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