BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 2497
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   May 2, 2012

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                   AB 2497 (Solorio) - As Amended:  April 19, 2012 

          Policy Committee:                              Higher 
          EducationVote:9-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill requires the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), in 
          cooperation with the California State University (CSU), to 
          report by January 1, 2014 and every two years thereafter until 
          January 1, 2018, specified information measuring the impact of 
          the CSU's Early Start Program on students' mathematics and 
          English proficiency.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Absorbable costs for CSU to provide the required data and for 
          the LAO to analyze and prepare the required report.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Background  . According to a March 2011 issues brief by the 
            Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), of regularly admitted CSU 
            freshmen in 2009, about 58% were unprepared for college-level 
            writing or math or both. CSU students who do not demonstrate 
            proficiency had been required to pass the appropriate 
            precollegiate (commonly called "remedial") courses within one 
            year of admission. According to information provided by CSU, 
            this policy exposed two issues: (a) students who tested in the 
            lowest quartile of the CSU placement exams were required to do 
            all of their remediation while taking college-level courses, 
            and (b) many students were not completing remediation by the 
            end of the spring term but were enrolling or re-enrolling in 
            remedial courses in the summer at great expense to themselves 
            and to CSU.

            To address the above concerns, CSU has established the Early 








                                                                  AB 2497
                                                                  Page  2

            Start Program. Beginning in Fall 2012, entering CSU freshmen 
            who are not proficient in math or "at risk" in English will 
            need to start the remediation process before their first term. 
             By fall of 2014, students will need to have started work to 
            become ready for college-level English.  Students can meet 
            this requirement through several means, including senior year 
            high school courses, courses offered in the summer at any one 
            of their local community colleges or CSU campuses, and online 
            courses.  According to CSU, three pilots were conducted in 
            order to understand the new program's impacts, and resulted in 
            at least an 80% success rate of having students move on from 
            remedial education.

           2)Purpose  . Given that this new approach by CSU is in its 
            infancy, AB 2497 requires the LAO to report biennially to the 
            Legislature on the efficacy of the Early Start Program.
           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081