L 4.0 Transitional//EN"> p; INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE
Accountability can mean different things to different people and to the same people in different situations. A common occurrence is for people to agree about the importance of accountability, but to differ on how they envision the concept’s being used in practice. Accountability is frequently limited to the acts of measuring, reporting, and responding to schools’ and students’ test scores. Once scores are reported, the schools or students are ‘held accountable’ through systems of rewards and sanctions, or perhaps simply publicity. Significantly, such accountability most often flows in a particular direction; students, and then their teachers and parents, are likely to be ‘held accountable’ by school boards, the State, or the public. There are few mechanisms for students, teachers, or families to use tests or other performance measures to hold anyone else accountable. The current statewide Academic Performance Index (API), the School Accountability Report Cards (SARC), and Intensive Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP) are the state’s first, imperfect steps toward a useful accountability system supporting education in California.
We believe California must move beyond this limited view of accountability, to a system of shared accountability in which improved learning results are tightly linked to improved conditions for learning. Systemic, shared accountability includes those things that the State and school districts do to provide high-quality education for all students as well as to evaluate school offerings and student performance. It focuses on the provision of high-quality education to all students.

Efforts to improve accountability in public education are complicated by overlapping responsibilities among local, regional, and state entities and a lack of alignment between the responsibilities assigned to various entities and the authority they have been provided to carry out those responsibilities. Every effort to solve the special problems that exist at different levels of our public education in isolation one from the other are met with a stubborn reality – that the problems are not soluble until education is understood as a unified process. How we structure and govern education is crucial to our commitment to infusing greater accountability in public education. We endeavor in this Plan to clarify what responsibilities should be assigned to what entities at the state, regional, and local levels.

On a daily basis, elected officials, agency heads, school district and campus academic leaders, professional educators and, most important of all, the citizens of California are being asked to pass judgment on a bewildering array of new educational initiatives without the comprehensive, reliable, flexibly arranged, easily accessible, and timely data needed to make informed judgments. California collects a considerable amount data on students, schools, and colleges, but these data better serve the need to meet various state and federal reporting requirements than to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of public and private education in fostering student achievement.

Shared Accountability

An accountability system for California must be guided by valid, comprehensive, understandable, and regularly reported data on a set of indicators that permit useful, informed decisions and judgments about student learning and the conditions under which the students learn. Ultimately, adequate and well-advised support for public schools depends upon the public’s will to shape California’s educational and other policy priorities and to make wise investments on behalf of high-quality and equitable schooling. A system of multiple indicators for accountability and improvement is crucial to marshalling public will and to wise investments in the schooling that most benefits students and the state. To develop such a system of accountability for California, the State must be guided by the following principles:
We propose that educational indicators include both input and outcome measures. The reasons for the inclusion of input measures is that some aspects of schools – for example, the provision of minimally adequate and safe facilities, and access to a curriculum of sufficient breadth – should be considered basic requirements of all districts and basic rights of all students, whether or not they influence outcome measures. Outcome measures may therefore be insufficient to reflect compliance with these basic requirements and rights, and therefore input standards are needed as well.

We propose input standards of two types. The first, which we call guidelines, would be used as a model against which a district could compare its own expenditure choices. The elements in these guidelines would be based on the proposed Quality Education Model[32] that would generate funding levels in California. The second set of input standards would establish minimum requirements for all districts and schools, which they could not fall below under any conditions. The combination of guidelines and minimum requirements would therefore provide districts with flexibility in devising their priorities for spending, while also protecting students by establishing certain absolute minimum requirements.

To build this shared accountability system, we believe the following actions should be taken:

RECOMMENDATION 28

The State should establish a system of regularly reported indicators for K-12 accountability and improvement. The State should develop and report yearly on a comprehensive set of educational indicators, constructed from the data provided by an integrated, longitudinal, learner-focused data system and from other school-level data about educational resources, conditions, and learning opportunities. Such indicators must be easy to understand and trusted as relevant. They must enable policymakers, professionals, families, and the public to monitor the status and quality of the educational system and provide information to guide the improvement of policy and practice.

Useful accountability systems monitor all levels (student, education personnel, school, district, state education agencies, legislature, and governor) of the educational system, and include appropriate indicators that measure the effectiveness of each level (PreK-16) in exercising its responsibilities. Consequently, the State’s indicators should enable the public to hold policymakers and governing bodies accountable for providing the commitment, policy mechanisms, resources, and conditions necessary to a high-quality system of education, as well as to hold schools, educators, and students accountable for the outcomes that result. Additionally, the indicators should provide comprehensive information about all schools, not just about those that are low-performing. Although there are many exemplary schools, the State needs information about these schools just as it needs information about schools in which students are underserved. Finally, the indicators should permit analysis of opportunities and outcomes by racial, ethnic, linguistic, and gender populations, and among students assigned to various programs within schools. Given the intended purposes of these indicators, we further recommend the following:

RECOMMENDATION 28.1 – The State should expand the K-12 Academic Performance Index (API) so that it includes graduation rates, grade promotion, and other indicators of outcomes, in addition to multiple measures of student achievement.

RECOMMENDATION 28.2 – The State should create and report a K-12 “Opportunities for Teaching and Learning Index” (OTL) that would parallel the API. This index will report schools’ performance regarding high-quality learning resources, conditions, and opportunities, based on standards that specify what government agencies – the State and school districts – must provide all schools. As with the API, the OTL should be reported in ways that permit statewide school comparisons, and comparisons with high- and average-performing schools.

RECOMMENDATION 28.3 – The State should collect appropriate and relevant data to assess the effectiveness of California’s programs for young children, and integrate these data collection and analysis efforts with the K-12 API and OTL efforts.

RECOMMENDATION 28.4 – The State should create benchmarks and criteria for prototype schools that will serve as desirable models of the goals every school is expected to achieve. The State should also collect and disseminate information about actual schools with effective programs and practices that promote student achievement.

RECOMMENDATION 28.5 – The State should further develop a long-term strategic plan for the meaningful use of accountability data and indicators by state and local policymakers, educators, and all Californians to determine the impact of programs and interventions designed to improve learning conditions and outcomes. The plan should also contain strategies for remedying identified inadequacies.

RECOMMENDATION 28.6 – The State should further develop a series of progressive interventions in K-12 that support low performing schools’ efforts to build their organizational capacity, develop high-quality programs, and support student learning, particularly in schools of greatest need. The State should also develop a series of progressive rewards that recognize schools for high achievement.

RECOMMENDATION 28.7 – The accountability system must enable policymakers and the public to detect performance barriers beyond the level of the school, and distinguish carefully among actors or agencies primarily causing them. At a minimum, the State should measure, report, and use all performance and OTL indicators at the state and district levels, as well as at the school level, and develop mechanisms to hold state agencies and districts directly accountable for their schools’ performance.

RECOMMENDATION 28.8 – The State should establish a consistent and straightforward way for local schools to describe their expenditure and programmatic decisions, to compare them with the state’s guidelines, minimum standards, and outcome goals, and to clarify the trade-offs implicit in budget decisions.

RECOMMENDATION 29

Adult continuing education course standards should be expanded to include student performance measures such as those developed by the National Skill Standards Board, the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), and Equipped for the Future. Currently there are state-approved model standards for five of the nine existing categories of noncredit and adult education. The established standards support programs in English as a Second Language, Adult Elementary and Secondary Skills, Parent Education, Older Adult, and Adults with Disabilities programs. With the exception of those for the Adults with Disabilities category, the standards are now being reviewed and updated by providers of adult education services. If the program categories are revised to include an emphasis on workforce learning, these standards should be expanded to include student performance measures such as those developed by the National Skills Standards Board, SCANS, and Equipped for the Future. To promote meeting these multiple standards for adult education, we further recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 29.1 - The State should support an accountability system for adult education students, based on the foregoing standards, that emphasizes student performance and rewarding institutions for improving student achievement.


RECOMMENDATION 30

The State should bring postsecondary education into an integrated accountability system by developing a set of accountability indicators that are consistent with state policy objectives and institutional missions and that would monitor quality and equity in access and achievement of all students in common academic content areas. All public, independent, and private institutions should be required to participate in the reporting of these accountability indicators as a condition of receiving state moneys either through direct appropriation or student financial aid. The principle of accountability should apply at both the K-12 and postsecondary levels, although the particulars of accountability must differ for the two levels. While elementary and secondary standards work toward a set of knowledge and skills common to all students, postsecondary certificate and degree programs are based on student specialization in particular disciplines, so that multiple measures must be developed to address the various specializations. All postsecondary education institutions require their undergraduates to complete a common set of general education courses, which could serve as a foundation for accountability in common content areas. Postsecondary institutions should determine additional measures of accountability for undergraduate major and graduate subject matter areas, for which their respective faculty establish competencies.

Efforts to bring the postsecondary segments into an integrated accountability system should move beyond the input measures traditionally used for accreditation and other purposes, measuring more fully the student and institutional outcomes that reflect State and institutional priorities. They should provide information that: assists consumers in making informed decisions on accessing postsecondary education; assists policy-makers in determining state policy and fiscal investment decisions; and assists institutions in their efforts to achieve continuous improvement. An expanded accountability system should build on the initial accountability mechanisms that California already has put in place under the aegis of the Community Colleges Partnership for Excellence and the UC and CSU Partnership models. These models document enrollment, successful course completion, advancement to the next academic level within basic skill disciplines, workforce preparation, degree and certificate attainment, and the achievement of university transfer. In this regard, we further recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 30.1 – The State’s accountability framework for postsecondary education should be improved by modification and expansion of the ’partnership’ budget approach, currently applied to UC and CSU, to include all postsecondary education, clarify the link between performance and funding, and adopt realistic alternatives for times of revenue downturns.

RECOMMENDATION 30.2 – The State should specify the set of indicators of student and institutional performance on which public colleges and universities must provide data annually, along with an implementation timeline.

Governance - Aligning Responsibilities, Authority, and Accountability

K-12 Education

The structure of California’s state-level governance of K-12 public education is one that has no clear lines of accountability due to multiple entities having overlapping responsibilities. Key players in the governance of the public schools include: (1) the Governor, who appoints all members of the State Board of Education, promulgates an annual budget that sets forth priorities for education, and nearly always is the final arbiter of differences of opinion about education policy due to his line-item veto authority; (2) the State Board of Education, which is by law the policy setting body for public schools but which has very little staff of its own; (3) the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who is an elected constitutional officer and manages the Department of Education (CDE) staff, but has little policy-setting authority; and (4) the Secretary for Education, originally created by former Governor Wilson in 1991 by executive order as the Secretary for Child Development and Education, with a small complement of staff whose duties are largely duplicative of those in the Department of Education. The Secretary for Education position has never been formally created in statute. With one exception, every significant state-level review of K-12 accountability has recommended that the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction be made appointive, but the State – either through action by its representative government or direct vote of the electorate – has been unwilling to act to implement that recommendation. From the evidence presented to the committee we are convinced that accountability can be substantially increased by aligning the operations of the State Board of Education and Department of Education with the Governor, without the need to eliminate the elective position of Superintendent of Public Instruction. We therefore recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 31

Authority over the operations of California’s K-12 public education system at large, and ultimate responsibility for the delivery of education to California’s K-12 public education students in particular, should both reside within the Office of the Governor. The Office of the Governor should have authority to carry out the following functions, as assigned to its various sub-entities by the Governor:
Considerable attention was given to the linkage between the K-12 management function, currently residing in the Department of Education – which is under the direction of an independently elected Superintendent of Public Instruction – and the Office of the Governor. We view this linkage as essential, since the Department of Education is responsible for so many crucial education delivery functions, and since failure to perform those functions or to perform them satisfactorily has led more often to assigning blame between the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Governor than to remedy for the failure. Our concern for assuring equitable opportunities for learning and achievement of all students requires that lines of accountability lead clearly to the Governor. To further clarify structures, roles, and responsibilities, we also recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 31.1 – The Governor should appoint a cabinet-level Chief Education Officer, to carry out, on behalf of the Governor, all State-level operations, management, and programmatic functions, and to serve as the Director of the Department of Education.

RECOMMENDATION 31.2 – The Governor should continue to appoint, with the consent of the State Senate, the State Board of Education. The Board’s members should be drawn from and represent distinct geographical regions, and the functions of the State Board should be limited to state governance and policy matters.

RECOMMENDATION 31.3 – Once management of the California Department of Education has been transferred to the Governor’s office, the separate executive director and staff of the State Board within the Department of Education should be eliminated.

RECOMMENDATION 32

The Superintendent of Public Instruction should remain an elected position and serve in the role of a State inspector general for public education by exercising the following functions related to accountability in California’s K-12 education system:
The committee carefully considered testimony and staff analysis regarding reasons to retain a publicly elected Superintendent for Public Instruction (SPI), while transferring responsibility for the delivery of education to the Office of the Governor, and the roles that have been exercised by past incumbents in this position. We are convinced that a healthy and complementary relationship can exist between the Governor’s Office and a Superintendent with a newly defined set of focused responsibilities that will benefit all public school children. Hence, we recommend assignment of ‘inspector general-like’ functions to the SPI position that will enable the SPI to provide an independent and informed voice on behalf of students and their families in the annual budget and legislative deliberations that affect public schools.

RECOMMENDATION 33

Intermediate level educational services should be provided through regional entities, where appropriate. The State should initiate a state-level inquiry to examine the best ways to accomplish consolidation of county offices into regional entities and to organize their services to meet current and emerging district and regional needs, including fiscal oversight and management and administrative assistance. The inquiry should also examine the feasibility of having regional entities monitor, on behalf of the State, district compliance with certain state quality standards. Based on the findings of this inquiry, the Master Plan should be amended to incorporate the recommended course of action. California’s public school system is too large and complex to be effectively managed centrally at the state level. This fact is implicit in the constitutional provision of county offices of education in each of California’s 58 counties. The committee concurs that there are local needs that are best met and oversight functions that are best carried out at a level that is not defined by the broad perspective of the State, nor the more parochial perspectives of local districts. However, we also believe that some counties and local districts are either too small or too large to discharge their responsibilities effectively and efficiently.

In the experiences of many, county offices of education provide a set of services that are valued by local school districts. Many provide educational services that would otherwise not be available to students or schools due to small size and California’s funding mechanism, which does not generate sufficient funding for small districts to directly provide these services. Larger districts have developed internal capacities that obviate the need for county offices to do much more than review annual budgets and hear appeals of district expulsion decisions. Increasingly, the cost of maintaining a county office of education in every county in the state must be critically examined for cost effectiveness and the potential advantages of consolidation into a reduced number of regions. In addition, the specific responsibilities assigned to county/regional offices of education should be examined for sufficiency and to consider the extent to which they might be instrumental in the state’s effort to ensure that all schools and districts meet minimum standards for a high quality education. County/regional offices are much better positioned to monitor compliance with state minimum standards than is a single state entity.

RECOMMENDATION 34

Local school district governing boards should be assigned administrative authority, a set of management responsibilities, and limited revenue generation authority to enable them to effectively operate schools that are responsive both to state-level standards and policy priorities and to local community needs. These responsibilities should include the following:
With particular regard to middle and secondary grades:
Local communities have long been supportive of having the opportunity to contribute to the policy development and operations of neighborhood schools. Hence, control of the public schools through locally elected school boards is strongly supported throughout the state. Evidence and testimony reviewed by this committee reveal numerous local school districts that are operating efficiently and effectively in promoting the achievement of students. Unfortunately, we have also received testimony and data that indicate too many schools and school districts have not been as effective in promoting student achievement as California needs them to be. This unevenness in school/district performance is of great concern to the committee. We believe that some of it can be addressed by assigning a set of responsibilities and authority to local school boards that are clear and aligned with the goals California has set for its public education system as a whole. The foregoing list highlights those responsibilities we believe to be among the most important to successful implementation of this Plan.

RECOMMENDATION 35

To enhance efficiency and educational effectiveness of public schools, the smallest one-third of public school districts, as defined by Average Daily Attendance (ADA), should be eliminated through locally-determined consolidation and/or unification within a prescribed time period. The State should initiate an examination of effective incentives to encourage remaining school districts to adopt a unified K-12 district structure. Based on this inquiry, the State should provide the recommended incentives for all school districts to adopt unified structures throughout the state. There is a great deal of support for small schools, and we have heard compelling testimony about how well local schools and school boards work together in some areas of the state. We have also learned that positive collaboration between schools and school boards is not restricted to small districts. A major concern of the committee is structural arrangements within our public schools that perpetuate ‘silo’ approaches to education delivery rather than the more aligned and collaborative approach we advocate. We believe our vision of a cohesive system of schools, colleges, and universities requires that we advocate for unified school districts throughout the state and provide incentives for local communities to embrace this concept in the organization of their local schools. It also reinforces the goal of achieving course alignment and articulation across grade levels. In addition, providing high quality education is a costly undertaking, and the State is well advised to seek cost efficiencies wherever possible so as to be able to meet its obligations to adequately fund teaching and learning activities.

RECOMMENDATION 36

Unified school districts should be given the opportunity to exercise a degree of firmly established local control, protected from encroachment by state laws, through an amendment to the state constitution permitting those districts to adopt limited “home rule” authority by votes of their electorates in a manner similar to that long authorized in the constitution for cities and counties. Although local control is strongly favored politically, the Legislature nevertheless can and does frequently create new laws controlling various matters that had until then been matters of local discretion. A constitutional “home rule” provision for school districts could limit that problem, but to have a chance of success it would have to very carefully spell out a limited set of matters which districts could control. To avoid legal confusion that might result from different “home rule” ordinances on the same subject matter in districts with overlapping boundaries, the “home rule” authority would also have to be limited to unified districts – but could then function as an incentive to unification. Additionally, any new local taxation authority (see Recommendation 37) could logically be restricted to “home rule” districts, since implementation of the “home rule” authority would require a vote of the people in and of itself.

Postsecondary Education

For the past 42 years, California’s postsecondary education enterprise has been guided by the Master Plan for Higher Education, which differentiated the missions to be pursued by each public college and university system, defined the pools from which they would select their freshman population, and established a mechanism for coordination, planning, and policy development. We have reviewed the performance of each of the governing boards and have heard testimony about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. A particular concern of the Joint Committee is the incomplete information available on institution and system performance and student achievement. We believe all three public postsecondary education systems should be required to participate in data collection specified by the state for evaluating the performance of education institutions. While the Joint Committee has some concerns about the responsiveness of the Board of Regents – especially with respect to its reluctance to provide some of the data necessary to enable the State to conduct effective long-range planning, as well as its resistance to engage in applied research that is responsive to State priorities – we find no compelling reason to alter the powers, responsibilities or structure of the Regents as specified in the California constitution. Similarly, we believe that the structure, powers, and responsibilities of the Trustees of the California State University are not in need of modification at this time. However, we believe the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges requires modification to elevate its powers, structure, and responsibilities commensurate with that assigned to the CSU Board of Trustees. Our recommendation in this regard is provided below.

California also has an extensive array of regionally accredited not-for-profit independent colleges and universities that make a substantial contribution to meeting the postsecondary education needs of Californians. They should continue to be considered a vital part of California’s education system. In addition, California provides state approval to approximately 230 unaccredited, private, degree-granting institutions and nearly 2,500 private postsecondary vocational schools in the state. These institutions have been separately regulated and operate apart from California’s education system. We believe both sets of non-public institutions should be explicitly incorporated into California’s vision for a student focused education system and subject to similar expectations for quality and measures of student achievement. We offer the following recommendations to achieve this end.

RECOMMENDATION 37

The California Community College Board of Governors should be reconstituted as a public trust responsible for overall governance, setting system policy priorities, budget advocacy, and accountability for a multi-campus system. The California Community College system has suffered from fragmentation for decades stemming from governance responsibilities’ having been assigned by statute to local boards of trustees, now 72 in number, and designation of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office as a state agency, subject to oversight by a variety of other state agencies. In addition to personnel salaries and actions being subject to approval by the Department of General Services, the State Personnel Board, and the Governor (in the case of senior staff appointments), policy priorities adopted by the Board of Governors cannot be enforced without triggering the state mandates clause of the California constitution – effectively neutralizing the Board of Governors’ ability to govern the system. The result is highly unequal performance and highly unequal opportunities to learn afforded to students enrolled in community colleges throughout the state.

The community college system, to be effective, needs a clear statement of functions and authority for the Board of Governors and the local boards of trustees. This assignment of respective functions should clarify that it is the responsibility of the Board of Governors to ensure the performance of such duties as system governance, establishing statewide policy, negotiating funding, managing, and setting accountability standards for all the colleges collectively. The committee is also concerned about the number and size of local districts, both in terms of capacity to maintain quality teaching and learning opportunities for all students and the containment of costs of administrative oversight of the colleges. To address these concerns, we offer the following additional recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 37.1 – The membership of the Board of Governors should be modified to include the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the President Pro-tempore of the Senate, and the Speaker of the Assembly.

RECOMMENDATION 37.2 - The responsibilities of the California Community College Board of Governors should be defined as the following:
RECOMMENDATION 37.3 - The responsibilities of the California Community College local boards of trustees should be defined as the following:

RECOMMENDATION 37.4 - The CCC Board of Governors should have the same degree of flexibility and authority as that of CSU/UC, including the authority to appoint/approve senior staff of the Board of Governors.

RECOMMENDATION 37.5 - A state assessment should be conducted on the value of and need for restructuring of local districts, with attention to the size and number of colleges in a district, as well as the scope of authority that should be assigned to each district. Should this assessment find restructuring valuable and desirable, incentives should be provided to encourage restructuring.

Preschool-University

RECOMMENDATION 38

The State should direct the California Community Colleges and California Department of Education to collaborate in developing a transition plan to consolidate administrative oversight for adult education within the community college system and should submit that plan to the Legislature for adoption. We have reviewed staff analysis and testimony from adult education providers and remain concerned about California’s ability to achieve the desired level of accountability while administrative responsibility remains bifurcated. We believe there is merit to locating administrative oversight for adult education with the community colleges. There is no statutory requirement for adults to attend adult schools – it is an entirely voluntary undertaking – therefore, there exists a structural disjuncture between the K-12 education system and adult education. Community colleges have been structured to provide educational and training services to adults who voluntarily seek to improve themselves and their future prospects. Their mission includes workforce preparation as well as basic skills and citizenship training. They are accordingly well positioned to provide effective oversight of this valuable component of our educational delivery system and are experienced in locating services in community locations convenient to the adults who seek and can benefit from them. The relocation of administrative responsibility for adult education would not require that all services be delivered through community college sites. Indeed, we believe it would be wise to continue utilizing current venues for delivery of adult education services and contracting, where necessary, to continue delivery of adult education services without significant disruption from the administrative change.

RECOMMENDATION 39

The Legislature should replace the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) with a new California Education Commission (CEC). The CEC should have as its primary functions:
We strongly reaffirm the vital importance of statewide planning and coordination of California’s multiple sectors of education – the functions which CPEC was created to perform, following the 1973-74 review of the Master Plan for Higher Education. Maintaining a separate commission on postsecondary education and creating a distinct one for K-12 schools and pre-school would be inconsistent with our vision of a cohesive system of education and the need to be attentive to cost effectiveness; we believe that a single entity should be established with responsibility for all levels of education. Additionally, witnesses testified that a structural conflict exists when a single entity is responsible both for coordination, which requires candid exchange of critical information, and for planning, for which the entity can, and perhaps should, use that information to the detriment of its providers. The result of that conflict has been demonstrated in at least limited instances by the withholding of information necessary for either effective state planning or coordination. CPEC has also been stymied in its role as coordinator of postsecondary education, largely because it does not have the authority or capacity to carry out the many responsibilities assigned to it by law, and, to a lesser extent, because its composition brings too many vested interests together to govern themselves. Accordingly, we further recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 39.1 – The membership of the California Education Commission should consist of nine lay representatives appointed equally by the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the President Pro-tempore of the Senate.

RECOMMENDATION 39.2 – The California Education Commission should be vested with sufficient authority to obtain from all education and state entities the data necessary to perform short- and long-range planning to inform education policy and fiscal decision-making by the Legislature and the Governor.

RECOMMENDATION 40

The responsibility for coordination of California’s education system, preschool through university, should be assigned to the Office of the Governor. Lack of coordination among the State’s multiple education agencies is the largest systemic governance problem in California. Coordination is necessary not only among the postsecondary segments, but between K-12 and postsecondary education, as well as between preschool and K-12. To ensure that this coordination function will be carried out, it should be placed in the office having ultimate accountability for and the greatest power over multiple segments; as discussed previously, that office is the Governor’s.

RECOMMENDATION 41

The State should designate an objective, independent entity as the statewide education data repository and charge it with sole responsibility for gathering and maintaining the comprehensive data for all of California’s education system, preschool through university. The development of rational public policy for education requires the availability of data on which to base judgments of program effectiveness, policy and fiscal needs, demographic data, and other critical information. These data should incorporate, but not be limited to, student, personnel, facilities, and instructional materials information. California’s many agencies currently gather and maintain significant amounts of data related to education, but their data collection efforts are fragmented; often data on similar elements are gathered pursuant to differing data standards, such that the information cannot be integrated in a manner that can serve public policy interests. We believe these many data can enable a complete understanding of the current and anticipated conditions of our education system only if they are gathered pursuant to common standards and maintained comprehensively within a single entity. The objectivity of this entity should be maintained by assigning it only the gathering and maintenance functions necessary to serve as a repository, and assigning it no functions related to the use or analysis of data. Staff analysis and testimony received by the committee affirm the need for an independent entity to be assigned responsibility for data collection and maintenance but cast doubt upon the ability of any existing entity to assume this responsibility, due to perceived conflicts of functions in each of those entities.

RECOMMENDATION 42

All oversight of state-approved and accredited private colleges and universities offering academic degrees at the associate of arts level or higher should be transferred from the Department of Consumer Affairs to the California Education Commission, to ensure the quality and integrity of degrees awarded under the auspices of the State of California. California has an enviable reputation for the quality of its regionally accredited public and independent colleges and universities. That reputation for quality does not extend to the private, non-accredited sector, a fact that led to enactment of the Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education Act in 1989. One of the explicit goals of that legislation was to rid California of the unwanted title of “Diploma Mill Capital” of the country. Substantial progress was made in establishing the credibility of this sector under the Council for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, established by the Act as the oversight agency. Reauthorization of this legislation in 1998 transferred this responsibility to a newly created Bureau of Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, in the Department of Consumer Affairs. We are concerned that this change has once again called into question the integrity of degrees offered by this set of institutions and, equally important, further frustrates the ambitions of students who seek to move between these institutions and regionally accredited public and independent institutions. Moreover, the Governor has proposed that vocational and workforce preparation programs should be consolidated to achieve greater coordination and common standards for assessing performance. We believe there is merit to further consideration of this proposal and therefore suggest no change at this time for unaccredited vocational schools. Accordingly, we offer the following additional recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 42.1 – Degrees offered by state-approved and accredited private colleges and universities should be subject to the same program approval process used to review and approve new programs proposed by public colleges and universities.

RECOMMENDATION 42.2 – The California Education Commission should develop standards to promote articulation, when appropriate, and to foster collaborative shared use of facilities and instructional equipment between state-approved private colleges and universities awarding academic degrees and regionally accredited public and independent colleges and universities.

RECOMMENDATION 42.3 – State-approved and accredited private colleges and universities should be prohibited from representing themselves as awarding academic degrees within the State of California unless their degree programs have been approved by the California Education Commission, or are otherwise exempt.

RECOMMENDATION 42.4 – The California Education Commission should be designated as the State approval agency for veterans' institutions and veterans' courses, and should have the same powers as are currently conferred on the Director of Education by Section 12090 et seq. of the Education Code, to enter into agreements and cooperate with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, or any other federal agency, regarding approval of courses, and to approve and supervise institutions that offer courses to veterans.


Table of Contents
Introduction Access Achievement
Accountability Affordability Conclusion