BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 62
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|Author: |Pavley |
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|Version: |March 18, 2015 Hearing |
| |Date: March 25, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Lenin Del Castillo |
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Subject: Student financial aid: Assumption Program of Loans
for Education
SUMMARY
This bill would make various programmatic changes to the
existing Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE) and
Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program.
BACKGROUND
The APLE program, administered by the California Student Aid
Commission, was established in 1983 to provide loan assumption
benefits to credentialed teachers. Generally, APLE warrants are
given to credential candidates; the warrants are then redeemed
for the loan assumption benefit once the candidate has earned a
credential and completed a year of eligible teaching. The
program is designed to increase the number of qualified teachers
in disadvantaged schools or high-priority subject areas. The
program "forgives" up to $11,000 of college loan debt for a
person who teaches for four consecutive years in a qualifying
school or subject area (paying $2,000 for the first year of
teaching service and $3,000 for each of the next three years of
teaching). Qualifying schools include those with high
proportions of low-income youth or emergency permit teachers and
those located in rural areas. The subject area shortages are
annually determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction
and may vary from year to year; math, science and special
education have been listed consistently for many years.
(Education Code § 69612)
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Additional loan forgiveness of $1,000 per year for up to four
years is provided for those who teach math, science or special
education (for a total of $15,000) and an additional $1,000 is
provided for those who teach math, science or special education
in schools with an academic performance index (API) of 1 or 2
(for a total of $19,000).
(EC § 69613.8)
The Student Aid Commission is prohibited from awarding a greater
number of agreements than is authorized in the annual Budget
Act. (EC § 69615.8)
The Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program, administered by the
Chancellor's office of the California State University, provided
grants for highly-qualified aspiring teachers who taught for
four years at a low-performing school. Fellowship awards were
available to be used to defer tuition for a teacher
certification program at any accredited postsecondary
institution in California and for living expenses while
enrolled.
(EC § 7000 et. seq.)
ANALYSIS
Assumption Program of Loans for Education
This bill would make various programmatic changes to the
existing Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE).
Specifically, this bill:
1. Makes technical, conforming changes the legislative
findings and declarations for APLE.
2. Amends the definition of "eligible school" by requiring a
school to qualify for services pursuant to the Richard B.
Russell National School Lunch Act, as specified, rather
than serving a large population of pupils from low-income
families.
3. Eliminates the requirement that an eligible school is
ranked in the lowest two deciles on the Academic
Performance Index (API).
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4. Removes the requirement that an applicant has received or
is approved to receive a loan under the Federal Family
Education Loan Program and replaces it with the requirement
that an applicant has demonstrated financial need.
5. Requires that an applicant will be teaching in a shortage
area, as determined by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI).
6. Removes the provision allowing up to 400 APLE loan
assumption agreements to go to veteran teachers each year.
7. Modifies the list of schools (that serve a large population
of pupils from low-income families) that the SPI is
required to provide to the Student Aid Commission each
year, by replacing the Perkins Loan Program with
eligibility for services pursuant to the Richard B. Russell
National School Lunch Act, as specified.
8. Removes the requirement for the SPI to provide the Student
Aid Commission with a list of schools ranked in the lowest
two deciles of the API and a list of high priority schools.
9. Removes the prohibition for teachers in self-contained
classrooms and multi-subject credential holders from
participating in APLE.
10. Allows the list of teaching shortage areas that the SPI
must develop each year to include teaching in a
self-contained classroom and multiple subject credentials.
11. Amends the provision allowing loan forgiveness of $1,000
per year for those who teach math, science or special
education by eliminating the requirement that the school is
in the lowest 60 percentile of the API.
12. Deletes the provision allowing loan forgiveness of an
additional $1,000 per year for those who teach math,
science or special education in schools with an Academic
Performance Index (API) of 1 or 2.
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13. Modifies the annual report that the Student Aid Commission
is required to submit to the Legislature, as specified.
14. Prohibits participants in the Assumption Program of Loans
for Education (APLE) from concurrently participating in the
Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program.
15. Authorizes the Student Aid Commission to continue to
implement APLE according to how it read on January 1, 2015,
for purposes of collecting payments from former program
participants required to repay program costs as of January
1, 2016, for failing to satisfy the program's requirements.
Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program
This bill would also make various programmatic changes to the
existing Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program. Specifically,
this bill:
1. Requires the California State University (CSU) to
collaborate with the Student Aid Commission to ensure that
access to the fellowships is available to students in a
variety of teaching preparation programs.
2. Amends the definition of "high-priority school" by
requiring a school to qualify for services pursuant to the
Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, as specified,
rather than being in the bottom half of the API and makes
conforming changes for a school that loses its
qualification.
3. Provides that the CSU shall award no more than the number
of fellowships that are authorized by the Governor and
Legislature in the annual Budget Act for that year.
4. Authorizes the Student Aid Commission to continue to
implement the Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program
according to how it read on January 1, 2015, for purposes
of collecting payments from former program participants
required to repay program costs as of January 1, 2016, for
failing to satisfy the program's requirements.
5. Prohibits participants in the Governor's Teaching
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Fellowships Program from concurrently participating in the
APLE program.
STAFF COMMENTS
1. Need for the bill. According to the author, California's
schools are facing a pending teacher shortage crisis. They
indicate that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing
reports enrollment in teacher preparation programs has
fallen from almost 78,000 a decade ago to 19,933 in 2013-a
decrease of 74 percent. In addition, one-third of the
state's teaching workforce is nearing retirement age.
Further, the California Department of Education has
designated English, History, Social Sciences, Computer
Education, as well as those teachers teaching all subjects
in an elementary class as shortage areas.
This bill is intended to reinstate and improve both the
Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE) and the
Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program as these programs
have proven to be effective tools for recruiting teachers
into the profession.
2. Status of funding for APLE. Current law links the award of
warrants for loan assumption to funding provided in the
annual Budget Act. Despite the current need for more
teachers and the financial assistance APLE provided, the
Governor vetoed language in the 2012-13 Budget that would
have authorized a total of 7,300 warrants for loan
assumption (100 were for nursing). The Governor's proposed
2015-16 Budget does not include funding for loan assumption
warrants.
3. APLE program eligibility. The bill proposes to modify the
definition of an "eligible school" that an APLE candidate
has agreed to teach from a school that serves a large
population of low-income students to a school that
qualifies for services pursuant to the Richard B. Russell
National School Lunch Act. To be consistent with recently
enacted Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) legislation
that made major changes to the way the state allocates
funding and provides additional funds for particular
student groups, including English learners and low-income
students, staff recommends an amendment to base school
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eligibility on a percentage of unduplicated pupils as
defined under LCFF that the school serves, as determined by
the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The bill also
proposes to eliminate the $1,000 of additional liability
that an applicant would be eligible for if he or she
teaches in a school in the lowest two deciles of the
Academic Performance Index (API). While the state's new
accountability system is being developed, the API still
remains in current law. For this reason, staff recommends
that this provision be retained and reexamined at a later
date when the new accountability system is developed.
Rather than eliminating the $1,000 benefit altogether, it
appears to be more prudent to replace it with an updated
pupil achievement measure.
Staff also recommends the following technical amendments:
A. Modify the legislative findings and declarations
to include teachers in self-contained classrooms.
(Education Code § 69612 (b))
B. Clarify that an applicant has received or is
approved to receive an "educational" loan approved by
the Student Aid Commission. (Education Code § 69613
(a)(4))
C. Remove a duplicative provision regarding the
requirement for an applicant to teach in a shortage
area. (Education Code § 69613 (a)(7))
4. Author's amendments. The author wishes to make the
following amendments:
A. Clarify that the Student Aid Commission shall
continue to implement the program as it read on
January 1, 2015 for purposes of allocating funds
received and also for loan agreements made prior to
January 1, 2015.
B. Define an eligible school under the Governor's
Teaching Fellowship Awards program as a school that
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meets the criteria specified in Education Code §
69612.5 (b)(1) and make conforming changes, as
necessary to delete "high priority school."
5. Governor's Teaching Fellowships Program. In January 2001,
statute authorized 250 nonrenewable graduate teaching
fellowships in the amount of $20,000 each and during the
2001-02 fiscal year, an additional 1,000 nonrenewable
graduate teaching fellowships of $20,000 each were awarded.
The program was short-lived and at this point, it is
unclear how effective the program was as a recruitment tool
and whether it incentivized aspiring teachers to teach at
low performing schools.
6. Related and prior legislation.
SB 1264 (Pavley, 2014) proposed to establish the Educator
Excellence Program, an assumption loan program for up to
6,500 teachers who satisfied specified criteria. This bill
passed this Committee on April 30, 2014 but failed passage
in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
SB 212 (Pavley, 2013) would have appropriated $5 million,
from an unspecified fund source, for 7,200 new warrants for
the assumption of school loans for teachers in identified
areas of a shortage of teachers. This bill passed this
Committee on May 1, 2013 but failed passage in the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
SUPPORT
California College and University Police Chiefs Association
California Teachers Association
Superintendent of Public Instruction (sponsor)
OPPOSITION
None received.
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