BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 770 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 6, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Jimmy Gomez, Chair AB 770 (Irwin) - As Amended April 27, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Higher Education |Vote:|13 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: Np SUMMARY: This bill establishes a California Community College (CCC) grant program to fund accelerated basis skills programs. Specifically, this bill: AB 770 Page 2 1)Establishes the programs, to be administered by the Chancellor of the CCC, to provide multiyear grants to community college districts to adopt or expand evidence-based models of academic assessment and placement, remediation, and student support that accelerate the progress of underprepared students toward achieving postsecondary educational goals. 2)Requires an applicant district, in order to receive a grant, to demonstrate that its colleges will redesign their curriculum, career pathways, assessment, and placement procedures to implement or expand the use of specified practices and principles. 3)Requires participating districts to develop a plan to ensure that, within a five-year period, specified goals are achieved related to improved outcomes for underprepared students, faculty participation in relevant professional development, and annual reporting to the Chancellor's Office of program progress, as specified. 4)Requires the Chancellor's Office to analyze and report summary program information to the Legislature biannually. FISCAL EFFECT: 1)Given that there are 72 districts and 112 colleges, a viable program would at least need to be in the low tens of millions of dollars to provide one-time grants to campuses for curriculum redesign and professional development and changing assessment and placement procedures. [GF-Prop 98] 2)To the extent the acceleration of remediation reduces more AB 770 Page 3 students' time to commence taking college-level courses, increases the likelihood of these students achieving their educational goals and in less time, the students, districts, and the state will benefit from this increased efficiency. According to information from the author's office, in 2010-11, about 350,000 CCC students took credit basic skills course. Saving all of these students one semester of basic skills remediation would be the equivalent of about $160 million in funding. 3)Depending on the size of the grant program, Chancellor's Office would need one or two positions to establish and administer the program, at an ongoing GF cost of $125,000 to $250,000. COMMENTS: 1)Background. CCC basic skills (or remediation) are pre-collegiate level, non-credit courses in reading, writing, mathematics, and English as a Second Language (ESL). According to information provided by the author's office, over 70% of first-time enrolled students at the CCC are classified as underprepared for college-level course work and in need of remediation. Generally, the more semesters of remediation a student must take, the less likely that student will complete college-level English and mathematics courses. According to Learning Works' 2014 brief entitled, "New Study of the California Acceleration Project: Large and Robust Gains in Student Completion of College English and Math," accelerated models of remediation are producing great increases in student completion of gatekeeper English and mathematics requirements at CCCs. The brief found that effective accelerated pathways led to completion gains among all students, regardless of their level of preparation, AB 770 Page 4 demographic group, or socioeconomic status. Under the California Acceleration Project (CAP), 16 CCCs piloting accelerated remediation models in 2011-12 found that by redesigning their curricula to reduce students' time in remedial courses by one or more semesters, higher completion rates among students in accelerated remediation occurred. In English, students' odds of completing a college-level course were 2.3 times greater in high-impact models of acceleration than students in traditional remediation; and, in mathematics, students' odds of completing a college-level course were 4.5 times greater than students in traditional remediation. 2)Purpose. According to the author, "Many community college students are limited to the standard remedial courses in math and English that are yielding very poor results. Allowing for more subjectivity and innovation in remedial courses would allow faculty members to contextualize the remedial learning experience to the benefit of all students, regardless of what their educational goals may be." Given the positive results of accelerated remediation, the author wishes to greatly expand use of this model in the CCC. Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081 AB 770 Page 5