BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1835|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1835
Author: Holden (D)
Amended: 4/25/16 in Assembly
Vote: 21
SENATE BUS., PROF. & ECON. DEV. COMMITTEE: 8-0, 6/13/16
AYES: Hill, Bates, Block, Gaines, Galgiani, Jackson, Mendoza,
Wieckowski
NO VOTE RECORDED: Hernandez
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 9-0, 6/29/16
AYES: Liu, Block, Hancock, Huff, Leyva, Mendoza, Monning, Pan,
Vidak
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 76-0, 5/19/16 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: California Private Postsecondary Education Act of
2009: minimum operating standards: exemptions
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill provides an exemption for five years from
minimum operating standards and accreditation requirements for
approval by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education
(BPPE), to institutions that grant doctoral degrees in
psychoanalysis, if all of the institution's students hold
master's or doctoral degrees before they enroll in the
institution and if all of the institution's students, other than
research students regulated by the Medical Board of California,
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hold a valid professional license authorizing the individual to
practice psychotherapy.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Establishes the California Private Postsecondary Education Act
(Act) and requires BPPE to, among other things, review,
investigate and approve private postsecondary institutions,
programs and courses of instruction pursuant to the Act and
authorizes BPPE to take formal actions against an
institution/school to ensure compliance with the Act and even
seek closure of an institution/school if determined necessary.
The Act also provides for specified disclosures and
enrollment agreements for students, requirements for
cancellations, withdrawals and refunds, and that BPPE shall
administer the Student Tuition Recovery Fund to provide
refunds to students affected by the possible closure of an
institution/school. (Education Code (EC) § 94800 et seq.)
2)Exempts various institutions from the Act.
3)Requires an institution seeking BPPE approval to operate and
to offer a degree to either be accredited by an accrediting
agency recognized by United States Department of Education
(USDE) to offer the degree(s); or have an accreditation plan,
approved by BPPE, for the institution to become fully
accredited within five years of the BPPE issuance of a
provisional approval to operate. (EC § 94885)
4)Requires an unaccredited institution that is approved to
operate and to offer degree programs by BPPE prior to January
1, 2015, to submit an accreditation plan to BPPE, to obtain
pre-accreditation by July 1, 2017, to obtain accreditation by
July 1, 2020, and to comply with various student disclosure
and visiting committee review requirements. (EC § 94885.1)
This bill provides an exemption for five years from minimum
operating standards and accreditation requirements for approval
by the BPPE to institutions that grant doctoral degrees in
psychoanalysis, if all of the institution's students hold
master's or doctoral degrees before they enroll in the
institution and if all of the institution's students, other than
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research students regulated by the Medical Board of California,
hold a valid professional license authorizing the individual to
practice psychotherapy.
Background
The Act and exemptions. BPPE has oversight of all of the
non-exempt, private postsecondary institutions located in
California. AB 48 (Portantino, Chapter 310, Statutes of 2009)
established the Act and contained numerous exemptions to
state-level oversight, the most notable of which is an exemption
from BPPE authority and regulation under the Act granted to
for-profit and nonprofit regionally accredited institutions.
The Act was amended through SB 1247 (Lieu, Chapter 840, Statutes
of 2014) to prohibit an institution, beginning January 1, 2016,
from claiming an exemption from the Act if the institution is
approved to participate in Title 38 veterans financial aid
programs. Legislative police committees at the time were
concerned about multiple reports and hearings focused on the
experience of veterans at private for-profit institutions, false
and predatory advertising to veterans and the potential lack of
accountability for the millions of dollars administered by the
federal Veterans Administration (VA) and Department of Defense
(DOD) spent at private postsecondary education institutions in
California if schools are not regulated. Because neither DOD
nor VA benefits originate through federal student financial aid,
Title IV, money that institutions received through these
programs was not counted as federal financial aid, thus not
subject to a key federal regulatory requirement governing
for-profit schools that no more than 90 percent of revenues come
from federal financial aid.
Psychoanalysis institutions, studies and accreditation.
According to the Accrediting Council for Psychoanalytic
Education (ACPE), "psychoanalysis is a specific form of
individual psychotherapy that aims to bring unconscious mental
elements and processes into awareness in order to expand an
individual's self-understanding, enhance adaptation in multiple
spheres of functioning, alleviate symptoms of mental disorder,
and facilitate character change and emotional growth."
According to the author, "beginning in the early 1990's the
field of psychoanalysis began to develop within the mental
health community. Several non-profit educational institutions
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were established to provide medical professional post-graduate,
continuing education training in the emerging field."
SB 1247 required institutions offering degrees in California to
obtain accreditation from a USDE-recognized accrediting agency.
USDE recognition ensures that the accrediting agency meets
outlined criteria to ensure educational quality. According to
the author, because of the relatively small nature of
psychoanalytic training programs, there is no USDE-recognized
programmatic accreditation agency. In order to comply with the
requirements of SB 1247, institutions would likely need to seek
regional accreditation from the Western Association of Schools
and Colleges (WASC). According to the author and supporters of
this bill, WASC-accreditation is an expensive and lengthy
process that is unattainable for these small, narrow nonprofit
institutions. ACPE is not a USDE-recognized accrediting agency.
Psychoanalysis institutions serve students who are already
licensed as clinical psychologists, licensed clinical social
workers, marriage and family therapists, research
psychoanalysts, nurses and physicians and surgeons.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified8/3/16)
Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Newport Center for Psychoanalytic Studies
Psychoanalytic Center of California
United States House of Representatives Member Ted Lieu
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/3/16)
None received
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: Supporters of this bill,
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psychoanalysis institutions that would likely be exempt under
the bill's provisions, believe that this bill is an important
response to the BPPE's regulatory efforts which would force
these schools to undergo "the expensive and lengthy
accreditation required for large undergraduate research
universities". These institutions note that the Legislature
prudently passed legislation to crackdown on so-called diploma
mills, for-profit, typically unaccredited institutions that
offer undergraduate degrees to young students while leaving
graduates saddled with high debt loads and few meaningful job
prospects. These institutions note that this narrowly crafted
measure provides them with the flexibility to develop innovative
curriculum while protecting younger students from costly diploma
mills. The institutions note that they offer degree programs to
"qualified individuals that prepare them to provide the most
sophisticated contemporary mental health treatment for children
and adults available today" and state that the articles
published by Doctor of Psychoanalysis candidates of these
institutions benefit the patient population and the professional
sphere through adding to the body of knowledge about the human
mind and the ways in which it can be traumatized and then
treated successfully.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 76-0, 5/19/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper,
Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines,
Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson,
Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey,
Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mayes, Medina,
Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen,
Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago,
Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber,
Wilk, Wood, Rendon
NO VOTE RECORDED: Chang, Mathis, McCarty, Williams
Prepared by:Sarah Mason / B., P. & E.D. / (916) 651-4104
8/3/16 19:22:38
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