BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2203
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 6, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Marty Block, Chair
AB 2203 (Solorio) - As Amended: March 15, 2010
SUBJECT : Public postsecondary education: student transfer.
SUMMARY : Would require the California State University (CSU)
and the California Community Colleges (CCC), and request the
University of California (UC), to revise their policies to
require the main text for proposed transfer or general education
courses to be dated within seven years of the submission of the
course for transfer credit, instead of five years.
EXISTING LAW specifies that the transfer function be a central
institutional priority of all segments of higher education in
California and requires the segments to develop policies and
practices to support this priority. Requires the segments of
higher education to develop transfer agreements that specify the
requirements a CCC student must meet to transfer to the public
four-year segments of higher education.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : Process for approving courses : To have a CCC course
approved for general education credit at CSU or general
education and elective credit at UC, CCC articulation officers
submit course information to the UC and CSU system offices via
the On-Line Service for Curriculum and Articulation Review
(OSCAR). UC and CSU faculty, staff and administrators evaluate
the information, and the UC and CSU system offices forward
decisions to CCC articulation officers. Approved outlines from
previous years are carried forward unless a CCC reports that a
course has changed substantially since its review.
Purpose of this bill : According to the author, "current
textbook articulation agreements between CCC, CSU and UC
prevents faculty from using textbooks that are published past a
five year period. This requirement has instructors constantly
updating textbooks used in their courses. This five-year limit
has significantly reduced opportunities for students to sell or
trade in their textbooks. As such, students are constantly
forced to buy new, expensive editions of textbooks in order to
fulfill articulation requirements at a time when they are facing
AB 2203
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significantly higher campus fees. Furthermore, this five-year
textbook policy reduces the opportunities to recycle books that
often contain information that is still relevant."
Guidelines for texts used in transferable courses : In January
2010, the Guiding Notes for General Education Course Reviewers
(Guiding Notes) were released. These Guiding Notes were
developed by UC and CSU course-reviewing staff and made
available to the public to inform colleagues of what UC and CSU
look for in proposals for general education courses. The
Guiding Notes indicate that courses and textbooks should be
current and reflect contemporary thinking of the discipline, and
at least one text (for some disciplines, all texts) should have
been published within the last five years. However, older books
should be included if they are considered classics in the field.
Committee staff understands that, for CSU, these Guiding Notes
are used as guidelines in approving courses for transfer and are
not firm requirements. Further, while the UC Transferable
Course Agreement (TCA) requires the main text for transferable
courses to be dated within five years, the policy allows for
exceptions when there are specific reasons why a certain text is
not dated within five years. CCC articulation officers are
encouraged to submit older textbooks with a note of explanation
in the "comments to reviewers" section of the OSCAR system.
Legislation may be unnecessary . As noted above, both CSU and UC
have created a transferable course review process that allows
for exceptions to the five-year publication date
policy/guideline. There have been no examples provided to
committee staff in which these exceptions were insufficient.
According to information provided by the author's staff,
articulation officers in two CCC districts indicated that UC has
been reasonable in accepting textbooks past the five-year
period. It is not clear that legislation is necessary at this
time.
Potential unintended limitation : This bill would establish a
state law requiring CCC and CSU policies regarding texts used in
transferable courses ensure the texts are dated within seven
years of the submission of courses for transfer credit, instead
of five years. This bill would urge UC to adopt a similar
policy. Existing law does not set limits on the publication
year of texts used in California's higher education systems, and
as noted above, exceptions to the five-year publication date
guidelines established by UC and CSU are provided. As written,
AB 2203
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this bill could establish a state law that inadvertently limits
the ability of the higher education segments to use texts older
than seven years.
Staff recommendation : Committee staff recommends that the
contents of this bill be deleted and replaced with the
following:
Section 66406.5. The Board of Governors of the
California Community Colleges, the Trustees of the
California State University, and the Regents of the
University of California are encouraged to review each
respective segment's student transfer policies, and to
revise those policies, to ensure that students may
continue to use a textbook selected for a transfer or
general education course, regardless of publication date,
for as long as the textbook is available to students and
the information contained in the textbook is current and
reflects contemporary thinking in the discipline.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on File
Opposition
None on File
Analysis Prepared by : Laura Metune / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960