BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 548
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   January 23, 2014

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                  Mike Gatto, Chair

                    AB 548 (Salas) - As Amended:  January 7, 2014 

          Policy Committee:                              Higher  
          EducationVote:13-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program:  
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill removes the January 1, 2016 sunset date on authority  
          provided to community colleges to use a specified process for  
          determining admissions to associate degree nursing (ADN)  
          programs. Districts using this multi-criteria screening process  
          must continue to report annually to the Chancellor's Office of  
          the California Community Colleges (CCC).
           
           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Minor ongoing absorbable costs for the Chancellor's Office to  
          receive and summarize reports provided by the districts.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Background  . In the early 1990s, a controversy arose over  
            merit-based or competitive admissions to the CCC's ADN  
            programs. The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education  
            Fund (MALDEF) threatened a lawsuit because students of color  
            were being disproportionately denied admission to impacted  
            programs. In the negotiations that ensued, MALDEF agreed not  
            to bring suit, and the CCC Board of Governors (BOG) agreed to  
            develop program admissions criteria that would be validated as  
            relevant to future performance. Subsequently, CCC districts,  
            in order to continue using an evaluative admissions process,  
            were required to undertake costly research, consistent with  
            BOG regulations, to validate their procedures, or else to rely  
            on a lottery or other non-evaluative mechanisms. As a result,  
            lotteries and wait lists were instituted and completion rates  
            fell.









                                                                  AB 548
                                                                  Page  2

            AB 1559 (Berryhill)/Chapter 712 of 2007 provided districts the  
            option of using a screening process, using specified criteria,  
            as an alternative to a lottery. Any district using this  
            process is required to report its admissions policy annually  
            to the Chancellor's Office along with the weighting given to  
            each criterion and demographic information on persons admitted  
            to the program and persons in that group that complete the  
            program.

           2)Purpose  . This bill eliminates the sunset date on districts'  
            authority to use the multi-criteria screening process.  
            According to a recent survey done by the Chancellor's Office,  
            of districts using this process, 16 districts reported  
            decreases in attrition averaging 13.25%, one district  
            experience increased attrition of 6%, and nine districts  
            instituted the process too recently to report any data.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081