BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 1456
AUTHOR: Lowenthal
AMENDED: March 28, 2012
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 18, 2012
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : Student Success Act of 2012.
SUMMARY
This bill establishes new requirements to be met by
low-income students in order to receive a Board of Governor's
fee waiver at the California Community Colleges (CCC),
revises and recasts the Seymour-Campbell Matriculation Act of
1986 as the Seymour-Campbell Success Act of 2012, and
establishes new requirements to be met in order for community
college districts to receive matriculation funds.
BACKGROUND
Current law requires the Board of Governors (BOG) to charge
each student a $46 per unit per semester fee effective with
the summer term of 2012. Current law exempts certain students
from the fee requirement including students enrolled in
noncredit courses, CSU and UC students enrolled in remedial
courses offered by the CCC, and students enrolled in credit
contract education courses where the full cost of the course
is paid by the contracting entity. Current law also
authorizes an exemption from these fees for special part-time
students.
Current law also requires a waiver of these fees for students
meeting specified criteria which include;
Students who meet specified income
requirements.
Students who are the dependent or surviving
spouse of a National Guard member who die or was
disabled as a result of their service.
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The surviving spouse or child of a deceased
law enforcement or fire suppression personnel, as
specified.
The dependent of an individual killed on
September 11, 2001, as specified. (Education Code
�76300)
Current law requires that the colleges make available a
variety of "matriculation services" to students in order to
ensure that students receive educational services necessary
to optimize their opportunities for success. Matriculation
requirements are only operative if funds are specifically
appropriated for these purposes. (EC � 78210-78219)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Establishes new requirements to be met by students in
order to be eligible for a waiver of the community
college per unit fee Board of Governor's (BOG) fee
waiver. More specifically it:
a) Requires a student to:
i) Identify a degree certificate
transfer or career advancement goal upon
enrollment.
ii) Meet academic and progress
standards, including a maximum unit cap, as
defined by the BOG.
iii) Demonstrate financial need, as
specified.
b) Requires the BOG, in consultation
with students, faculty, and other key stakeholders
to develop policies for determination of the
conditions outlined in #1 and specifically directs
that the BOG consider:
i) Minimum uniform academic performance
and progress.
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ii) Criteria for reviewing extenuating
circumstances and granting appeals.
iii) A process for reestablishing fee
waiver eligibility.
c) Requires the BOG to establish a
reasonable phased in implementation period for the
policies outlined in (b) to:
i) Ensure that students are not
unfairly impacted by the new requirements.
ii) Provide students with adequate
notification of requirements and information
about support services.
d) Deletes obsolete fee waiver
requirements relative to students affected by
Hurricane Katrina.
2) Renames and revises the Seymour-Campbell Matriculation
Act of 1986 as the Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act
of 2012 and changes the requirements to be met in order
to receive matriculation funds. More specifically it:
a) Revises the declaration of the
Legislature's intent to provide students with
resources and support to establish informed
educational goals, optimize student's success in
completing their goals/studies, recognize the
shared responsibility of the institution and
student for success, and target state resources to
provide critical student services and identify
delivery mechanisms to reach a greater number of
students.
b) Redefines matriculation services and
the purposes of the Act to be:
i) Increased student access and success by
providing
orientation, assessment and placement,
counseling and education planning and academic
intervention services.
ii) Focus on entering students' transition
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into college with a
priority toward serving students who enroll to
earn degrees, career technical certificates,
or transfer.
iii) Target state resources on core
matriculation services critical
to increasing student ability to reach their
educational goals.
iv) Focus funding on core areas and leverage
technology to
more efficiently and effectively serve and
provide a greater number of students with a
solid foundation and opportunity for success
in the community colleges.
c) Expands the responsibilities to be
met by students to include, but not be limited to:
i) Identification of an education goal
upon enrollment.
ii) Declaration of a program of study
within a reasonable period, as defined by the
BOG.
iii) Maintenance of academic progress
toward an educational goal and program of
study as identified in the student's education
plan.
d) Establishes the institution's
responsibility to include the provision of student
services to support their academic success and
ability to achieve their educational goals and to
include, but not be limited to:
i) Orientation services, as specified.
ii) Administration of assessments that
determine student competency in computational
and language skills and readiness for college.
iii) Counseling and education planning
services
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e) Requires that funding for the
Student Success and Support program to be targeted
to fully implement orientation, assessment,
counseling and advising, and education planning
services, and to assist students in making informed
decisions about educational goals, programs of
study and the development of an education plan.
f) Requires that districts and colleges
use a system of common assessment, once adopted by
the BOG, and authorizes districts and colleges to
use supplemental measures for course placement.
g) Using accountability metrics, as
specified, requires participating districts to
evaluate the effectiveness of their programs and
services in helping students:
i) Define goals and declare programs of
study.
ii) Assess student needs and valid
course placement.
iii) Support successful completion of
degree certificate or transfer objectives.
h) Requires the BOG, in consultation
with students, faculty, student services
administrators, and other key stakeholders, to
establish policies and processes (to be phased in
over a reasonable period of time as determined by
the BOG and in consideration of the resources
available to provide core services to ensure
students are not unfairly impacted by these
requirements) for:
i) Requiring all nonexempt students to
complete orientation and assessment and to
develop education plans.
ii) Exempting students from
participation in orientation, assessment
testing, or required education planning
services.
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iii) Requiring districts to adopt a
student appeal process.
i) Requires the BOG to develop a
formula for allocating Student Success Act funds
that considers, among other things, the number of
students who receive orientation assessment,
counseling and advising, and education planning
services.
j) Requires that a district that
receives matriculation funds agree to implement
these provisions, common assessment and the
accountability scorecard.
aa) Authorizes the BOG to identify other
non-instructional support services that can be
funded under matriculation, if a district is able
to fully implement in person or technology
strategies for orientation, assessment, and
education planning services.
bb) Requires the BOG to require
participating colleges to develop a Student Success
and Support Program plan that reflects, among other
things:
i) A description of the college's
process to identify students at risk for
academic or progress probation and the plan
for student interventions or services.
ii) Coordination with college student
equity plan to ensure identification of
strategies to monitor and address equity
issues and mitigate any disproportional
impacts on student access and achievement.
cc) Makes the matriculation provisions
of the bill operative, beginning in 2012-13,
contingent upon the specific appropriation of funds
for these purposes.
dd) Repeals the requirements that the
CCC maintain career resource and placement centers,
programs to instruct staff/faculty on performance
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of matriculation services, orientation programs, as
specified, and publicity programs.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Source of the bill . Pursuant to Senate Bill 1143
(Chapter 409, Statutes of 2010), the Board of Governors
of the California Community Colleges created the Student
Success Task Force (SSTF); 20 individuals (community
college chief executive officers, faculty, students,
researchers, staff and external stake holders) who spent
a year researching, studying and debating the best
methods to improve student outcomes at the community
colleges.
According to the SSTF report, which was unanimously
adopted by the Board of Governors in January 2012, it
was their goal to identify best practices for promoting
student success and to develop statewide strategies to
take these approaches to scale while ensuring that
educational opportunity for historically
underrepresented students would not just be maintained,
but bolstered. The report noted that while a number of
disturbing statistics around student completion reflect
the challenges faced by the students they serve, they
also clearly demonstrate the need for the system to
recommit to finding new and better ways to serve its
students.
The SSTF efforts resulted in 22 specific recommendations
and the report, per the requirements of the legislation,
was presented to the Legislature at a joint
informational hearing of the Assembly Higher Education
Committee and the Senate Education Committee in February
2012. Implementation of these recommendations will be
accomplished through regulatory changes, system-wide
administrative policies, local best practices and
legislation.
This bill contains statutory changes necessary for
implementation of some of the recommendations of the
SSTF.
2) Is the status quo defensible ? Some concerns have been
raised that the provisions of this bill should not be
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implemented until the impacts on low-income and
underrepresented students can be fully assessed.
According to the report, Divided We Fail: Improving
Completion & Closing Racial Gaps in California's
Community Colleges, 70 percent of Latino first-time
freshmen that enroll in a California public college or
university begin at a community college. Only two in ten
of these students complete a certificate, associate's
degree, or transfer after 6 years, compared to 37% of
white students. Two thirds of African-American students
who go to a public college in California choose to start
in the California Community College system. Once there,
only 1 in 4 earns a certificate, associate degree, or
transfers after six years. Should a system that yields
these outcomes be considered the standard for
effectively serving underrepresented students? Do these
outcomes justify preservation of the existing model over
the adoption of policies shown by research to result in
improved student outcomes? Is the only/best alternative
to do nothing?
3) Substantive author's amendments . The author is
concerned that provisions in the bill that establish BOG
waiver requirements that students declare a goal and
provide for a maximum unit cap will compromise access to
the California Community Colleges on the basis of
economic status. Loss of eligibility for a fee waiver
would, in essence eliminate the ability of low-income
students to access postsecondary educational opportunity
at the CCC while students who can afford to pay the fees
would maintain their access. Additionally, the author
notes that SSTF recommendations also call for regulatory
changes to require all students, regardless of their
economic status, to declare educational goals and meet
unit cap requirements in order to maintain enrollment
priority.
In response to these concerns, it is the author's desire
to eliminate the requirements that students identify a
goal upon enrollment and delete the maximum unit cap
requirements in order to be eligible for a BOG fee
waiver. Accordingly staff recommends the bill be amended
on page 3 to delete lines 34 and 35 and to delete
"including a maximum unit cap" in line 36.
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4) Other recent amendments . In response to concerns that
the changes proposed by this bill should require a broad
consultative process, that uniform policies be
implemented across districts and only as support
services are provided, and that the effect on students
be monitored, the bill was recently amended to do the
following:
a) Clarify that all policies related to the BOG
fee waiver eligibility shall be developed and
adopted in consultation with students, faculty, and
other key stakeholders.
b) That these policies will include consideration
of uniform academic performance and progress
standards, criteria for review of extenuating
circumstances and granting of appeals, and a
process for reestablishing fee waiver eligibility.
c) Require the BOG to establish a reasonable and
phased in implementation period, to provide
students adequate notification of the academic
progress requirements and information about
available support services.
d) Direct the BOG to phase in these policies as
resources are available to provide students with
the core services outlined in matriculation
(orientation, assessment and placement, counseling
and education planning, and academic
interventions).
e) Require campuses, as a condition of receiving
matriculation funds, to include in their plan a
description of their practices for identifying
students at risk for academic or progress
probation, and the college's plan for intervention
services to these students
f) Require coordination with college student
equity plans to identify strategies for monitoring
and addressing equity issues and mitigating any
disproportionate impacts on student access and
achievement.
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5) Academic and progress standards . As the result of
author's amendments adopted in staff comment #2,
low-income students will now only be required to meet
academic and progress standards, as defined by the BOG,
in order to continue to be eligible for a BOG fee
waiver. According to information provided by the
Chancellor's Office, several other financial aid
programs establish academic and progress standards to be
met in order to continue to receive grants/services
including EOPS, Cal Grants, and Pell Grants.
Nonetheless, without some assurance that matriculation
services providing guidance and support are implemented
before these conditions are imposed upon students, it is
likely that they would simply create a barrier to access
for the low-income and underrepresented students who
already arrive at the CCC the least prepared. Staff
recommends the bill be amended to insert, "It is the
intent of the Legislature that academic and progress
standards be implemented only as campuses develop and
implement the student support services and interventions
necessary to ensure no disproportionate impact to
students based on ethnicity, gender, or socio-economic
status."
6) Double standard ? This bill establishes academic and
progress standards to be met by students receiving
waivers on the basis of income level. As noted in the
background of this analysis, several other groups
receive fee waivers based upon criteria other than
income. Is it reasonable that academic and progress
standards be established exclusively for low-income
students? What is the rationale for holding low-income
students to a higher standard of academic performance in
order to receive a fee waiver? If the goal of these
policies is to encourage successful behavior on the part
of students, shouldn't these standards be applied to all
fee waiver recipients?
7) Scorecard requirements . This bill requires all
participating districts, as a condition of receiving
matriculation funds, to report disaggregated information
on the impact of their programs and services on students
by ethnicity, age and gender. While the CCC report that
data regarding socio-economic status is not currently
available, acknowledging and gauging the effect of
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policies, programs and services on students from varying
income levels is critical, and may be able to be
accomplished using proxies for income. Staff recommends
the bill be amended on Page 10, line 40, to require that
disaggregated information additionally be reported "by
socio-economic status, to the extent this information is
available."
8) Counselors and other support services . According to the
Chancellor's Office, the current average statewide
counselor-faculty to student ratio is 1900:1, with the
lowest district's ratio being 900:1. In 2010-11, only 23
percent of students statewide received counseling
services and only 19 percent of students received
assistance in developing an education plan. While a
ratio of 900:1 could still be considered inadequate, the
estimated cost to bring the statewide ratio down to even
this level is estimated to be $300 million.
While some would contend that this information stresses
the need to increase and fund the overall number of
counselor-faculty, this bill provides an opportunity to
develop, expand, and more reasonably fund alternatives
for meeting students' advising and support needs. It
also specifically calls for the use of these funds to
identify delivery mechanisms, and to leverage
technology, to more efficiently and effectively serve a
greater number of students. As a categorical program,
these funds could be used for technology,
paraprofessional and peer advisors, and
counselor-faculty, supporting various levels of
counseling services to meet the varying complexity of a
student's advising needs.
9) Commit the students, but not the institutions ? This bill
requires the BOG to develop policies and processes to
require students to complete orientation and assessment
and to develop education plans. While institutions that
receive matriculation funds must agree to provide these
services, the bill also provides that the matriculation
provisions are only operative if funds are appropriated
for this purpose. Why should students be bound by these
requirements if the funding and the services to meet
these requirements are not provided? Staff recommends
the bill be amended to insert in section 78215, "It is
the intent of the Legislature that these policies and
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processes be developed and implemented only as resources
are provided and utilized by campuses to provide the
student support services, individual counseling and
advising necessary to ensure that students can
successfully meet these requirements."
10) Similar study/findings . In February 2012, the Little
Hoover Commission issued a report Serving Students,
Serving California: Updating the California Community
Colleges to Meet Evolving Demands. The report noted that
the findings and conclusions of this study were
consistent with many of the findings of the Student
Success Task Force. Similar to this bill, the report
called for, among other things, the implementation of a
student success scorecard, establishing additional
criteria for BOG fee waivers, and strengthening of
support for entering students.
11) LAO evaluation and report . Given the latitude being
extended to the community colleges to develop policies
for implementing the SSTF recommendations, it may be
prudent to have an independent review and report of
these efforts and their impact. Staff recommends the
bill be amended to require the LAO to review and report
to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the
Legislature by July 2014:
a) The extent to which the provisions of the
Student Success Act of 2012 are implemented
consistent with the Legislature's intent.
b) The overall progress on the implementation of
the Student Success Task Force recommendations.
c) The impacts on student participation, progress
and completion, disaggregated by ethnicity, age,
gender and socio-economic status.
d) A review of best practices and lessons learned
at the district/campus level.
Staff further recommends that the Chancellor's Office be
required to report to the LAO any information necessary
to meet these reporting requirements.
12) Related budget activity . Currently, the Governor's
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proposed budget for 2012-13 consolidates nearly all
categorical programs, including matriculation, and
permits districts to use the "flexed" categorical funds
for any general operating cost. According to a recent
agenda of the Budget Subcommittee on Education,
matriculation was one of two categorical programs
receiving the bulk of transferred dollars as a result of
the current flexibility extended to the CCC until
2014-15. However, if matriculation funds remain in the
"flex item" as proposed in the Governor's budget, these
funds could be used for any purpose, and not necessarily
for the purposes outlined in this bill.
SUPPORT
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges'
Advancement Project
Alliance for a Better Community
Association of California Community College Administrators
AVID
Barrio Logan College Institute
Bay Area Council
Board of Governors, California Community Colleges
California Communities United Institute
California Competes
California State Student Association
California State University
Californians for Justice
Campaign for College Opportunity
Chancellor, San Diego Community College District
College OPTIONS
Community College League of California
Education Trust - West
Families in Schools
Girls Incorporated of Orange County
Greater Sacramento Urban League
Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE)
Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley
Little Hoover Commission
Long Beach Community College District
Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
North Bay Leadership Council
One Voice
Orange County Business Council
Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQUE)
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Past President, Student Senate for California Community
Colleges
Progressive Christians Uniting
Project GRAD Los Angeles
Regional Economic Association Leaders Coalition (REAL)
San Bernardino Community College District
San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce
San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership
San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce
Santa Monica Community College District
Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Southern California College Access Network
State Center Community College District
Women's Foundation of California
Youth Policy Institute
Two letters from individuals
OPPOSITION
Board of Trustees, San Jose/Evergreen Community College
District
California Community College Independents (CCCI)
California Federation of Teachers (CFT)
Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges
President, Gavilan College Faculty Association