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3.0 ACCOUNTABILITY

"California must move from a process-based approach to a results-based approach, by focusing on the quality of outcomes and continuous improvement of the processes which produce those outcomes, not just on the quantity of service provided or on compliance with the rules."

California Workforce Development: A Policy Framework for Economic Growth

Accountability, the "coin of the realm" in K-12 for almost two decades, is now focusing on higher education at a larger scale. An ECS poll of the nation's governors revealed almost all of the 35 governors responding said they believed colleges (and universities) should be more accountable for meeting local state and regional needs and that it is important for states to link spending on colleges to the institutions' performance. The governors also want to place more emphasis on faculty productivity, to give students incentives to pursue particular careers, and to reorganize the sectors of education into a seamless system covering kindergarten through college.

In the 21^st century global economy, California should have a firmer grasp on student progression through the educational system and into the workplace than it does. Data should be available to permit analysis of student achievement as well as institutional performance throughout K-16, as it is critical to maximize the opportunity for program improvement within each segment over time. Public accountability for performance is a powerful tool for shaping institutional behavior. Programs which claim to have an impact on students' success in the labor market should be held accountable, to some degree, for the labor market success of their students and for providing evidence of the extent to which this claim is accurate. Data on labor market performance will drive enrollments and hence resources to the most successful programs and postsecondary institutions. The Legislature should make accountability for outcomes highly visible and public.

A collaborative effort of the California Department of Education, the California Trade and Commerce Agency, the California Health and Human Services Agency, and the California Community Colleges has expended considerable time identifying the following steps to "accelerate the development of more effective program and system accountability". That joint planning is of paramount importance to this discussion, because it represents agreement within the most comprehensive engagement of agencies involved in statewide workforce preparation and training. The following conclusions of the collaboration should not go unheeded. They are:

The California Workforce Investment Board and the education governing bodies should adopt policies that support the full implementation of the "report card system" required by SB 645/Johnston/1996, which established a common reporting system.
T he state partnership should continue its commitment to use existing information systems as the basis for the data needed to support performance-based accountability.
T he state partnership should continue to address information systems and data sharing issues raised by federal and state confidentiality laws.

Recommendations:

3.1 The state should expand the current workforce report card to include K-University programs.

Rationale: Performance measures, such as employment rate, retention, and earnings, currently exist in publicly-funded workforce preparation programs as part of California's performance-based accountability system. Linking postsecondary education to the existing Workforce Investment Act Accountability Report Card (for agencies) would provide great potential for reducing the current multiple measures of accountability within postsecondary workforce programs into a single system of commonly defined indicators. In time, K-12 should be incorporated into such an effort. The ability to document student achievement in acquiring appropriate workforce skills, to make both quantitative and qualitative evaluations of program effectiveness, and to identify which programs result in higher earnings and job placement for all students are fundamental goals for linkage of K-12 to statewide workforce preparation programs.

3.2 The state should expand its student data collection system and link it to postsecondary institutions and the Employment Development Department (EDD).

Rationale: Too many students have been shortchanged as they journey through the general education program because of poor accountability processes, and they should not again be subjected to a lack of accountability in subsequent sojourns through workforce preparation programs offered by any of the providers. In order to implement accountability specific to workforce preparation programs in K-12, the state must follow student progress by such indicators as salary and placement. The major obstacle in the K-12 system is that while the military, EDD, and the workplace use social security numbers for identification, the K-12 California Student Information System (CSIS) uses a "student identifier"; therefore, the system is unable to follow student progress and have a link back to program review.

CSIS should be linked to the higher education data maintained by the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC), and both should have connectivity to EDD in order for the state to develop a process for determining the data to be collected and delivered to decision-makers and education partners.

Because data reporting by the postsecondary segments is uneven, the Joint Committee must establish an effective and reliable mechanism to ensure that postsecondary institutions provide required data consistently, over time, to CPEC.

3.3 The state should focus some portion of postsecondary funding on program/certificate/degree completion, time to completion and education/labor market outcomes rather than only enrollment.

Rationale: A host of research shows that individuals who do not complete degrees receive fewer of the economic benefits of attending higher education. This is particularly true in community college vocational programs, where there are millions of vocational enrollments, and only thousands of graduates. While these enrollments do reflect students knowingly taking only one or two courses at the outset or pursuing English language proficiency or Career Certificates, many students, who originally planned to complete transfer or associate degree requirements, are not completing their programs at this level.

Historically, there has been little or no measure of performance in California's postsecondary education segments. In the past decade, the Partnership for Excellence at the CCCs and the four-year budgetary "compacts" for UC and CSU, have introduced the first measures of postsecondary accountability in California, however, the majority of them have focused on process and essential inputs, including the critical goal of increasing enrollment. Time-to-degree and graduations rates are the only indicators of institutional performance in these two mechanisms that are directly related to learner outcomes. Appropriations based principally on enrollments have generated large numbers of enrollments and high levels of access, but have not resulted in high performance by other measures. In the 2000 report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, California is given an A in affordability and a C in completion.

There is a need to ascertain the success of each of these systems in meeting state policy goals, as well as their ability to respond to workforce needs of the state, particularly during weak economies. Effective colleges and universities minimize the "brain drain" in a state and help retain businesses by providing relevant education and training opportunities.

Business members strongly emphasized that the CSU/UC systems should be driven by performance rather than enrollment and that funding should begin to move toward more of an investment model versus the current entitlement model. Although it can be argued that the state has failed to fully fund the level of access it promises to Californians, particularly during difficult economic times, the investment model makes clear that the state expects a return on its investment. Similarly, the investment model reinforces the argument that huge returns should not be expected from minimal investment.

The cost of providing high quality education is not understood in sufficient detail to use the investment approach for funding the entire cost of operations in public education. Consequently, some states have elected to tie performance-based funding to only selected areas of institutional operations. For instance, approximately 5 percent of the Ohio system's budget is used to reward outside support for economically important research and producing skilled graduates in a timely manner. At least 10 other states have implemented parameters for new graduation rates, class sizes and faculty productivity. South Carolina's Commission on Higher Education is in the process of implementing a system to distribute 100 percent of its money for public colleges and universities based on 37 performance indicators in nine areas, including instructional quality, quality of faculty, administrative efficiency, graduates' achievements and institutional cooperation and collaboration. Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Louisiana and Virginia have also implemented new accountability measures that connect fiscal resources with institutional performance in some manner.

Table of Contents
Summary	Introduction	1. Integration	2. Alignment
3. Accountability	4. Resources	5. Private	Conclusion
References	Charge	Members	Notes