The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Agriculture is one of the most important industries in California, contributing over sixty-five billion dollars ($65,000,000,000) annually to the state’s economic activity.
(b) Agricultural education programs within the California Community Colleges system can, and do, play an important role in providing relevant workforce training as well as college and university transfer options for students.
(c) Among the purposes of the California Community Colleges Agriculture and Natural Resources Advisory Committee is the development of recommendations for improving and enhancing community college agricultural education programs on a statewide basis.
(d) It is in the best interests of the public that programs in agricultural education that exist within the California Community Colleges system be measured annually against uniform, objective quality criteria indicators.
(Added by Stats. 2005, Ch. 362, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2006.)
(a) The California Community Colleges Agriculture and Natural Resources Advisory Committee shall identify and develop quality program criteria that may be used to uniformly evaluate the effectiveness of the agricultural education programs in community colleges throughout California. These criteria shall be developed in consultation with instructors, administrators, students, industry representatives, and other interested parties, and shall build upon the local program evaluation document previously developed by the advisory committee. These criteria shall be submitted, no later than June 30, 2007, in a written report to the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges and the Legislature.
(b) The California Community Colleges Agriculture and Natural Resources Advisory Committee shall perform all of the activities specified in subdivision (a) within the allotment of funding provided to the advisory committee under the federal Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act (VTEA). Under no circumstances shall these activities result in a state operations request for General Fund support or displace any other VTEA-funded state operations activities within the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges.
(Added by Stats. 2005, Ch. 362, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2006.)