Legislative update: Early ed funding discussion emerges; teacher shortage bills introduced
Published: February 3, 2016
In an otherwise quiet budget year, Gov. Jerry Brown has opened a heated discussion in his proposed 2016-17 budget regarding early education for the state’s youngest learners. For the current fiscal year, the Governor proposes taking $1.2 billion of existing early education funding (including preschool, transitional kindergarten and preschool quality rating and improvement system grants) and providing those funds directly to local educational agencies to serve their most at-risk students as they see fit. This new funding system is similar to the Local Control Funding Formula, and no LEAs would receive less money as a result of this proposal. CSBA Legislative Advocate Teri Burns discusses this issue (at the 21:00 mark) in the 2016 Forecast Webcast.
Read more about the 2016-17 budget proposal on CSBA’s website.
Legislation package introduced to address California’s emerging teacher shortage
At a press conference on Tuesday, Feb. 2, Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge), Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) and Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) introduced a package of three bills aimed at addressing California’s rapidly emerging teacher shortage issue. One of the three bills is an existing two-year bill. The other two have been newly introduced.
Collectively, the legislation package would address the teacher shortage by 1) bolstering teacher recruitment by reestablishing the CalTeach program, 2) strengthening teacher retention through the establishment of a residency program, and 3) improving student loan forgiveness through the APLE program.
The three bills are:
- SB 915 (Liu) would re-establish the California Center on Teaching Careers (CalTeach), requiring the superintendent of public instruction to contract with a local educational agency to establish the center.
- SB 933 (Allen) would provide grants to high-need LEAs or LEA consortia working with teacher preparation institutions to establish teacher residency programs. Sen. Allen, a former trustee of Santa Monica-Malibu USD, cited a study which concluded that “residency program participants are 50 percent more likely to stay in the profession.”
- SB 62 (Pavley) would restore the reach and impact of the Assumption Program of Loans for Education, which was significantly reduced during lean budget years. The program is designed to increase the number of qualified teachers in disadvantaged schools. Sen. Pavley commented that “teachers are an endangered species,” and that loan debt is impacting the decision of those considering the profession. SB 62 is currently in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and is supported by CSBA.
CSBA will continue to report on the progress of these three bills and on efforts to address the teacher shortage issue. CSBA has supported prior efforts related to CalTeach and looks forward to working with the bill authors as these bills progress through the Legislature.
A video archive of the February 2 press conference can be viewed online.