BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 660 (Hancock) - Career Technical Education Funding
Amended: April 24, 2013 Policy Vote: Education 8-1
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 13, 2013 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 660 preserves funding provided in the annual
budget for the following career technical education (CTE)
programs: Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCPs),
Partnership Academies, Specialized Secondary Programs, and the
Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive program. This
bill allows local educational agencies (LEAs) that operate CTE
programs to form a Regional Career Technical Education
Collaborative (RCTEC), as specified. This bill also establishes
an accountability system for these CTE programs based upon the
criteria currently used to assess the effectiveness of programs
receiving federal Carl Perkins funds.
Fiscal Impact:
Categorical flexibility: Removes ROCPs and Specialized
Secondary programs from existing categorical flexibility in
the 2013-14 fiscal year and allocates nearly $390 million in
flexible educational funds to them.
Cost of living adjustment (COLA): Builds in an annual COLA
for the program that is not tied to the annual Budget Act.
RCTEC accountability measures: Potentially significant
costs to LEAs to implement new program accountability
measures if they elect to form an RCTEC. Potentially
significant workload costs for the California Department of
Education (CDE) to develop an evaluation instrument, and to
the extent that the department will be evaluating programs.
Background: Existing law establishes the following CTE programs
for public schools:
1) Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCPs) . ROCPs
allow students from multiple schools or districts to
participate in career technical training programs
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regardless of the geographical location of their residence
in a county or region. Existing law authorizes the
following types of ROCPs operational models:
a) County ROCP: Existing law authorizes county
superintendents, with the consent of the State Board
of Education (SBE) to establish and maintain a ROCP to
provide education and training in career technical
courses. (Education Code � 52301(a))
b) Joint Powers Authority ROCP: Existing law
authorizes two or more school districts to form a
joint powers authority (JPA) for the purpose of
establishing and maintaining a ROCP for students who
are enrolled in those districts. (EC � 52301(a)(2))
c) Single District ROCP: Existing law authorizes
certain very large districts who do not wish to be
part of a county ROCP, to apply to the SBE through
their county superintendent for permission to
establish and maintain an ROCP for students enrolled
in the district. The county superintendent may
supervise the establishment of the ROCP. (EC �
52301(b))
2) Partnership Academies . The Partnership Academy model is a
3-year program, for grades 10-12, structured as a
school-within-a-school and incorporates (1) rigorous
integrated academics with a career focus; (2) business
partnerships that provide support through curriculum
resources, classroom speakers, field trips, mentors, and
internships; and (3) teachers who work as a team to prepare
students for careers and postsecondary education. (EC �
54690 et seq.)
3) Specialized Secondary Programs . A specialized secondary
program is a 4-year grant program that provides
opportunities for students to obtain advanced instruction,
in addition to core course work, and skills in technology
appropriate to the curriculum. Comprehensive high schools
may use the grant funds for programs that provide students
with advanced learning opportunities in a variety of
subjects. The acquisition of technology skills and the use
of technology as a tool for instruction and learning are
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also emphasized in these programs. Frequently, these
programs are established as a smaller learning community or
a school-within-a-school. (EC � 58800 et seq.)
4) Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive Program .
The Agricultural Career Technical Education Incentive
program provides LEAs with funds to improve the quality of
their agricultural vocational education programs. The goal
is to maintain a high-quality, comprehensive agricultural
vocational program in California's public school system to
ensure a constant source of employable, trained, and
skilled individuals. (EC � 52460)
Proposed Law: SB 660 requires the SPI beginning in 2013-14, and
each year thereafter, to apportion funds appropriated for ROCPs,
specialized secondary program grants, partnership academies, and
agricultural career technical education to each county office of
education (COE) based on the same relative proportion that LEAs
within that particular county received funding for those
programs in 2012-13. Each COE would be required to allocate the
funds to ROCPs and LEAs in the same relative proportion of the
total funds that these entities received in 2012-13. For the
2014-15 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, this bill
requires the allocation made to each ROCP and LEA be adjusted
annually for increases in costs of living, as specified. This
bill also:
1) Allows LEAs that operate CTE programs to form an RCTEC,
as specified.
2) Requires, as a condition of receiving funds, the
governing board of each ROCP, in collaboration with
individuals representing school districts within each
region, partnership academies, agricultural vocational
education programs, and other CTE programs to develop a
plan for establishing a sequence of courses by July 1,
2015, as specified, and certify to the CDE by September 1,
2016, that the sequence of courses has been developed.
3) Requires the SPI to incorporate into the accountability
measures for the four programs a uniform accountability
metric based on any career ready standards adopted pursuant
to the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act and
program quality indicators in the California State Plan for
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CTE, as specified.
4) Requires the accountability measures to include the
rates at which pupils complete a course of study or
sequence of CTE courses, as specified.
5) Requires the SPI to develop an evaluation instrument to
evaluate the programs within each RCTEC commencing with the
2015-16 school year, and annually thereafter, as specified.
Staff Comments: In order to help mitigate the impact of budget
reductions beginning in 2009, LEAs were authorized (and are
currently authorized through the 2014-15 fiscal year) to use
funding for approximately 40 categorical programs for any
educational purpose to the extent permitted by federal laws.
ROCPs and specialized secondary programs are among the
categorical programs impacted. Partnership Academies and
Agricultural Career Technical Education, were not subject to
categorical flexibility.
For the 2013-14 fiscal year, this bill removes from existing
categorical flexibility ROCPs and specialized secondary programs
and allocates funding to the programs at each LEA based on their
relative funding proportions in 2012-13. This provision does not
apportion new funding, but it prohibits LEAs from using their
apportioned amount for other educational purposes, as currently
allowed; the funding is once again reserved for specific types
of programs.
This bill then groups the four CTE-related categorical programs
into a CTE cluster, and authorizes RCTECs to form. Funding would
be allocated to each program and then through a local
collaborative process where any one of the program's funds could
be used to support any combination of the other programs.
Essentially, the bill creates funding flexibility across the
four CTE programs for administering LEAs similar to a block
grant.
Beginning in 2014-15, this bill requires the funding allocations
made to each LEA to receive a COLA. This would occur
automatically, unless the Legislature took specific action to
the contrary, each year, even in years when the budget provided
no funding for a COLA.
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Beginning in 2015-16, any RCTECs formed would have to comply
with specified requirements as a condition of receiving funds,
including, among others, certifying to the CDE that each course
within a sequence is aligned to the California CTE Standards.
While RCTEC formation is permissive, the role of the SPI is not.
This bill requires the Superintendent to incorporate various
factors and quality indicators into the accountability measures,
and to develop an evaluation instrument to evaluate the programs
within each RCTEC commencing with the 2015-16 school year, and
annually thereafter. Depending on the evaluation instrument and
process, this requirement could drive significant new costs to
the CDE.
Staff notes that as part of the 2013-14 Governor's Budget, the
Administration proposes to restructure the existing K-12 finance
system and eliminate over 40 existing programs. The
Administration proposes to primarily fund LEAs using a new
formula known as the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The
LCFF would consolidate the vast majority of state categorical
programs and revenue limit apportionments into a single funding
stream and would eliminate the statutory and programmatic
requirements for almost all existing categorical programs,
including CTE programs for which this bill seeks to preserve
designated funding. Under the Governor's proposal, LEAs could
still run the programs, but would not receive a specific
allocation for them, outside of a proposed per-pupil CTE
"adjustment" - a grade-span augmentation for grades 9-12 - which
would not be required to be spent on CTE.