BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 1837
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|Author: |Low |
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|Version: |March 17, 2016 Hearing |
| |Date: June 15, 2016 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Kathleen Chavira |
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Subject: Postsecondary education: Office of Higher Education
Performance and Accountability
NOTE: This bill has been referred to the Committees on
Education and Governmental Organization. A "do pass" motion
should include referral to the Governmental Organization
Committee.
SUMMARY
This bill establishes the Office of Higher Education Performance
and Accountability (OHEPA) as the statewide postsecondary
coordination and planning agency, outlines its responsibilities,
functions and authorities, and establishes an advisory board to
the office (comprised of legislative appointees) to examine and
make recommendations regarding its functions and operations, and
to review and comment on the office's recommendations to the
Governor and Legislature.
BACKGROUND
Existing law establishes the California Postsecondary Education
Commission (CPEC), a 17 member body representing the higher
education segments, the State Board of Education, and nine
representatives appointed by the Governor, Senate Rules
Committee, and Assembly Speaker, to be responsible for
coordinating public, independent, and private postsecondary
education in California and to provide independent policy
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analysis and recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor
on postsecondary education policy. (Education Code § 66900, et
seq.)
ANALYSIS
This bill establishes the OHEPA as the statewide postsecondary
education planning and coordination entity. It:
1) Establishes the OHEPA within the Governor's Office and:
a) Places the OHEPA under the direct control of
an Executive Director appointed by the Governor and
subject to Senate confirmation.
b) Provides that the Executive Director is
responsible for all duties, powers, and
responsibilities vested in the OHEPA, including
contracting for relevant professional or consultant
services
c) Requires the Director to appoint any staff
positions authorized by the Governor.
2) Establishes an Advisory Board (Board) to the Office of
Higher Education Performance and Accountability (OHEPA),
and:
a) Requires that the Board:
i) Meet at least quarterly,
ii) Be subject to open meeting
requirements.
iii) Review and comment on any
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recommendations made by the OHEPA to the Governor
and the Legislature.
iv) Develop an annual report on the
condition of California higher education.
v) Issue an annual performance review
of the Director.
b) Provides that Board members shall serve
without compensation, except reimbursement for
expenses.
c) Prescribes its membership as follows:
i) Three members with experience in
postsecondary education appointed by the Senate
Committee on Rules;
ii) Three members with experience in
postsecondary education appointed by the Speaker
of the Assembly; and,
iii) The chair of the Senate Committee on
Education and the chair of the Assembly Committee
on Higher Education to serve as ex officio
members.
3) Requires the OHEPA to actively seek input from and
consult with the advisory board and higher education
segments and stakeholders, as appropriate, in the conduct
of its duties and responsibilities.
4) Declares that the OHEPA exists for the purpose of
advising the Governor, the Legislature and other
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appropriate government officials and institutions of
postsecondary education and outlines its functions and
responsibilities. It:
a) Requires, through its use of information and
its analytic capacity, that it inform the
identification and periodic revision of state goals
and priorities for higher education consistent with
the existing goals and metrics outlined in statute by
SB 195 (Liu, Chapter 367, Statutes of 2013) and in the
2013-14 and 2014-15 Budget Acts, and that it
biennially evaluate both statewide and institutional
performance in relation to these goals and priorities.
b) Requires that it review and make
recommendations regarding cross-segmental and
interagency initiatives and programs in areas that
include, but are not limited to, efficiencies in
instructional delivery, financial aid, transfer, and
workforce coordination.
c) Requires that it advise the Legislature and
the Governor regarding the need for, and location of,
new institutions and campuses of public higher
education.
d) Requires that it review proposals by the
public segments for new programs, as specified, and
make recommendations regarding those proposals to the
Legislature and the Governor.
e) Requires that it act as a clearinghouse for
postsecondary education information and as a primary
source of information for the Legislature, the
Governor, and other agencies.
f) Requires that it develop and maintain a
comprehensive database that ensures data
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compatibility, supports longitudinal studies, is
compatible with K-12 data systems, provides Internet
access to data for the sectors of higher education in
order to support statewide, segmental and individual
campus educational research needs.
g) Requires that it review all proposals for
changes in eligibility pools for admission to public
institutions and segments of postsecondary education
and that it periodically conduct eligibility studies.
h) Requires that it manage data systems and
maintain programmatic, policy, and fiscal expertise to
receive and aggregate information reported by the
institutions of higher education in this state.
5) Authorizes the Office of Higher Education Performance
and Accountability (OHEPA) to require the governing boards
and the institutions of public postsecondary education to
submit data to the office on plans, programs, costs,
student selection and retention, enrollments, and other
specified information, and requires the Office to furnish
information concerning these matters to the Legislature and
Governor as requested by them.
6) Requires the OHEPA to annually report to the Legislature
and the Governor regarding its progress in achieving the
aforementioned objectives and responsibilities by December
31st of each year.
7) Requires the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to
review and report to the Legislature regarding the
performance of the OHEPA in fulfilling its functions and
responsibilities by January 1, 2020.
8) Sunsets these provisions on January 1, 2021.
STAFF COMMENTS
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1) Need for the bill. According to the author, California's
education and workforce needs cannot be addressed by any
single segment and the state's approach to higher education
must become more comprehensive if it is to ensure
state-level workforce needs and priorities are being met.
Currently, there is no coordinating entity for higher
education in California, as Governor Brown vetoed funding
for California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) in
the 2011-12 Budget Act, citing the agency's ineffectiveness
in higher education oversight.
Numerous reports, including legislative reviews of the
Master Plan for Higher Education and more recent reports
from higher education experts, have called for California
to establish a central higher education body. This central
body is an important element of the state's ability to
honor its promise of affordable, high quality postsecondary
education for all high school graduates and adults who
could benefit from instruction offered at California's
colleges and universities. Without such an entity,
California cannot systematically plan to address the
current and future needs of all its students and the
overall economy.
This bill represents the next necessary step in
establishing greater clarity and accountability for our
higher education system's performance in meeting the
statewide goals for postsecondary education (SB 195, Liu,
Chapter 367, Statutes of 2013) of equity, access, and
success; alignment with workforce needs; and the effective
and efficient use of resources.
2) History of CPEC. The 1960 Master Plan for Higher
Education in California articulated basic state policies on
higher education, such as assigning missions to the
different higher education segments, specifying eligibility
targets and expressing the state's intent that higher
education remain accessible, affordable, high-quality and
accountable. In addition, the Master Plan created an
oversight body, the CPEC tasked with providing fiscal and
policy recommendations to the Governor and Legislature;
monitoring and coordinating public institutions; and
ensuring comprehensive statewide planning for higher
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education and effective use of resources.
Although the Governor vetoed funding for CPEC in the 2011-12
budget, his veto message acknowledged the well-established need
for coordinating and guiding state higher education policy and
requested that stakeholders explore alternative ways that these
functions could be fulfilled. This bill proposes an
alternative.
3) Since the closure of CPEC?
a) Performance and Accountability. In the absence
of a coordinating body, the Legislature and Governor
have taken some steps toward developing, supporting
and refining greater accountability for higher
education. These efforts include the passage and
development of agreed upon goals for higher education
through the passage of SB 195 (Liu, Chaptered 2014).
SB 195 established statewide goals of improved student
access, equity and success, degree/credential
alignment with workforce needs, and the
efficient/effective use of resources. The 2013-14 and
2014-15 Budget Acts added reporting requirements
around specified performance metrics and required the
University of California, California State University,
and community colleges to set targets around these
metrics consistent with the statewide goals outlined
by SB 195 (Liu, 2014). However, there has been no
clear articulation around specific state goals and no
specific entity charged with stewarding a public
agenda to guide budget and policy deliberations.
b) Data management. The California Postsecondary
Education Commission (CPEC) was able to obtain and
maintain individual student records from the public
higher education systems, link this data across the
three segments using unique student identifiers, and
used this information, as well as other publicly
available datasets, to create useful data for the
public and to respond to policymaker and legislative
inquiries. Additionally, the CPEC provided each of
the segments access to the data to support statewide,
segmental and individual campus educational research
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needs. The CPEC functioned as a data management
entity independent of the public segments, enabling
the CPEC to perform analyses and provide information
on behalf of and in response to requests from the
Legislature or others, without relying on the
"approval" or framing of information by the entity
whose performance was being studied, analyzed, or
evaluated.
Prior to its closure, the CPEC transferred its data
warehouse to the California Community College (CCC)
Chancellor's Office where the existing data is being
housed and stored under an interagency agreement
between the University of California, California State
University, and the CCC. According to the
Chancellor's office, the existing database is being
maintained, and the CPEC Web site is available to the
public for purposes of accessing existing reports
posted on the Web site. However, under the current
arrangement, access to the data is limited, since each
segment has control over access to its own student
records and outside entities wishing to use the
database information must secure the approval of each
of the affected segments.
c) Program and campus review. The CPEC's role in
program and campus review was to coordinate the
long-range planning of the state's public higher
education systems as a means to ensure that they were
working together to carry out their individual
missions while serving the state's long-range
workforce and economic needs. In its oversight
report, the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) noted
that no office or committee has the resources to
devote to review of programs to identify long-term
costs, alignment with state needs and institutional
missions, duplication and priority relative to other
demands.
4) Related reports/recommendations. A number of recent
reports have cited the need for an independent body to
steward a public agenda for higher education. These
include the following:
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a) Improving Higher Education Oversight (LAO,
January 2012) - In this report, the LAO raised
concerns that in the wake of CPEC's closure, the
future of higher education oversight was unclear. The
LAO noted that while the public segments had stepped
in to assume some roles previously performed by
California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC),
they expressed concerns about how institutional and
public interests would be balanced. The Legislative
Analyst's Office (LAO) also noted that while CPEC's
performance had been problematic, several important
functions performed by CPEC had been lost. Among
other things, the LAO recommended the Legislature
re-establish an independent oversight body and
increase the body's independence from the public
higher education segments, assign the body with
limited and clear responsibilities, and develop a more
unified governing board appointment process.
b) Charting a Course for California's Colleges:
State Leadership in Higher Education (California
Competes, February 2014) - The report noted that
California is one of only two states nationwide (the
other being Michigan) without comprehensive oversight
or coordination of higher education. The report
opined that the state needs an independent agency to
develop a public agenda for higher education that
links the needs of the state's economy to the degree
attainment outputs of the state's institutions.
Further, that independence means that the entity would
not have representatives of the segments on its
decision-making body to allow it to maintain its
impartiality. Finally, the report recommended that
the state's priorities be focused on the goals of
access to quality programs and outcomes from those
programs; that the entity should be a coordinating
agency and the segments should remain autonomous; and
that its primary functions should be planning and
policy development, data collection, analysis and
monitoring, and administration of state financial aid
programs.
c) A New Vision for California Higher Education: A
Model Public Agenda (Institute for Higher Education
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Leadership and Policy, March 2014) - The report
highlights the challenges faced by California and
offers a model public agenda centered on these goals:
addressing access and attainment; equity,
affordability and efficiency; and state policy
leadership. As regards policy leadership, the report
opines that this function is best filled by an
executive branch entity, such as a California Office
of Higher Education, that reports to the Governor.
The responsibilities of this office would be to, among
other things, provide policy leadership and advise the
Governor on higher education budget and policy
development, administer financial aid programs, manage
a coordinated higher education data system that allows
for analysis of enrollments, progression, and
completion across all public segments, manage a higher
education accountability process, and conduct analysis
of goals and targets to assess how well regional
efforts aggregate to meet statewide goals.
5) Related and prior legislation. Several bills have been
introduced in an effort to improve higher education
performance and accountability, and to re-establish CPEC's
most important functions. These include the following:
a) SB 42 (Liu, 2015), in its final form, was
essentially identical to this bill. Although SB 42
was heard and passed by both houses, it was ultimately
vetoed by the Governor, whose message read, in
pertinent part:
"While there is much work to be done to
improve higher education, I am not convinced
we need a new office and an advisory board,
especially of the kind this bill proposes,
to get the job done."
b) SB 1196 (Liu, 2014) would have established a
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process for setting specific educational attainment
goals for the State. SB 1196 was held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee.
c) AB 1348 (John A. Pérez, 2014) which would have
established the California Higher Education Authority,
its governing board and its responsibilities, as
specified, phased-in over a three-year period. AB 1348
was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
d) SB 1022 (Huff, Chaptered 394, Statutes of 2014)
requires the California State University and requests
the University of California to provide labor market
outcome data on their graduates.
e) AB 2190 (John A. Pérez, 2012) would have
established a new state oversight and coordinating
body for higher education. AB 2190 was held in the
Assembly Appropriations Committee.
f) SB 721 (Lowenthal, 2012) would have established
statewide goals for guiding budget and policy
decisions. SB 721 was ultimately vetoed.
g) SB 1138 (Liu, 2011-12) would have established a
central data management system for the higher
education segments. SB 1138 was held in the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
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h) AB 2 (Portantino, 2011) and AB 218 (Portantino,
2009) essentially identical bills, required that the
state to establish an accountability framework to
biennially assess and report on the collective
progress of the state's system of postsecondary
education in meeting specified educational and
economic goals. Both bills were heard and passed by
this Committee and were subsequently held in the
Senate Appropriations Committee.
SUPPORT
California Competes
Campaign for College Opportunity
OPPOSITION
None received.
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