On January 31st Executive Vice Chancellor Gary Reichard testified before Senator Scott’s Senate Education Informational Hearing on Accountability. This hearing heard from national experts on accountability including Pat Callahan, President of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. It also heard from some of California’s higher education policy groups including the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) and the California Post Secondary Education Commission (CPEC); finally, they heard from California’s higher education segments, including the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) system.

As a part of the presentations, Mr. Murray Haberman of CPEC suggested that they would be the perfect vehicle for any increased accountability requirements placed onto the segments and was ready and able to step up and be the steward of all data collected. The LAO staff suggested, however that there is no clear definition of what accountability is and what the state’s goals are, suggesting that both be developed before more data obligations are placed on the segments.

The LAO in its presentation quickly reviewed all of the different data information requests currently placed on the segments by the Legislature and questioned whether some of this data is still needed, and also raised the issue that this data is never consistent in its definitions (each segment uses its own criteria to define enrollment, for example) and that accountability is not something you just add on to an existing structure.

Senator Padilla suggested that he may want to introduce legislation on articulation agreements so that there is consistency between the segments. The LAO staff suggested that the biggest problem lies with all the individual 109 community colleges and balancing academic freedom of the schools with the needs of the students. Senator Scott also took this opportunity to discuss his own efforts to align the CSU with the CCC and encouraged the UC to emulate the CSU’s work, or he would have to consider applying additional pressures to speed up the process.

In his comments to the committee, Executive Vice Chancellor Reichard stated that the CSU supports legislation on public accountability for institutions of higher education and highlighted all the efforts that the system currently is undertaking. Dr. Reichard also highlighted what the CSU considered important pieces that any legislation on accountability should have including: (1) Data kept by institutions on student achievement must be readily understandable to the public; (2) it should focus only on performance of individual institutions rather than on comparing unlike institutions, (3) it should avoid over-reliance on standardized tests, (4) it should require formal reporting on a biennial or triennial, rather than annual basis, to allow for improvements to be shown more clearly, and finally, (5)use existing data, information systems, standard reports, and processes already in place, whenever possible.

Senator Scott afterwards said that evaluation strikes fear, but it’s meant to be helpful, as the members of the Legislature are the stewards of the public’s money and need to spend it wisely. He also suggested that we need to use our facilities better in the summer and weekends, and also by using joint-use more often.

Senator Alex Padilla asked what the time to graduate was. Dr. Reichard answered 5.3 years for the CSU (he noted that the CSU had improved dramatically in only the last 3-4 years) and UC Davis President Vanderhoff said the UC system was at 4.25 years. Padilla responded by stating that he wanted to see that number improve still. Senator Scott suggested that by making students pay more for units over a certain level, like 150 units, would solve this problem and encourage students to graduate and not become professional students. Dr. Reichard suggested that they didn’t want to penalize students who are working, who have received bad advice, students that are waiting to take the course they need but need to be fully enrolled for financial aid reasons. He preferred to place the burden on the institution.

Finally, a representative of the California Faculty Association, David Hawkins, spoke as a part of public comment segment and suggested that any accountability plan put forward consider administration oversight.

The Senate's Office of Research’s report (.pdf) on accountability that was handed out by the committee.