BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1726
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Date of Hearing: March 15, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Jose Medina, Chair
AB 1726
(Bonta) - As Amended March 1, 2016
[Note: This bill is double referred to the Assembly Health
Committee and will be heard as it relates to issues under its
jurisdiction.]
SUBJECT: Data collection
SUMMARY: Requires the California Community Colleges (CCC) Board
of Governors (BOG), the California State University (CSU)
Trustees, California Department of Public Health (DPH), and
California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), and
requests the University of California (UC) Regents, to
disaggregate demographic information for Native Hawaiian, Asian,
and Pacific Islander (API) groups. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires that on or after July 1, 2017, whenever the CCC BOG,
the CSU Trustees, or the UC Regents collect demographic data
as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of students for a report
that includes student admission, enrollment, completion, or
graduation rates, each entity shall do all of the following:
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a) Ensure that in the course of collecting demographic data
directly or by contract as to the ancestry or ethnic origin
of California residents, each entity shall collect and
tabulate data for the following:
i) Additional major Asian groups, including but not
limited to, Bangladeshi, Hmong, Indonesian, Malaysian,
Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, and Thai; and,
ii) Additional major Native Hawaiian and other Pacific
Islander groups, including, but not limited to, Fijian
and Tongan.
b) No later than 18 months after a decennial United States
Census is released to the public, each entity shall update
their data collection to reflect the additional API and
Native Hawaiian groups as they are reported by the United
States Census Bureau.
c) Make any data publically available except for personal
identifying and confidential information, by posting the
data on the Internet Web site.
2)Specifies that where applicable, the CCC, CSU, and UC shall
comply with the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act and shall observe criteria for ensuring statistical
significance of data collected and published.
3)Specifies that should the UC Regents resolve to adhere to the
requirements as set forth in this measure that it shall not
apply to demographic data of UC graduate or professional
schools.
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4)Requires that on or after July 1, 2017, whenever DPH and DHCS
collect demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin
of persons for a report that includes the type and amount of
health care coverage, rates for major diseases, leading causes
of death per demographic, subcategories for leading causes of
death in California overall, pregnancy rates, or housing
numbers, the entity shall do all of the following as outlined
in all of number one above.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires state agencies, boards, and commissions that directly
or by contract collect demographic data as to the ancestry or
ethnic origin of Californians to use separate collection
categories and tabulations for each major API group,
including, but not limited to, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino,
Korean, Vietnamese, Asian Indian, Laotian, Cambodian,
Hawaiian, Guamanian, and Samoan (Government Code (GOV) Section
8310.5).
2)Requires the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the
Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) to collect
and tabulate data for additional major API groups (GOV Section
8310.7).
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS: Background. According to the California Commission
on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs' Issue Paper on
September 5, 2014, data disaggregation is imperative for
uncovering economic, educational, and social disparities
inherent not only in API American communities, but in all ethnic
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populations. The Commission finds that the need to disaggregate
data is often exemplified by the needs of Southeast Asian
American students; often categorized as "Asian," their "lower
academic achievement rates are overshadowed by the stereotype
that all Asian students excel in academics."
According to information provided by the author's office, many
of the communities within the API population face similar
challenges in California, such as language barriers and
immigration; however, they differ on many issues. This is most
evident with respect to education and public health, where the
outcomes of some of the largest API groups within the API
population raise the average outcome of the greater API
population as a whole. For example, although data related to
the average API student demonstrates high academic achievements,
disaggregated data sheds light on the harsh reality that
Southeast Asian subgroups suffer from much lower achievement
rates than other API groups. Similarly, data from a 2013 report
done by the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice
demonstrates that 14 percent of Asian Americans are uninsured;
disaggregated data demonstrates that Korean, Tongan, and Thai
populations have uninsured rates higher than 22 percent whereas
only eight-10 percent of Japanese and Asian Indian populations
are uninsured.
Purpose of the measure. According to the author, "despite the
diversity of California's large API population, state agencies
only disaggregate demographic data for a few of the major API
groups. By failing to measure a large portion of the API
population, California is unable to track the progress of the
most disadvantaged segments of that population."
The author contends that without disaggregated data,
policymakers and researchers have to rely on data in the
aggregate as released by various state and local agencies. Said
data is not consistent and varies in different jurisdictions.
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This measure will require the CCC, CSU, DPH, and DHCS, and
request the UC, to collect and release disaggregated demographic
data for specified groups of the API and Native Hawaiian
ethnicities.
Data collection at CCC, CSU and UC. The CCC collects
information on 11 different API communities on its application
CCC Apply. It is unclear how the data is reported or if it is
published for public access. As of 2009, the CSU application
was modified to provide applicants with over 50 different API
categories from which to self-identify. Additionally, the
existing practices of the UC on data collection exceed what is
required in this measure.
Policy consideration. As mentioned above, the CCC currently
collects 11 different API ethnicities on its application. The
CCC Chancellor's Office has indicated that due to the varying
differences of how the 113 CCC collect data, a concern exists
that as currently drafted, this measure will not allow for
enough time for the CCC to be ready to implement all the
provisions of the bill.
Moving forward, the author may wish to consider extending the
implementation of this measure by a year or two in order to
ensure all affected entities have time to fully implement the
bill.
Previous legislation. Several pieces of legislation have gone
through the Legislative Process related to the collection and
disaggregation of API data:
1)AB 176 (Bonta) of 2015, which was vetoed by the Governor, was
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similar in nature to this measure.
2)AB 1088 (Eng), Chapter 689, Statutes of 2011, required the DIR
and DFEH to collect and tabulate data for additional major API
groups.
3)AB 1737 (Eng) of 2010, which was held on the Suspense File of
the Assembly Appropriations Committee, would have required
certain state agencies to use additional separate collection
categories and tabulations for major Native Hawaiian and API
groups.
4)AB 295 (Lieu) of 2007, which was vetoed by the Governor, would
have required various state entities to report collected
demographic data according to each major API group and make
that data available to the public to the extent that
disclosure did not violate confidentiality.
5)AB 2420 (Lieu) of 2006, which was held on the Suspense File of
the Senate Appropriations Committee, would have expanded from
11 to 23 the ancestry or ethnic origin collection categories
required to be collected by any state agency, board,
commission, CCC, or CSU; and, would have required the above
entities to collect, tabulate, report, and make available to
the public any data collected on the groups.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
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Abriendo Puertas, Opening Doors
Alameda County Health Pipeline Partnership
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-California
Asian American Cancer Support Network
Asian American Drug Abuse Program, Inc.
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance- San Diego
Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
Asian Pacific Partners for Empowerment, Advocacy and Leadership
California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce
California Asian Pacific Islander Budget Partnership
California Immigrant Policy Center
California Pan-Ethnic Health Network
Canal Alliance
Chinatown Public Health Center
Chinese for Affirmative Action
Community Health for Asian Americans
Community Health Partnership
East Bay Asian Youth Center
Empowering Pacific Islander Communities
Fathers & Families of San Joaquin
Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries
Global Refugee Awareness Healing center
Healthy House
Hmong National Development
Iu-Mien Community Services
Khmer Girls in Action
Khmer Parent Association
Korean Churches for Community Development
Korean Resource Center
Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc.
Madera Coalition for Community Justice
Multicultural Council of America
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum
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Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Alliance
National Pacific Islander Education Network
NICOS Chinese Health Coalition
Pacific Islander Health Partnership
PALS for Health
Refugee & Immigration Ministries - Christian Church (Disciples
of Christ) in the US and
Canada
Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
Stone Soup Fresno
Taulama For Tongans
Thai Health And Information Services, Inc.
The Cambodian Family Community Center
TOFA Inc.
Tongan American Youth Foundation
United Cambodian Community
Urban Strategies Council
One Individual
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
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