Postsecondary education: college readiness.

Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to compute the percentage of unduplicated pupils, defined as pupils enrolled in a school district or a charter school who are either classified as English learners, eligible for free or reduced-price meals, or foster youths. This bill would require the State Department of Education to develop and post on its Internet Web site a list of high schools with 75% or greater enrollment in this classification. Existing law establishes certain block grants to be apportioned to a school district or charter school for specified purposes. This bill would establish the K–12 College Readiness Block Grant for the purposes of preparing California's high school pupils, particularly unduplicated pupils, to be eligible for admission into a postsecondary institution, and increasing the 4-year-college-going rates of these pupils. This program would be contingent on the appropriation of funding for its purposes in the annual Budget Act or another statute. The California Constitution provides that the University of California constitutes a public trust administered by the Regents of the University of California, a corporation in the form of a board, with full powers of organization and government, subject to legislative control only for specified purposes. Existing law, until June 30, 2017, requests the Regents of the University of California, with the approval of the Concurrence Committee, to establish and maintain cooperative endeavors designed to accomplish specified purposes related to teacher professional development. This bill would include among the goals of these endeavors providing administrators, counselors, and teachers of students at certain schools with strategies for improving A–G course completion rates, college readiness, and college-going rates. This bill would also add the California College Readiness Project to the list of authorized endeavors and grant priority for admission to programs offered by the California College Readiness Project to school personnel employed by local educational agencies eligible for supplemental or concentration grant funding under the local control funding formula. This bill would extend the operation of these provisions relating to teacher professional development indefinitely. Existing policy of the Board of Admissions and Relations of the Academic Senate of the University of California allows pupils who, in addition to other criteria, graduate in the top 9% of their high school class to be granted admission into the University of California. This bill would require the University of California, as a condition of Budget Act funding for specified enrollment increases, to develop an implementation plan to increase California resident admissions, significantly increase admissions for pupils enrolled in high schools with 75% or greater enrollment of unduplicated pupils, and satisfy related objectives. This bill would also require the University of California, as a condition of Budget Act funding for specified enrollment increases, to annually report information related to these objectives to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature and the Department of Finance. This bill would also make findings and declarations related to college readiness.