BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION Alan Lowenthal, Chair 2011-2012 Regular Session BILL NO: SB 275 AUTHOR: Hancock AMENDED: April 25, 2011 FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: May 4, 2011 URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez SUBJECT : Career Technical Education block grant funding. SUMMARY This bill creates a career technical education block grant program, beginning in 2013-14, that contains funding dedicated for (a) Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCPs), (b) partnership academies, (c) specialized secondary programs, and (d) agricultural career technical education incentive programs. Allows for limited flexibility of 10 percent between programs, provides for a regional process for administrative collaboration, and requires the California Department of Education to develop program quality accountability measures, as specified. BACKGROUND Existing law establishes and funds categorical programs that focus resources and /or compliance requirements on specific classes of students or schools, or specific uses of funds, identified by the Legislature as priorities. Regional Occupational Centers and Programs Existing law establishes various career technical education (CTE) programs for public schools including Regional Occupational Centers and Programs that allow students from multiple schools or districts to participate in career technical training programs regardless of the geographical location of their residence in a county or region. Existing law authorizes the following types of ROCPs operational models: (Education Code § 52300 et. seq.) County ROCP: Existing law authorizes county superintendents, with the consent of the State Board of SB 275 Page 2 Education (SBE) to establish and maintain a ROCP to provide education and training in career technical courses. (EC § 52301(a)) Joint Powers Agency ROCP: Existing law authorizes two or more school districts to form a joint powers agency (JPA) for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a ROCP for students who are enrolled in those districts. (EC § 52301(a)(2)) Single District ROCP: Existing law authorizes certain very large districts, who do not wish to be part of a county ROCP, to apply to the SBE through their county superintendent for permission to establish and maintain a ROCP for students enrolled in the district. The county superintendent may supervise the establishment of the ROCP. ( EC § 52301(b)) Partnership Academies The Partnership Academy model is a three-year program, for grades ten through twelve, structured as a school-within-a-school and incorporates (1) rigorous integrated academics with a career focus; (2) business partnerships that provide support through curriculum resources, classroom speakers, field trips, mentors, and internships; and (3) teachers who work as a team in preparing students for careers and postsecondary education. (EC § 54690 et. seq.) Specialized Secondary Programs Specialized Secondary Programs is a four-year grant program to provide opportunities for students to obtain advanced instruction, in addition to core course work, and skills in technology appropriate to the curriculum. California comprehensive high schools may use the grant funds for programs that provide students with advanced learning opportunities in a variety of subjects, including but not limited to English-language arts, mathematics, science, history and social science, foreign language, and the visual performing arts. The acquisition of technology skills and the use of technology as a tool for instruction and learning are also emphasized in these programs. Frequently, specialized secondary programs are established as a smaller learning SB 275 Page 3 community or a school-within-a-school. (EC § 58800 et. seq.) Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive Program The Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive program provides local educational agencies (LEAs) with funds to improve the quality of their agricultural vocational education programs. The goal is to maintain a high-quality, comprehensive agricultural vocational program in California's public school system to ensure a constant source of employable, trained, and skilled individuals. (EC § 52460) ANALYSIS This bill: 1) Requires the State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) beginning in 2013-14, and each year thereafter, to apportion funds appropriated for (a) regional occupational centers and programs (ROCPs), (b) specialized secondary program grants, (c) partnership academies, and (d) agricultural career technical education incentive program to each county office of education (COE) based on the same relative proportion that LEAs within that particular county received funding for these programs in 2007-08. 2) Requires each COE to allocate to the funding ROCPs, school districts, and COEs a proportion of the total funds based on the proportion that these entities received in 2007-08. 3) Requires, as a condition of receiving funds, the governing board of each ROCP, in collaboration with individuals representing school districts within each region, partnership academies, agricultural vocational education programs, and other career technical programs to develop a plan for establishing a sequence of courses, as specified, and certify to the California Department of Education (CDE) that the sequence of courses has been developed. 4) Specifies that funds allocated for ROCPs, specialized secondary program grants, and partnership academies can only be expended for the purposes of the programs for which they were appropriated; except that up to 10 percent of the funds from each identified programs, upon SB 275 Page 4 agreement between the school district and the ROCP, may be used to support any combination of the programs for one year. This may be renewable annually with the agreement of both boards. 5) Requires growth funding for ROCPs be allocated exclusively for the purposes of equalization of an equal funding allotment for each high school pupil in the service delivery area served by the ROCP. After equalization, growth funds would be distributed in a manner to maintain equal per pupil funding levels. 6) Specifies that as a condition of receiving funds consistent with this bill, programs that receive funding shall collect and report data as required by the CDE to prepare and update specified accountability measures. 7) Requires the SPI to align the accountability measures for the four programs into a uniform accountability metric based on any career ready standards adopted pursuant to the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and 11 program quality indicators in the California State Plan for Career Technical Education, including, but not limited to: a) High quality curriculum and instruction aligned with state standards. b) System alignment and coherence, including postsecondary education. c) Reflection of labor market demands, and provision of current equipment. d) Skilled faculty and professional development. e) Data-based pupil evaluation, accountability, and continuous improvement. f) Pupil support and leadership development. g) Industry partnerships and advisory committees. SB 275 Page 5 1) Requires accountability measures to also include, but necessarily be limited to: a) The number of pupils completing high school. b) The number of pupils earning an industry-recognized certification or licensure or other measures of technical skill attainment. c) The number of pupils completing career technical education courses and completing a career technical education program of study, consisting of a sequence of two or more career technical courses. d) The number of pupils employed and the types of businesses in which they are employed. e) The number of pupils enrolled in postsecondary education or apprenticeship programs, or serving in the Armed Forces. STAFF COMMENTS 1) Categorical program funding reductions and flexibility given to assist school districts and provide greater local decision-making . SB 4 (Chapter 12, 2009) and extended by SB 70 (Chapter 7, 2011), authorizes local educational agencies (LEAs) through the 2014-15 fiscal year, to use funding for approximately 40 categorical programs (totaling $4.5 billion statewide) for any educational purpose to the extent permitted by federal laws. Regional occupational centers and programs (ROCPs) and specialized secondary programs, were part of the 40 categorical programs impacted. These measures also deem LEAs to be in compliance with program and funding requirements related to the 40 categorical programs, and requires LEA governing boards to make flexible expenditure decisions in a regularly scheduled SB 275 Page 6 public meeting. The flexibility granted under SB 4 and SB 70 came as a result of funding the categorical programs approximately 20 percent lower for the 2008-09 through the 2014-15 fiscal years, as well as reductions to school district and county office of education revenue limits (the basic general purpose money allocated to districts. (EC § 42605) The Legislature stopped short of including all categorical programs within the "Tier 3" flexibility (reduction and flex), and decided that certain programs, including partnership academies and agricultural career technical education, were of such high priority that no flexibility or limited flexibility would be provided. 2) Need for the bill . Currently ROCPs are subject to flexibility (described above) and as such are subject to the possibility of funds shifted to non-career technical education purposes. Partnership academies and agricultural career technical education were reduced by 20 percent (however, not available for flexibility purposes). The Legislative Analyst has suggested both of these programs be shifted to flexibility in the absence of a block grant approach. SB 275 would stop the erosion of funding for these particular programs, while providing consistency in sequence requirements across the programs. 3) Categorical block grant approaches proposed or used in the past. Funding flexible block grant, as described above under Comment #1, through fiscal year 2014-15, converts restricted categorical funds into discretionary or unrestricted funding. However this approach, among other things, suffers from its lack of connection to the state's programmatic priorities, and may place protected subpopulations at risk. Grouped or clustered block grant, where funds allocated for categorical programs focus on a similar pupil subpopulation or similar activities are grouped together to create one larger grant. Revenue is consolidated and some flexibility is given on the SB 275 Page 7 expenditure side, but the flexibility is focused (or linked) to expenditure on programs within the grouping. This approach maintains a flavor of legislative spending priorities, but does not provide a level of flexibility that likely allows an LEA to truly create educational programs that match the need of local student populations. This approach was utilized under AB 825 (Chapter 871, Statutes of 2004). True categorical block grants, are similar to the grouped approach, but an LEA would be allowed to expend funds in a true block grant on a very broadly determined set of activities. 1) SB 275 is a quasi-grouped block grant approach , grouping four categorical programs into a career technical education cluster. Funding would be allocated to each program and then through a local collaborative process up to 10 percent of any one programs' funding could be used to support any combination of the four programs, but only for one-year at a time. The limitations of SB 275 - funding between programs can only be up to 10 percent and then only at one year at a time intervals may make for a less than meaningful approach toward block grant - basically not truly testing the opportunity of expanding or contracting programs based on a match with student populations. And even with a modest 10 percent flexibility between and among programs the one-year time limit does not permit even good programs to flourish. A major strength of SB 275 lays with the requirement to insure a quality sequence of courses among the four categorical programs slated for the grouped block grant, and reporting to the state information on accountability measures based on career ready standards and outcome measures, as specified. However, staff recommends an amendment that directs up to 25 percent of the funds from each identified programs upon agreement between the school district and the ROCP, may be used to support any combination of the programs for no less than a three year period. Many programs within the SB 275 block grant are SB 275 Page 8 multi-year programs in high schools, and the proposed amendment would provide greater funding opportunities for growing quality programs, and allow enough time within a cohort of high school pupils to complete at least one-cycle of funding, and permit the collection of data to permit the augmented programs to garner information to make a qualitative programmatic changes if necessary. 2) Start date of this measure is not consistent with sunset of categorical flexibility. Notwithstanding the merit of increasing the accountability and consistency in the sequence of course requirements, the current overall categorical flexibility provisions (described in Comment #1) of which ROCPs and specialized secondary programs are part of, have just recently been extended until the end of the 2014-15 school year. The implementation of the "grouping" flexibility found within this measure is schedule to begin in 2013-14. In addition, note that SB 275 would take two programs - partnership academies and agricultural vocational education - currently not available under the flexibility provisions of SB 4 / SB 70, and permit up to 10 percent of the funding for these programs to be spent on the other programs identified in the bill. If the Committee chooses to pass this bill, could that encourage other groups to petition to be excluded from categorical flexibility in order to preserve funding for specific programs or ensure that programs continue to operate as they did prior to 2008-09? Staff recommends an amendment to commence the proposed block grant approach of this measure with the 2015-16 fiscal year. SUPPORT California Association of Leaders for Career Preparation California Association of Regional Occupational Centers and Programs California Business Education Association North Orange County ROP SB 275 Page 9 OPPOSITION None on file.