BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 612
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Date of Hearing: August 17, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 612 (Steinberg) - As Amended: July 13, 2011
Policy Committee: Higher Education
Vote: 5-2
Education 7-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill repeals the sunset date of the California Subject
Matter Projects (CSMPs) operated by the University of California
(UC) and makes the following changes:
1)Requires the CSMPs to provide teachers with instructional
strategies for delivering career-oriented, integrated academic
technical content in a manner that is linked to high priority
industry sectors identified in the state career technical
education (CTE) model curriculum standards.
2)Requires the CSMP Concurrence Committee (the committee),
beginning on January 1, 2016 and every three years thereafter,
to provide a report on the subject matter projects to the
governor and the appropriate policy committees of the
Legislature. Further requires the report to include
information on CTE professional development provided to
teachers, as specified.
3)Changes the makeup of the committee to include one
representative selected by the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (SPI). This does not change the overall number of
the committee; instead, the State Board of Education (SBE)
will now select only one representative instead of two.
4)Requires the CSMPs, in partnership with the UC Curriculum
Integration Institute or other appropriate entities, to
provide teachers with support in the implementation of
career-oriented, integrated academic and technical courses
that meet course requirements for admission to the UC and the
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California State University (CSU), and align with high
priority industry sections, as specified.
5)Authorizes the establishment of a physical education
(PE)/health, arts, and world language CSMP.
6)Adds one representative from an industry sector to each CSMP
advisory board and reduces the number of individuals who serve
on each CSMP advisory committee from 15 to 11, as specified.
7)Adds schools with a dropout rate that exceeds the statewide
average as one of the criteria each project advisory board
utilizes to recommend project funding.
8)Requires each project board, for purposes of recommending
funding that serves middle/high school teachers, to give
special consideration to sites that utilize or are preparing
to utilize instructional strategies to deliver
career-oriented, integrated academic and technical content.
9)Updates CSMP statute to account for the state's adoption of
the Common Core Standards in English language arts and
mathematics.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Annual GF costs between $1.2 and $1.8 million to UC to
integrate career-oriented, academic technical content in all
nine CSMPs. These costs are associated with developing
content for each project and providing stipends to educators
to attend training in this area.
The 2011 Budget allocates $10 million to UC to support all
nine CSMPs. Of this amount, $5 million is GF and $5 million
are federal funds. Statute requires each project advisory
board to determine the funding local sites receive.
�The UC has incurred GF budget reductions of $650 million for
the 2011-12 fiscal year (FY). While a portion of this
reduction in state support has been offset by significant
student fee increases, UC is also reducing enrollment and
course offerings. If GF revenues do not meet specified
projections, UC may incur an additional $100 million reduction
this FY.]
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2)This bill authorizes the establishment of three CSMPs:
PE/health, arts, and world languages. Current law states
nothing precludes UC from establishing other subject matter
projects in subject areas not specified in current statute.
Statute also prohibits funding allocated in the annual budget
act for the CSMPs from being used to support projects not
specified in statute. According to UC, it has spent
approximately $8.2 million on all three projects between 2006
and 2010 and it does not plan to ask for additional GF to
support these projects.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . The CSMPs, administered by the UC, are an alliance
of nine statewide networks that support K-12 standards-aligned
professional development for teachers, administrators, and
other school leaders in the arts, foreign language,
history-social science, international studies, mathematics,
PE/health, science, writing, reading, and literature.
According to the UC, there are approximately 109 CSMP regional
sites and nine statewide offices. Between 2006 and 2009, the
projects served 2,719 schools and provided professional
development training to over 94,000 people, including K-12
teachers and administrators.
According to the author, "Nearly 100,000 California students
are dropping out of middle and high school annually, a number
equivalent in size to the entire populations of the cities of
San Mateo or Compton. A stronger and more integrated approach
to learning - one that combines rigorous academics with career
education -- can engage and motivate students who are at risk
of dropping out and can create more options for them after
high school, whether they choose college or career.
Given the proven efficacy of the CSMPs along with its broad
statewide reach, the CSMPs are uniquely positioned to help
teachers deliver curriculum that is more closely aligned with
the needs of growing and emerging sectors of the California
economy."
Current statute sunsets the authorization for these projects
on January 1, 2013. This bill removes the sunset for the CSMPs
and adds to their purpose by requiring CTE related content to
be integrated into the projects, as specified. It also
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statutorily authorizes three CSMPs in education (PE)/health,
arts, and world language. The UC has been operating these
projects for over five years.
2)Why repeal the sunset ? AB 2950 (Strom-Martin), Chapter 463,
Statutes of 2002, extended the sunset date of CSMPs from
January 1, 2003 to June 30, 2007 (with the repeal date as
January 1, 2008). SB 232 (Ducheny), Chapter 292, Statues of
2007, extended the sunset until 2013.
AB 2950 required an independent evaluation of the CSMPs to be
submitted to the Legislature, the SBE, and the governor by
February 2006. The evaluation was conducted by SRI
International in December 2005 and concluded that overall the
CSMPs have provided teachers with quality professional
development that has impacted student achievement.
Specifically, SRI states, "Teachers believed that their
participation in CSMP professional development led to
improvements in student achievement. The vast majority of
teachers reported that their participation in the CSMP
benefited students' conceptual understanding, engagement in
activities, and ability to explain their reasoning. Teachers
also reported beneficial outcomes for English learners or
students who need to improve their literacy skills."
However, this evaluation identified three major challenges
related to maintaining high quality professional development
with decreased funding, meeting the needs of an increasingly
set of diverse teaching participants, and managing the
differential impact of accountability policies on the project.
In order to monitor the projects, the Legislature established
a five-year sunset date via AB 2950 and continued this
practice with SB 232.
This bill proposes to eliminate the sunset date for the CSMPs
and expand their purpose by requiring career subject matter to
be integrated into the projects, as specified. The
integration of career information into the projects is a
significant change and given the state's current fiscal
crisis, including significant reductions to UC, the committee
may wish to consider continuing a sunset date for the CSMPs in
order to inform future policy and fiscal decisions.
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3)Technical amendment . Current law requires a representative of
the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) to
serve on each CSMP advisory board. The 2011 Budget Act
eliminates all funding for CPEC and therefore, it does not
exist. The committee recommends removing all reference to
CPEC from this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081