BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 42
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|Author: |Liu |
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|Version: |December 2, 2014 Hearing Date: |
| | March 25, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Kathleen Chavira |
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Subject: Postsecondary education: California Commission on
Higher Education ????..Performance and Accountability
SUMMARY
This bill recasts the California Postsecondary Education
Commission as the California Commission on Higher Education
Performance and Accountability, modifies the make-up of the
prior commission, reduces and clarifies the Commission's
functions and responsibilities, deletes a number of obsolete
reporting requirements, and makes a number of conforming and
technical changes.
BACKGROUND
Existing law establishes the California Postsecondary Education
Commission (CPEC) to be responsible for coordinating public,
independent, and private postsecondary education in California
and to provide independent policy analysis and recommendations
to the Legislature and the Governor on postsecondary education
policy. (Education Code § 66900 et. seq.)
Existing law prescribes the Commission composition to include
the following 17 members:
1. One representative from each of the following bodies;
A. The University of California Regents.
B. The California State University Trustees.
C. The California Community College Board of
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Governors.
D. The Association of Independent Colleges and
Universities.
2. The chair or designee of the Council for Private
Postsecondary and Vocational Education.
3. The President or designee of the State Board of
Education.
4. Nine representatives of the general public, with three
appointed by the Governor, three by the Senate Rules
Committee, and three by the speaker of the Assembly.
5. Two student representatives. (EC § 66901)
ANALYSIS
This bill:
1. Recasts the California Postsecondary Education Commission
as the California Commission on Higher Education
Performance and Accountability (CCHEPA).
2. Modifies the make-up of the prior commission. More
specifically it provides for 17 members of the general
public appointed as follows:
A. Requires that four members be appointed by the
Speaker of the Assembly.
B. Requires that four members be appointed by the
Senate Committee on Rules.
C. Requires that nine members, including the
chairperson, be appointed by the Governor subject to
Senate confirmation.
D. Requires that the CCHEPA be a representative of
civic, business, and public school leaders.
E. Requires that CCHEPA members serve staggered six
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year terms.
3. Modifies the make-up of the advisory committee to the
CCHEPA to include one student representative enrolled
during their time of service and an executive officer from
among the independent California colleges and universities,
as specified.
4. Makes the Director of the CCHEPA subject to Senate
confirmation.
5. Reduces and clarifies the CCHEPA's functions and
responsibilities as follows:
A. Deletes a number of functions previously assigned
to the California Postsecondary Education Commission
(CPEC).
B. Requires that it articulate and monitor state
performance objectives for higher education.
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
compatibility, supports longitudinal studies, is
compatible with K-12 data systems, provides internet
access to data for the sectors of higher education in
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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, 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 and evaluate both statewide and
institutional performance in relation to these goals
and priorities.
I. 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.
J. Requires that it perform all other duties
assigned by the Legislature.
6. Deletes a number of obsolete reporting requirements.
7. Makes a number of conforming and technical changes.
STAFF COMMENTS
1. Need for the bill. California's education and workforce
needs cannot be addressed by any single segment. According
to the author, 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.
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
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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. The
bill reflects national trends,
recommendations from several recent reports, and recommendations
by the Legislative Analyst.
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 California Postsecondary Education
Commission (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 education and
effective use of resources.
In the 2011-12 budget, the Governor vetoed funding for CPEC
citing the agency's ineffectiveness in higher education
oversight. In his veto message, the Governor acknowledged the
well-established need for coordinating and guiding state higher
education policy and requested that stakeholders explore
alternative ways these functions could be fulfilled.
Although, the Governor eliminated all general fund support for
CPEC, its statutory authority remains intact. This bill makes a
number of changes to these existing provisions.
3. 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 Legislative Analyst's
Office (LAO) raised concerns that in the wake of
CPEC's closure, the future of higher education
oversight was unclear and noted that while the public
segments had stepped in to assume some roles
previously performed by CPEC, expressed concerns about
how institutional and public interests would be
balanced. The LAO also noted that while CPEC's
performance had been problematic, several important
functions performed by the commission 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, 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.
1. How is the new commission different? This bill amends
existing statute to reflect many of the report
recommendations outlined in staff comment #3. It narrows
and focuses the Commission's functions to monitoring
performance and accountability, program and new campus
review, data management, and independent policy analysis
and advising. The commission make-up is restructured to
focus on a public agenda with public members appointed by
the Legislature and Governor, and the postsecondary
education segments participate in the Commission activities
in an advisory capacity.
Notwithstanding the need for a commission that is
independent of the postsecondary education segments and the
need to focus on a public agenda, the higher education
segments do play a critical role in informing and advising
on the development of policy around performance,
accountability, and data. Can the role of the segments as
an advisory body be strengthened without compromising the
Commission's independence?
2. Since the closure of California Postsecondary Education
Commission (CPEC)?
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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 ad 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
UC, CSU, 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
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
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warehouse to the CCC Chancellor's Office where the
existing data is being housed and stored under an
interagency agreement between the UC, CSU, and the
CCC. According to the Chancellor's office, the
existing database is being maintained, and the CPEC
website is available to the public for purposes of
access existing reports posted on the website.
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.
3. Author's amendment. It is the intent of the author to
clarify that the work of the Commission in regards to state
goals and priorities for higher education is to
complement and advise on the existing goals and targets
established by SB 195 and the Budget Acts, not establish
yet a new set of goals and targets.
Staff recommends the bill be amended on page 27, to delete
subdivision (f) and on page 27, line 25 after education insert
"consistent with the goals outlined in section 66010.91 and the
metrics outlined in sections 89295 and 92675."
4. 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:
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SB 1196 (Liu, 2014) would have established a process for
setting specific educational attainment goals for the
State. SB 1196 was held in the Assembly Appropriations
Committee.
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.
SB 1022 (Huff, Chaptered 394, Statutes of 2014) requires
the CSU and requests the UC to provide labor market outcome
data on their graduates.
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.
SB 721 (Lowenthal, 2012) would have established statewide
goals for guiding budget and policy decisions. SB 721 was
ultimately vetoed.
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.
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
None received.
OPPOSITION
None received.
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