BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 1258 (Chau) - Elementary and secondary education: Computer
Science Education Grant Pilot Program.
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|Version: July 8, 2015 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 17, 2015 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill requires the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (Superintendent) to establish a computer science
education grant pilot program for local educational agencies
(LEA) to establish, expand and maintain computer science courses
and provide professional development in computer science.
Fiscal
Impact:
Unknown costs to fund and administer the computer science
education grant pilot program. The scope of the program
depends upon private contributions and donations received by
the California Department of Education (CDE). The CDE
indicates that for every ten grants awarded it would need 0.5
position and $76,000. This would necessitate at least
approximately $1.5 million in private funding for grant
allocations. The need for resources would increase for every
ten grants if more funding became available. (Special funds)
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Unknown local costs as LEAs with successful applications must
match the amount they are awarded.
Background: Existing law requires the Instructional Quality Commission, on
or before July 31, 2019, to consider developing and recommending
to the State Board of Education, K-12 computer science content
standards pursuant to recommendations developed by a group of
computer science experts. (Education Code § 60605.4)
Existing law requires the California State University and
requests the University of California to develop guidelines for
high school computer science courses to be approved for
admission, and encourages the UC to ensure that computer science
courses that satisfy the math subject area requirements for
admission build upon fundamental math content in courses that
align with the academic content standards developed by the
Academic Content Standards Commission. (EC § 66205.5)
Proposed Law:
This bill requires the Superintendent to establish a
public-private computer science education grant pilot program to
remain in place until July 1, 2021. This competitive grant
program is intended to support innovative ways to introduce
students in underserved areas and student from groups
historically underrepresented in the computer science field and
for professional development of teachers to teach computer
science. The Superintendent is required to give priority to
local educational agencies (LEAs) with higher percentages of
unduplicated students (the unduplicated count of English
learners, low income, and foster youth students) and that
represent the geographic and socioeconomic diversity of the
state. LEAs are required to submit a plan with an itemized
budget for use of the grant funds as well as identification of
local matching resources constituting an amount equaling the
amount that would be allocated to the LEA. Acceptable uses of
grant funds are for purposes associated with the costs of
establishing, maintaining, or expanding computer science
courses, including instructional materials, hardware, software,
and firmware, and to fund professional development related to
computer science education.
This bill also establishes the Computer Science Education Grant
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Matching Account (Account) to fund the pilot program, including
related administrative costs to the CDE, in which funding is
made available in the annual Budget Act or in another statute.
Funds residing in the Account are intended to be gifts, grants,
or donations received from private persons or entities. In
order for the Account to be operative, the Superintendent must
certify, in writing, to the Department of Finance that there are
enough funds to support at least two grants and the associated
administrative costs. This bill prohibits administrative costs
from exceeding five percent of the allocations made from the
Account in any fiscal year. Unencumbered funds are required to
be returned to their initial donors.
This bill provides Legislative intent that no moneys from the
General Fund be used to fund the grant pilot program and that
funding provided at the state level will be supplied by private
contributions and donations, specifically from technology
industries.
Finally, the Superintendent is required to submit an annual
report to the Governor and the Legislature starting with the
first report due January 10, 2018 providing specified
information regarding the program's applicants, participants,
and outcomes.
Related
Legislation: AB 252 (Holden, 2015) establishes the Advanced
Placement (AP) STEM Access Grant Program to award funds for the
costs associated with a high school establishing or expanding
its AP science, technology, engineering and mathematics
curriculum. AB 252 is pending in this Committee.
Staff
Comments: This bill requires the Superintendent to establish a
computer science education grant pilot program for LEAs to
establish, expand and maintain computer science courses and
provide related professional development. The level of funding
for this program is unknown as it depends on future gifts and
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donations. However, CDE indicates that for every ten grants
awarded, it would need 0.5 position and $76,000, which includes
salary, benefits, and indirect costs. This bill provides that
it is the Legislature's intent that no funding from the General
Fund be used to fund the grant pilot program, therefore all
administrative costs would have to be covered by the funding
raised for this program. This bill also prohibits expenditures
from the Account covering administrative costs to exceed five
percent of the grant allocations in a given year.
Given these parameters, the CDE would likely require at least
$1.5 million in private funds to administer a program. This
would be the minimum amount required in order for administrative
costs to not exceed five percent of the grant allocations in a
given year. This bill requires that at least two grants be
awarded in order for the grant pilot program to be operational.
Therefore, the number of grants that the CDE could award with
the minimum about of $1.5 million would be between two and ten.
Any additional grants awarded would require more CDE staff and a
corresponding increase in the minimum amount of grant funds to
be awarded.
If ten LEAs received $1.5 million in grant awards, they would
have to match the funding of their individual grant award. For
example if each of the ten LEAs received an equal award of
$150,000, the LEA would have to match this amount with local
funds (the bill specifies LCFF and private funding).
The CDE cites the following administrative activities required
for the grant pilot program: development of the request for
applications and notification to LEAs; acceptance, review, and
scoring of applications; awarding successful applications and
addressing award appeals; development of data collection for the
required annual report to the Governor and Legislature; and
monitoring and tracking funding in the Account to enable
certification of sufficient funds and possible reimbursement to
donors.
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