BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 2534
AUTHOR: Block
AMENDED: June 20, 2012
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 27, 2012
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
NOTE : This bill has been amended to replace its contents
and this is the first time the bill is being heard in its
current form.
SUBJECT : Community College Pilot program; career technical
education credit
for veterans.
SUMMARY
This bill requires the California Community College
Chancellor's Office to establish a voluntary pilot program
to authorize 3 to 5 campuses to establish and maintain a
career technical education program that factors
experiential learning for veterans for career technical
education course credit, certificates and associate
degrees.
BACKGROUND
Current law authorizes community college district governing
boards, until January 1, 2014, to approve stand-alone
credit courses that are not part of an educational program,
without the prior approval of the Board of Governors (BOG)
of the California Community Colleges (CCCs). (Education
Code � 70901)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Requires the Chancellor's Office of the California
Community Colleges to establish a voluntary pilot
program for purposes of authorizing a district to
establish and maintain a career technical education
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program that factors experiential learning for
veterans for career technical education course credit,
certificates, and associate degrees.
2) Authorizes a local district governing board to apply
for a campus within the district to be selected.
3) Requires that the Chancellor select no more than three
to five of those campuses to participate in the pilot
program and requires that the Chancellor consider the
following in selecting campuses:
a) The geographic, socioeconomic, and
demographic diversity of students attending the
campus.
b) The percentage of veterans on a
campus and the existing campus' veteran services
and programs.
c) The district's program and
planning capacity.
d) The potential for support from
funding partners in industry, the military,
labor, or other private funding sources that
might reduce the cost of attendance for students
participating in the program.
4) Requires the pilot program to use existing resources,
including the American Council on Education
recommendations to determine the value of a veteran's
prior professional military training, education, and
experience.
5) Authorizes career technical education course credit
and certificates for the pilot program to include
credit earned as a result of prior military service.
6) Authorizes a district governing board to approve
credit courses that are not part of an approved
educational program for a campus that participates in
the pilot program, as specified, for the duration of
the pilot program.
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7) Requires the LAO to provide an evaluation of the pilot
program using campus reports, campus visits,
interviews with faculty and students, and
administrators, and other sources that the LAO deems
relevant.
8) Requires that the evaluative report prepared by the
LAO include the following:
a) The geographic, socioeconomic, and
demographic diversity of students participating
in the pilot program.
b) Summary statistics on enrollment,
financing sources, completion rates, and credit
granted for prior learning experience for the
pilot program.
c) An assessment of the pilot
program's effect on student veterans' success in
reaching their educational goals.
d) Recommendations regarding the
extension, expansion or modification of the pilot
program.
9) Makes related findings and declarations.
10) Sunsets the pilot program provisions on January 1,
2021.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, members of
the armed forces and recently separating veterans
bring with them years of federal training, but these
service members have found difficulty translating that
training into tangible education and certification. It
is the intent of the author to establish a pilot
program that would give campuses flexibility in
designing and implementing course and program
opportunities in order to better allow veterans to
fully leverage their military training.
2) Incentive to participate . Until 2007, existing law
required the BOG to approve all educational programs
offered by community colleges and also required the
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BOG to approve individual courses that are not part of
an approved program. State regulations delegated the
responsibility for these approvals to the Chancellor
of the California Community Colleges.
AB 1943 (Nava, Statutes of 2006, Chapter 817)
authorized local community college governing boards to
approve stand-alone credit courses that are not part
of an educational program, without the prior approval
of the Board of Governors (BOG) of the California
Community Colleges (CCCs) until January 1, 2013. These
"Stand alone" courses fall outside traditional
groupings of classes and are not part of an
established educational program. These courses are
generally created to meet specific local educational
and workforce needs. Examples of such courses offered
in the past include Integrated Networking Essentials,
Pest Management, Soil Testing and Inspection,
Strategies for Career Success, Wine Vineyard
Management, Academic Survival Skills, Sexual
Harassment Prevention, and others.
This bill proposes an expanded authority to approve
courses for the purposes of the pilot program to those
campuses/districts selected for participation in the
pilot program. However, as drafted, the bill appears
to extend this authority for all courses offered for
credit by the district. Staff recommends the bill be
amended in subdivision (e) to clarify that this bill
expands the authority of the local governing board to
approve courses for credit for the purposes of the
pilot program.
3) Findings versus goals of the legislation . The findings
and declarations of this bill clarify that the intent
of the Legislature is for community colleges to
identify, explore, and develop best practices for
statewide policy on credit for experiential learning
for military veterans through this pilot program. In
addition, the findings note that participating
colleges should recognize federal training and
education and identify course options to expedite the
attainment of degree and certificate goals by military
veterans.
Staff recommends the bill be amended to remove the
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findings from the bill and instead, make
identification, exploration, and development of best
practices for statewide policy on credit for
experiential learning for military veterans the goal
of the pilot program. Staff also recommends the bill
be amended to require that participating districts
recognize federal training and education and identify
innovative options for expediting the attainment of
degree and certificate goals by military veterans.
Staff further recommends the bill be amended to
specify that participating districts may use
strategies that include, but are not limited to the
guidelines and recommendations of the American Council
on Education, partnerships between the district and
branches of the armed forces that facilitate the
transition of veterans into workforce partnership
jobs, course offerings that maximize the awarding of
credit to complete academic requirements, and
stackable credential programs.
4) LAO report . This bill currently requires an evaluative
report by the LAO. In order to ensure the LAO
receives the information necessary to comply with the
reporting requirements, staff recommends the bill be
amended to:
a) Delete the current report language.
b) Require participating districts to report to
the Chancellor's Office on; the demographics of
the students served by the pilot program, summary
statistics on enrollment financing sources,
completion rates and credit granted for prior
learning experience for the pilot program.
c) Require the Chancellor's Office to provide
this information to the LAO by July 1, 2017.
d) Authorize the LAO to use any other sources
of information the LAO deems relevant, including,
but not limited to, campus reports campus visits,
interviews with faculty students, and
administrators.
e) Require the LAO to conduct an evaluative
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report by December 1, 2017, assessing the pilot
program's effect on student veterans' success in
reaching their educational goals. In addition,
the LAO shall identify any best practices which
emerge from the pilot program and which the
Legislature may want to consider for statewide
policy regarding credit for experiential learning
for military veterans, and recommendations
whether the pilot program should be extended,
expanded or modified.
5) Length of pilot program . While some time is necessary
to allow for veterans to complete programs in order to
evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot, the current
timeframe would not provide any useful information for
state policymakers for eight years. In order to
receive information in a more timely fashion, staff
recommends the bill be amended to limit the pilot
program to four years and sunset its provisions in
2017.
SUPPORT
None received.
OPPOSITION
None received.