BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Gloria Romero, Chair
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 2203
AUTHOR: Solorio
AMENDED: June 16, 2010
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 30, 2010
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : College Textbooks
KEY POLICY ISSUE
Should the public postsecondary education segments be
required to review and revise their transfer policies to
ensure the continued use of current textbooks that reflect
contemporary thinking in the discipline regardless of
publication date?
SUMMARY
This bill requires the California Community College (CCC)
Board of Governors (BOG) and the California State
University (CSU) Trustees, and requests the University of
California (UC) Regents to review and revise their
respective transfer policies to ensure that students may
continue to use a textbook selected for a transfer or
general education course for long as the information
contained is current and reflects contemporary thinking in
the discipline.
BACKGROUND
Current law requires the Trustees of the CSU and the BOG of
the CCC, and requests the UC Regents, to work with their
academic senates to encourage faculty to give consideration
to the least costly practices in assigning textbooks,
adopting the least expensive edition when the educational
content is equal, and using a selected textbook as long as
it is educationally sound as determined by the appropriate
faculty. (Education Code 66406)
Current law also requires publishers, beginning January 1,
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2010 to print on the outer cover of textbooks a summary of
the substantive content differences between the new and
prior editions. (EC 66406.7)
ANALYSIS
This bill requires the BOG of the CCC and the CSU Trustees,
and requests the Regents of the UC to review and revise
their respective transfer policies to ensure that students
may continue to use a textbook selected for a transfer or
general education course for as long as the information
contained is current and reflects contemporary thinking in
the discipline.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, community
college faculty are concerned that they need to update
their course materials more often than necessary in
order to fully comply with articulation agreements.
Although there is a process to seek waivers from the
requirement, the process is burdensome, not
guaranteed, and thus is rarely pursued. As a result,
opportunities for students to sell or trade their
textbooks are significantly reduced. In addition,
students are forced to buy new, expensive editions at
a time when they are facing significantly higher fees.
2) Current textbook guidelines . The CSU issued its
Guiding Notes for General Education Course Reviewers
in January 2010. These Guiding Notes have been
developed by the faculty and staff who review course
outlines proposed for lower-division general education
credit in the UC and the CSU. According to the Guiding
Notes, recommended textbooks should be current and
course outlines should reflect contemporary thinking
in the discipline. In addition, at least one text (and
for some disciplines, all the texts) should have been
published within the last five years. Older books
should be included if they are considered classics in
the field.
According to the UC, while the UC Transferable Course
Agreement (TCA) requires the main text for a
transferable course to be dated within five years,
policy allows for an exception with specific reasons
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why a certain text is not dated within five years.
Community college articulation officers are encouraged
to submit older textbooks with a note of explanation
in the "comments to reviewers" section of its Online
Services for Curriculum and Articulation Review
(OSCAR) system (an online, web-based computer system
for the submission, review, and archiving of course
outlines for CCC courses proposed for articulation
with the CSU and the UC).
It appears that both CSU and the UC have created a
transferable course review process that allows
flexibility in the five-year publication date
policy/guideline.
SUPPORT
California State University
University of California
OPPOSITION
None received.