resigned during the
summer of 2008.
The SPI conducted a search and tried to fill the vacancies with
CAIE center directors but was unsuccessful. Because there is no
funding for the AIEO committee, no participation or travel
reimbursements are available for committee members and seemingly
that is the reason for the lack of interest from CAIE center
directors to serve on this committee. Questions emerged as to
whether the committee should continue to meet despite the
vacancies. Per the advice of the CDE's legal office, the SPI
suspended the meetings of the committee for about a year.
Concerned that the AIEO committee was not meeting and
considering that the SPI had conducted a thorough effort to fill
the vacancies, the CDE legal office advised that the AIEO
committee resume their meetings in 2009. At a meeting of the
AIEO committee, the membership considered recommending
legislation to allow for flexibility in filling vacancies that
emerged specifically for the positions of CAIE center directors.
In May 2009, the AIEO committee voted to support a revision to
current statute that requires four of the members of the AIEO
committee to be CAIE center directors. The recommendation from
the AIEO committee is embodied in this bill and it gives
flexibility to the SPI in filling vacancies by authorizing the
appointment of an educator who is not a center director in
situations where the SPI is unable to find, within 30 days of a
vacancy arising, a qualified individual to fill a vacancy in one
of the four positions designated for center directors.
According to CDE, the language in this bill is consistent with
the action of the AIEO committee.
The California American Indian Education Centers: There are
currently 27 CAIE centers operating in the state as educational
resources to American Indian pupils, their parents, and the
public schools in their communities. Staff at schools and
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districts collaborate with the American Indian education center
in their area to:
1)Identify pupils who are at risk of not meeting state academic
content standards;
2)Provide parent education activities to help deal with
challenges faced by family members;
3)Provide tutorial assistance in reading, mathematics, and other
subjects and professional development activities about the
language, culture, and academic needs of American Indian
pupils; and,
4)Provide counseling services related to personal adjustment,
academic progress, and vocational planning, adult education
and other programs to support the family.
Effect of budget flexibility on CAIE center : As result of 2009
budget action, the funding for the CAIE centers was placed in
budget flexibility even though these funds do not go to local
educational agencies but rather flow directly to these centers,
which are most often nonprofit centers. The result has been
that the centers no longer have to comply with statutes relative
to the program, including the requirements to report outcome
data to the CDE. Current law requires the CDE to monitor these
centers but as a result of the budget flexibility, the
monitoring has stopped. This appears to be contrary to the
goals of the last reauthorization of this program which was to
provide for more accountability and monitoring for the effective
use of these funds. The statutory changes that were implemented
during the last reauthorization of this program were partly a
reaction to the findings of a 2006 Bureau of State Audits report
that concluded that "Despite established guidance, the
department [CDE] has not adequately administered the program and
consequently cannot ensure that the program is successfully
meeting the goals established in law or the needs of the
communities it serves."
During a meeting of the AIEO committee, the members voted to
support the removal of the CAIE center program from the budget
flexibility category so that the statutory and regulatory
requirements, particularly those relative to data reporting,
would still be applicable to these centers. The CDE is required
under current law to conduct an evaluation of the CAIE centers
to determine whether to renew the application of each center or
approve new ones. But according to CDE there is no mechanism in
place to enforce the provisions of the program and thus they
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will not be conducting the evaluation required under existing
law.
This bill extends the operative date of this program by six
years. The previous reauthorization of the program provided a
five-year extension, and this Committee has historically
approved sunset extensions of other programs for five years or
less. For purposes of consistency with previous actions of this
Committee, staff recommends the bill be amended to extend the
sunset by five years instead of six and thus sunset the program
on January 1, 2017. While existing law requires CDE to conduct
an evaluation of the CAIE centers by January 1, 2011, this bill
lacks a similar evaluation mechanism. The author may wish to
consider requiring another evaluation by January 1, 2016 to help
inform potential future reauthorizations of this program and the
renewal of CAIE centers to remain consistent with existing law.
The author states, "Enactment of SB 1710 did not provide funding
for the oversight committee, nor did it provide transportation
costs to attend committee meetings. This has caused a hardship
for Center Directors to serve. The inability to fill the two
vacancies has made it difficult to obtain a quorum for the AIEO
committee and hampered its ability to conduct business on a
regular basis."
Previous legislation : SB 273 (Ackerman), Chapter 170, Statutes
of 2007, reinstates the State Board of Education (SBE) as the
only entity approving amendments and updates to the guidelines
for selection and administration of the CAIE centers and makes
changes to other provisions governing the CAIE center program.
SB 1710 (Ackerman), Chapter 880, Statutes of 2006 made several
changes to the CAIE center program and extended the sunset date
on the program to January 1, 2012.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
National Indian Education Association
Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians
Opposition
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None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Avi?a / ED. / (916) 319-2087