BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Carol Liu, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 923
AUTHOR: Pavley
AMENDED: March 26, 2014
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 2, 2014
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Lenin Del Castillo
SUBJECT : Educational apprenticeships.
SUMMARY
This bill would establish the Educational Apprenticeship
Innovation Act whereby competitive grants would be awarded to
applicant school districts, county offices of education,
charter schools, and community colleges for purposes of
promoting apprenticeships, preapprenticeships, and career
pathways.
BACKGROUND
AB 86 (Committee on Budget), Chapter 48, Statutes of 2013,
created the California Career Pathways Trust and provided
$250 million to school districts, county superintendents of
school, charter schools, and community college districts in
the form of one-time competitive grants. Grants are available
for K-14 career pathways programs that accomplish the
following:
1) Fund specialists in work-based learning, as defined
in Section 51760.1 of the Education Code, to convene,
connect, measure, or broker efforts to establish or
enhance a locally defined career pathways program that
connects school districts, county superintendents of
schools, charter schools, and community colleges with
business entities.
2) Establish regional collaborative relationships and
partnerships with business entities, community
organizations, and local institutions of postsecondary
education.
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3) Develop and integrate standards-based academics with
a career-relevant, sequenced curriculum following
industry-themed pathways that are aligned to high-need,
high-growth, or emerging regional economic sectors.
4) Provide articulated pathways to postsecondary
education aligned with regional economies.
Leverage and build on specified elements, including existing
structures, requirements, and resources of the Carl D.
Perkins, California Partnership Academies, and regional
occupational programs, including staff knowledge, community
relationships, and course development.
Existing law establishes the Career Technical Education
Pathways Program until June 30, 2015, and requires the
California Community Colleges (CCC) Board of Governors to
assist economic and workforce regional development centers
and consortia, community colleges, including middle schools,
high schools, and regional occupational centers and programs
(ROCPs) to improve linkages and career technical education
pathways between high schools and community colleges.
(Education Code � 88530 et. seq.)
Existing law establishes various career technical education
(CTE) programs for public schools including ROCPs that allow
students from multiple schools or districts to participate in
career technical training programs regardless of the
geographical location of their residence in a county or
region. Existing law authorizes the following types of ROCP
operational models: county ROCP, joint powers agency ROCP,
and a single district ROCP.
(Education Code � 52301 et. seq.)
ANALYSIS
This bill:
1) Provides various findings and declarations of the
Legislature, including reference to a report by the
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics that the
unemployment rate of Californians between 16 and 24
years of age stood at 20.2 percent, which is the fourth
highest in the nation.
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2) Establishes the Educational Apprenticeship Innovation
Act for purposes of promoting apprenticeships,
preapprenticeships, and career pathways between local
educational agencies, institutions of higher education,
and businesses of importance to local economies. Grants
for the Educational Apprenticeship Innovation Prize
(EdPrize) are required to be distributed on a
competitive basis.
3) Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI)
to convene a committee to establish criteria for
awarding the EdPrize grants and administer the program.
Members of the committee are required to serve at the
pleasure of the appointing authority include the SPI, or
his or her designee, who serves as the chairperson, a
member appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules, a
member appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly, and
others, as specified.
4) Requires the committee to use, at minimum, all of the
following criteria to determine the competitive value of
an application:
a) The ability of the proposed program
to provide at least two years of apprenticeship,
preapprenticeship, or other forms of workforce
training to eligible high school pupils in grades
11 and 12 or the ability to provide eligible high
school pupils with a career and educational
pathways to a campus of the California Community
Colleges.
b) The ability to place eligible high
school pupils in apprenticeships,
preapprenticeships, internships, and work-place
learning environments in fields determined to be of
local economic importance, as determined through
data and evidence-driven analysis.
c) The ability of the proposed program
to provide eligible high school pupils with the
opportunity to work in an economic sector with
gainful employment opportunities or academic
pathways that lead to either a certificate or an
associate degree.
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d) The ability of the proposal to
address the needs of the local or regional labor
market and help competitive and emerging industry
sectors and industry clusters, or to address the
state's need to fill skills gaps and skills
shortages in the economy, including skills gaps and
shortages at the regional level.
e) An assessment of the past
performance of the applying entities if the agency
has been awarded other economic and workforce
development grants or other state grants, including
an assessment of whether the grantee's previous
awards produced project deliverables specified in
prior grant applications.
f) The ability to create a written
agreement among the applicant entities, the
participating eligible high school pupils or their
parents, and participating employers in order to
ensure commitment to the pupil's academic and
professional success, and ensure the successful
completion of the apprenticeship,
preapprenticeship, work-based learning program, or
educational pathway.
g) The ability to provide participating
eligible high school pupils with a worksite mentor
to help train, guide, and supervise the pupil.
5) Requires grants to be distributed over a five-year
period in the following amounts:
a) First place grant recipient: seven
hundred fifty thousand dollars ($750,000) per
fiscal year. No more than one applicant shall
receive the first place grant in any fiscal year.
b) Second place grant recipients:
three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars
($375,000) per fiscal year. No more than two
applicants shall receive the second place grant in
any fiscal year.
c) Third place grant recipients: one
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hundred twenty-five thousand dollars ($125,000) per
fiscal year. No more than four applicants shall
receive the third place grant in any fiscal year.
6) Requires the grants to be used to support the
instructional, material, labor, regulatory, and
administrative costs of the apprenticeship,
preapprenticeship, work-based learning, or educational
pathway. During the first fiscal year of allocation, the
grants may be used for planning purposes or to establish
and formalize partnerships among the applicant entities,
local businesses, and postsecondary educational
institutions.
7) Requires an entity applying for funding to form a
committee to survey and evaluate local skilled workforce
needs. This committee shall include all of the
following: representatives of business organizations, a
representative from the local Workforce Investment Board
in whose territory the school is located, a
representative of the local county office of education,
representatives from the faculty and administrative
staff of local elementary, secondary, and postsecondary
educational institutions, a member to represent parents,
and a member to represent pupils.
8) Upon receiving grant funding through the EdPrize
program, requires the applicant entity to employ a
supervisor to evaluate business workforce needs and
pupil outcomes. The supervisor shall be responsible for
all of the following:
a) Making recommendations for
coordinating the curriculum and pupil services in a
way that addresses business workforce needs and
maximizes pupil outcomes.
b) Ensuring the transferability of
course credits and adherence to statewide
standards.
c) Establishing an outreach program for
pupils in grades 8, 9, and 10.
d) Ensuring that the curriculum
includes coursework that is applicable to a
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certificate program, or to a two-year degree
program.
9) Requires a grant recipient to submit a report to the
State Department of Education, the Senate Committee on
Education, and the Assembly Committee on Education
annually during the lifetime of the grant. These reports
shall include, but not necessarily be limited to,
information on all of the following:
a) Apprenticeships, preapprenticeships,
and work-based learning programs the applicant
entities offered, the economic sector and targeted
workforce need, and the participating employer or
employers.
b) An assessment of the educational and
training goals, the projected numbers of pupils and
workers served and the projected rates of course
and program completion, and the projected wages and
rate of employment placement for those entering the
labor market.
c) An assessment of the purported
beneficial impacts on participating businesses,
which may include a review of the grant's purported
impacts on any either of the following: increased
labor productivity, and or personnel or workforce
needs addressed through the apprenticeship,
preapprenticeship, or work-based learning program.
d) An assessment of the educational
attainment of the pupils served, including the
percentage who earned a certificate or associate's
degree, transfer-readiness, and the projected rate
of skills attainment for certificates and degrees.
e) The long-term viability of the
apprenticeship, preapprenticeship, work-based
learning program, or educational pathway
established under this article, ability to attract
material, in-kind, or financial support from
private and philanthropic sources, areas for
improvement, and possible expansion into other
economic sectors of local importance.
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10) Makes various definitions, as specified.
11) Appropriates the sum of ten million dollars
($10,000,000) from the Career Pathways Trust (CPT) Fund
to the State Department of Education, without regard to
fiscal year, for the funding of grants issued pursuant
to the Educational Apprenticeship Innovation Prize
program.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author's office,
youth unemployment is one of the most serious challenges
to California's economic recovery. Job prospects are
especially dim for those who have not yet earned a
college degree, those who do not plan on going to
college, or who lack practical work experience. This
lack of opportunity holds young people back from fully
participating in society and can result in greater
reliance on social welfare and higher public safety
costs. The author's office indicates that youth
individuals need opportunities to learn vital job skills
and succeed professionally. Further, they indicate that
one of the best ways to equip young people with
professional skills is to incorporate apprenticeships,
pre-apprenticeships, and other forms of work-based
learning into the school curriculum.
2) Career Pathways Trust applications . As of the date of
this analysis, 275 letters of intent for CPT funds have
been submitted to the State Department of Education and
the deadline for submitting applications recently
expired at the end of March 2014. The review process
for these applications is underway and scheduled for
completion by May 23rd when the grant recipients will be
announced. It is unclear at this point whether the
entire $250 million in CPT funds will be fully
encumbered for the first round of applications or if
there will be subsequent application cycles.
3) Impact on the Career Pathways Trust ? This bill would
appropriate $10 million of the $250 million in CPT funds
but fails to specify whether this amount would be
prioritized over existing or future grantees, the
applications currently being reviewed, or any subsequent
applications. To the extent that the bill is
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interpreted to require the $10 million to be
appropriated without regard to the existing or future
grantees and applications, this bill could interfere
with the implementation of the Career Pathways Trust
(CPT) and potentially prevent qualified applications
from being funded. Given that the CPT is in its'
infancy stage and the State Department of Education
cannot determine whether any of the $250 million in CPT
funds will be available after the initial grant cycle,
it is premature to carve out any set-aside for other
purposes. Therefore, staff recommends that the bill be
amended to remove the appropriation and provide that the
bill's provisions shall be operative only in fiscal
years for which funds have been appropriated for those
purposes, including, but not limited to, an additional
appropriation (separate from the $250 million included
in the 2013-14 Budget Act) made available for the CPT.
4) Local Control Funding Formula . The 2013-14 Budget Act
restructured the existing K-12 finance system and
eliminated over 40 existing programs while implementing
a new formula known as the Local Control Funding Formula
(LCFF). The LCFF consolidates the vast majority of
state categorical programs, including virtually all
career technical education programs, and revenue limit
apportionments into a single source of funding. Certain
categorical programs, including Special Education, Child
Nutrition, Preschool, and After School programs, are
excluded. In addition, the statutory and programmatic
requirements for almost all categorical programs were
eliminated-the programs would be deemed "discretionary"
and programs in any of these areas would be dependent on
local district discretion.
5) Maintenance of effort for ROCPs . The newly implemented
LCFF rolls funding for regional occupational centers and
programs (ROCPs) into the new formula. However, for the
2013-14 and 2014-15 fiscal years only, current law
requires school districts and county superintendents,
including joint powers agencies, who spent funds for
ROCPs in 2012-13 to expend no less funding for those
programs.
6) Related and previous legislation :
AB 86 (Committee on Budget), Chapter 48, Statutes of
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2013, established the California Career Pathways Trust
and appropriated $250 million in one-time competitive
grants for its purposes.
SB 1070 (Steinberg), Chapter 433, Statutes of 2012,
established the Career Technical Education Pathways
Program to improve linkages and career technical
education pathways between high schools and community
colleges.
SUPPORT
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
OPPOSITION
None on file.