BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 790
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 11, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 790 (Furutani and Carter) - As Amended: May 4, 2011
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:7-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill, commencing with the 2012-13 school year, establishes
the Multiple Pathway Pilot (MPP) program for the purpose of
implementing districtwide multiple pathway learning approaches,
as specified. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the State Department of Education (SDE) to administer
the program and contain requirements related to small-sized
schools within existing high schools; concurrent enrollment
and dual credit with community colleges and universities;
sequence of courses; and pupil mastery of grade-level,
standards-based performance benchmarks.
2)Requires the MPP program to be implemented within existing
school district resources and requires districts to involve
local business, labor, parent, and community partners to
advise the district on the development, implementation, and
ongoing evaluation of the program.
3)Requires participating school districts to receive priority
for appropriate competitive grant funds distributed by SDE.
4)Authorizes a school district maintaining grades 9-12 to apply
to the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to operate a
MPP program and authorizes the SPI to initially approve up to
20 applications and additional applications on an annual basis
thereafter.
5)Requires the SPI, on or before September 30, 2016, to transmit
a report to the Legislature and the governor that documents an
independent evaluation of the costs of the program, pupil
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outcome data, and recommendations regarding the need for
additional statutory changes to expand the program.
6)Authorizes the SPI to develop recommendations to implement
this program and sunsets this program on July 1, 2017.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)GF/98 cost pressure, likely between $100,000 and $200,000, to
school districts to implement the MPP program. This bill
requires school districts to use existing state and federal
resources to implement this program.
2)The 2010 Budget Act allocated approximately $500 million for
CTE purposes, including $135 million in federal Carl Perkins
program funding and $353 million GF/98 for the Regional
Occupational Centers Program (ROC/P), which is one of the main
funding sources for school district CTE programs. Under
current law, school districts may use ROC/P funding for any
educational purpose it deems appropriate until 2015.
3)GF administrative costs to SDE, likely between $100,000 and
$200,000 to administer and provide a report that includes an
independent evaluation of the MPP program. The language in
the bill is unclear as to whether SDE will need to contract
out for the report. The bill refers to an "independent"
evaluation and as such, SDE would not be completing this work.
The author may wish to clarify this language.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . AB 2648 (Bass), Chapter 681, Statutes of 2008,
defined multiple pathway programs as multi-year, comprehensive
high school programs of integrated academic and technical
study organized around a broad theme, interest area, or
industry sector. This program ensures that all pupils have
curriculum choices to prepare them for career entry and a full
range of postsecondary options, including two and four-year
colleges, apprenticeship, and formal employment training,
Chapter 681 also required the SPI to develop a report that
explores the feasibility of establishing and expanding
multiple pathway programs in high schools, including the costs
and merits associated with expansion of these programs. On May
12, 2010, the SPI released the final report, which contained
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several policy recommendations that are incorporated in this
bill, including developing small schools within existing high
schools, encouraging school districts to develop comprehensive
policies on current enrollment, and establishing
standards-based performance benchmarks that measure
grade-level pupil mastery.
Specifically, the report recommended the state take a number
of action items to provide a strong foundation for
substantially improving California's high schools through the
establishment and expansion of the multiple pathways approach.
This bill implements the second action item by establishing
the MPP program.
2)Too much authority to the SPI ? This bill requires
participating school districts to receive priority for
"appropriate competitive grant funds distributed by SDE." It
is the Legislature's responsibility to appropriate funding,
including establishing the policy regarding its distribution.
While the majority of federal education funding has
pre-established requirements, there are instances in which the
state has discretion regarding distribution. Pursuant to
language in this bill, SDE has full discretion, without
legislative input, to determine which state and potentially
federal competitive grant funds participating school districts
will be given priority.
Likewise, this bill authorizes the SPI to initially approve up
to 20 applications (with more added later) until 2017. There
are approximately 1,000 school districts in the state and the
majority will not participate in this program. Also, given
the severe fiscal reductions the majority of districts have
made over the last several years, it is unclear how many are
able to establish a pilot program within existing resources,
as required by this measure. Without knowing which
competitive grant funds SDE will prioritize, it may be unfair
to provide a small number of districts with funding priority
in these difficult fiscal times. The author may wish to
consider addressing these issues.
3)Previous related legislation .
a) AB 2172 (Carter) required the SPI to convene an advisory
board composed of leaders from education, business, labor,
civic organizations, and the community to review the
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recommendations of the multiple pathways report required by
AB 2648 (Bass), Chapter 681, Statutes of 2008, and advise
the SPI on the implementation issues. This bill was held
on this committee's suspense file in May 2010.
b) AB 2445 (Furutani) required the SPI, by December 31 of
each year, to report to the Legislature on the status of
the advisory board proposed to be established pursuant to
AB 2172 (Carter) (2010) to review recommendations of the
multiple pathways report. This bill was held on this
committee's suspense file in May 2010.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081