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