Fensterwald/Educated Guess: BROWN’S PLAN TO ABOLISH CRAs GAINS SUPPORT + SHORTAGE OF VOCATIONAL DEGREES

Brown’s plan to abolish redevelopment gains support:Education Coalition does end up supporting governor

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/i75nYj

3/04/11 - Assembly Speaker John Perez and Sacramento insiders are saying that Gov. Jerry Brown now appears to have the votes in the Legislature to abolish redevelopment agencies, a plan that could  bring school districts an extra $1 billion a year, starting in July 2012, and then potentially a lot more over time.

Saying he has yet to see an alternative, Perez told a press luncheon Wednesday, “It’s a likelihood that we’ll see action to eliminate redevelopment agencies.” The proposal already had considerable support in the state Senate. Update: Democrats on a budget  conference committee of the Senate and Assembly  did kill redevelopment yesterday as part of the budget package they approved.

Extending temporary taxes and eliminating the state’s 389 redevelopment agencies, which siphon $5.7 billion in property taxes that would otherwise go to counties, cities, schools, and other state services, are essential to Brown’s plan to address a $26 billion budget deficit with a combination of cuts and revenue. He’s had to counter fierce opposition from big-city mayors, including Perez’s cousin, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and developers who have benefited from billions of dollars of construction projects funded by redevelopment agencies.

Brown has been able to win over Democrats with soft backing from the education community. More than 225 school boards have signed letters calling for the Legislature to put $12 billion in tax extensions and revenue measures on the June ballot, according to Rick Pratt, assistant executive director of the California School Boards Association. But few school boards – maybe only one, Santa Ana Unified – have taken an outspoken position on ending redevelopment agencies, said Stephen Rhoads, a lobbyist with Strategic Education Services in Sacramento who has led the effort on this issue.

Some school boards have wimped out, backing away from taking on city councils and mayors, while at least one big district, San Diego Unified, has been doing a side deal while staying mum. Facing an estimated $120 million deficit, the president of San Diego Unified has asked the city to advance $64 million in future redevelopment funds.

Other school officials have been conflicted, recognizing the economic benefits of redevelopment, or have had trouble grasping how schools would benefit both short- and long-term. And no wonder: Redevelopment inner workings are abstruse, and agencies have been adept in hiding numbers. Plus, some school districts have worked out their own revenue agreements with local RDAs over the years and are worried about what would happen to the money, Pratt said.

But the California Teachers Association and other employee unions backed Brown, and two weeks ago its partners in the Education Coalition – the school boards association, the state PTA, and the Association of California School Administrators – signed a joint letter supporting Brown and “changes to law that will reduce drains on the state’s finances.” Since then they have been working the halls of the Legislature, Rhoads said. Helping their cause has been disclosures that redevelopment projects haven’t generated jobs that agencies have claimed or built low-income housing they’re legally bound to construct, and that they have subsidized high-paying city jobs and have expanded into areas that were never blighted.

How much money will end up in the state general fund is unclear. City councils in San Diego, San Jose, Los Angeles, and other places have rushed to approve projects that would commit unbonded money that Brown has banked on. On Thursday, the president of the League of California Cities called Brown’s plan unconstitutional and vowed to go to court to stop it.

Redevelopment agencies – nearly every city bigger than 50,000 has one – underwrite infrastructure improvements and commercial and residential projects, from stadiums to shopping centers. They then keep the additional property taxes that the new projects generate – money that otherwise would go to counties, cities, and schools. In 1988-89, redevelopment districts captured $1 billion in property tax revenue. By 2008-09, that had mushroomed to $5.7 billion (see graph).

Property tax revenues funding redevelopment agencies have grown from $1 billion in 1988-89 to $5.7 billion (courtesy of Stephen Rhoads).

School districts don’t lose their share of the money per se. Unlike money diverted from counties, special districts, and – to a smaller extent – cities, the state is obligated to backfill money lost to school districts because of redevelopment : $3.2 billion in 2008-09. This money would otherwise have supplemented the general fund, for social services, higher education, and K-12 schools. Many legislators had no idea the loss to the state was this big.

Ending redevelopment agencies won’t immediately free up $5.7 billion, however, because $2 billion is committed to pay off bonds for projects that have been or are being built, and redevelopment agencies have existing agreements passing along $1 billion in property taxes to schools and local governments. That leaves $1.7 billion that Brown is counting on to help balance next year’s budget.

For one year, Brown would spend all of the money on Medi-Cal and trial courts. But starting in 2012-2013, school districts and community colleges would get 57 percent of the money – $900 million for K-12 schools or about $160 per child. (The amount would vary from county to county, depending on the size of the redevelopment agencies.) And this revenue would grow as properties increased in value.

Under Brown’s proposal, this would be additional revenue for schools beyond Proposition 98. Over the next 20 years, as redevelopment debt declines, freeing up property tax revenue, schools would get even more money. In an earlier post, I projected the impact of this in Santa Clara County, on the assumption that only those school districts fortunate enough to have redevelopment projects in their boundaries would reap the benefits. However, there is a more equitable alternative: to divvy up the new revenue per student equally to all districts within a county. Those, like Rhoads, who have seen the latest draft language (I have not) say this is the way that the Brown administration is leaning.

Before there’s a brawl over that money, the Legislature has to side with Brown and abolish the agencies.

 

SHORTAGE OF VOCATIONAL DEGREES: Report critical of career technical education

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/gHHPRq

3/01/11 - To meet the growing market for jobs demanding post-high-school education, the state’s community colleges must sharpen their focus to encourage more students to get vocational certificates and associate degrees in technical subjects, a new study has concluded.

In “The Road Less Traveled: Realizing the Potential of Career Technical Edcation” the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at Sacramento State raised significant questions about the low completion rate in career technical education, a core mission of community colleges. It found that while 30 percent of course enrollments are in vocational courses, only 3 percent of degree-seeking students entering in 2003-04 got a certificate and only 5 percent got a vocational associate degree within six years. It doesn’t say how this compares nationally.

While acknowledging data are sparse to draw definitive conclusions, the authors suggested possible reasons:

• An abundance of certificate programs  – dozens of  in fields with well-paying jobs, including health technologies (medical records clerk, lab assistant) and manufacturing (machinist and systems technician) – but little guidance for students. This is a particular disadvantage for high school graduates who took career tech programs only to find no clear “road maps” or pathways to follow in community college, according to the study. “There is not a a streamlined or coherent structure of programs,” said Nancy Shulock, executive director of the Institute.

• A failure to build basic skills courses in math and literacy into certificate programs. Many CTE teachers discourage certificate students from taking basic skills courses for fear they will not pass them and quit, the report says. The problem is that employers then devalue certificate programs that produce workers without basic skills.

• A lack of status within the system. “Despite the national research findings that certificates of at least one year and associate degrees in occupational fields have good economic returns, such credentials appear to be undervalued in California,” and among community college faculty, the report said.

This could partly explain why many students appear to have more than enough credits – over 30 – to have completed a certificate program en route to an associate degree. Instead, they don’t complete the associate degree or they join the majority of students who pursue interdisciplinary studies instead of a technical field. Only 23 percent of community college students manage to transfer to a four-year university or achieve an associate degree.

Among the recommendations in the report:

• Require all students who indicate a goal of a certificate, associate degree, or transfer to state their plan of study. Those who are “undeclared” would receive guidance to commit to a major or program by some certain point.
• Consider fewer and more consistent program offerings. Noting that a national study found a profusion of offers were creating similar problems in other states, the Institute suggested that “a condensed set of choices across colleges might be more efficient for students and taxpayers.”
• Integrate basic skills courses into certificate programs.
• Reconsider the nature of an associate degree for students not considering transferring to a four-year university. One possibility, which the faculty senate has rejected, would be an applied associate degree. It’s a difficult issue. On the one hand, it  might help the attainment rate in technical fields and raise the value of an associate degree in the eyes of employers. On the other hand, it might devalue the academic worth of an associate degree in the eyes of four-year schools and complicate a student’s choice to transfer.

The Institute, which has issued provocative reports calling for major reforms in governance and financing of community colleges, plans to look deeper into the issues it raised. Among the questions it will pursue:

• How many students satisfy certificate requirement but fail to officially earn one? Why do students amass so many excess units along the way to earning certificates and associate degrees?

• What levels of math and English proficiency do individual certificate programs require? Are these levels appropriate in view of employer expectations?

• Are there sufficient opportunities for incoming students – especially those coming directly from high school – to receive academic and career advice to help them understand available CTE program options?