BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 275
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Date of Hearing: May 15, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 275 (Alejo) - As Amended: May 8, 2013
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill makes the following changes to the federal Migrant
Education Program (MEP):
1)Requires the state MEP plan to be revised as necessary by the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), in consultation
with the State Parent Advisory Council (SPAC).
2)Adds new requirements to the MEP plan, including involving
parents in the review of data; an analysis of data on
migratory children collected through the state's data system;
and an evaluation and monitoring component, as specified.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Reallocation of federal MEP funds, likely between $500,000 to
low millions, to meet the requirements of this bill, including
requiring specified data to be collected and establishing
specified evaluation and monitoring procedures. To the extent
these requirements require the use of local assistance funds,
MEP regions may have less funding available to provide direct
services to migratory children. Likewise, these requirements
will likely lead to additional SDE costs, which may affect its
ability to continue funding statewide service contracts at the
same level.
2)The 2012-13 Budget Act appropriated $135 million (federal
funds) for the MEP as follows:
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| Local | State | State level activities |
| Assistance | Administration | |
|----------------+----------------+--------------------------|
|$114.6 million |$1.3 million |$18.6 million |
| | | |
|Allocated to 26 |Allocated to |Used by SDE to execute |
|MEP regions, |SDE, which |the following statewide |
|which |represents one |service contracts |
|represents 85% |percent of |(represents 14% of total |
|of total funds |total funds. |funds): |
|(as required | | |
|under federal | |$7.1 million for |
|law). | | Mini-Corp (services for |
| | | undergraduate students). |
| | | |
| | |$6 million for Migrant |
| | | Education School |
| | | Readiness Program. |
| | |$5.5 million for other |
| | | statewide programs, |
| | | including, to |
| | | identification and |
| | | recruitment, data |
| | | collection, summer |
| | | institutes, and SPAC. |
| | | |
------------------------------------------------------------
1)Federal Sequestration . Federal sequestration is the reduction
of federal government spending by a minimum of $1.2 trillion
in automatic cuts to be divided among defense and domestic
programs. It is unclear at this time if federal MEP funds
will be reduced due to this requirement. If MEP funds are
reduced, California will experience a reduction in its state
grant allocation, which will affect local assistance and state
level activities.
SUMMARY CONTINUED
1)Requires the SPI to develop a monitoring instrument and
procedures that provide for the annual monitoring of each
local education agency (LEA) and region receiving federal
migrant funds, as specified. Further requires the SPI to
periodically sponsor or conduct local training for the
education of regional operating agency personnel assigned to
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the evaluation of MEPs.
2)Requires the SPI to submit to the State Board of Education
(SBE), the Legislature, and the governor, a triennial
performance report of MEPs. Further requires the SPI to
develop a process to ensure migratory children enrolled in
juvenile court schools and other alternative education
programs receive eligible services.
3)Requires MEP regions to collect and report to SDE individual
and aggregate data on migratory pupils, including on issues
related to course enrollment, pupil discipline,
dropout/retention, and graduation rates.
4)Requires a regional plan to include a written evaluation plan
describing how the operating agency will measure annual pupil
progress and the overall success of its program.
5)Requires an LEA and region receiving federal MEP funds, as a
condition of funding renewal, to conduct an evaluation of its
program's overall effectiveness in the prior year, as
specified.
COMMENTS
1)Background . The federal MEP, authorized by the federal No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001, provides supplemental education
services to address the educational needs of highly mobile
children whose family members are employed doing seasonal
agricultural work. Children are eligible to participate in
the MEP if they or their parents or guardians are migrant
workers in the agricultural, dairy, lumber, or fishing
industries, and their family has moved for the purpose of
finding temporary or seasonal employment during the past three
years. Migrant students are eligible for program services from
age three until they attain a high school diploma or its
equivalent or turn 21. Migrant students who are under age 21
but have not yet completed high school and/or do not attend a
traditional school are referred to as "out-of-school youth."
According to the State Department of Education (SDE), 136,467
migratory children received services under the MEP in 2011-12.
This is a 15% decrease (20,673 children) from 2010-12.
2)Purpose . In February 2013, the State Auditor (SA) released a
report entitled: Despite Some Improvements, Oversight of the
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Migrant Education Program Remains Inadequate. The SA
determined SDE was implementing improper oversight or
providing little guidance to the regions. "Instead, it has
relied largely on the judgment of regional administrators and
its individual program staff when making decisions about
allowable expenses and financial codes used to categorize
these expenses. This lack of formal guidance has created
inconsistencies and controversy regarding allowable expenses
as well as wide variation in how the migrant program regions
classify expenses."
The SA further stated: "Because of a lack of trust, [SDE] also
has had difficulty making productive use of a state parent
council whose purpose is to advise and assist the migrant
program. Partly because of its past inaction and lack of
communication, [SDE] now faces numerous grant conditions and
reporting requirements imposed by the federal agency
overseeing the migrant program."
This bill attempts to address the SA's finding and
recommendations.
3)SA's recommendations and SDE's response . The audit report
provided specific recommendations to SDE about improving
fiscal oversight, monitoring, and data collection in the MEP.
Specifically, the SA suggests SDE review accounting and
expense reporting procedures, ensure evaluations are
completed, and review current data procedures with the
suggestion to collect more accurate/appropriate data.
Even before the SA completed its report, SDE began to
implement modifications in its administration and oversight of
the MEP. Specifically, it has developed a Bureau of State
Audit Implementation Plan to address the report's
recommendations, including developing more clear criteria for
allowable program expenditures, establishing long-term plan
for meeting evaluation requirements, and updating its migrant
data system to collect additional quality data.
4)Existing law establishes the federal MEP and requires the
State Board of Education (SBE) to establish a master plan for
services to migrant children. Statute requires the master
plan to detail the types of instructional, health, and
supportive services, including child care and transportation,
provided to migrant children. In order to implement the
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master plan, MEP services are delivered through a regional
system and each region is required to submit a plan to the SPI
for approval. Currently, there are 23 MEP regions in the
state. Of this number, 14 are county offices of education and
nine are school districts (act as a region).
Current law also requires the SPI to establish the SPAC to
participate in the planning, operation, and evaluation of the
MEP. The SPAC is required to meet a minimum of six times a
year to provide input on issues related to the program. The
SPI is also required to sponsor an annual spring SMPC
conference with the requirement that a report be submitted to
the Legislature, SBE, the SPI, and the governor regarding the
status of the program.
This bill proposes to increase the minimum number of yearly
SPAC meetings from six to nine.
5)Previous legislation . AB 331 (Romero), Chapter 274, Statutes
of 2010, expanded the scope of a status report the migrant
SPAC is required to submit to specified parties, and changed
the timeline for the submission of the report.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081