BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2497
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2497 (Solorio)
As Amended July 6, 2012
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |74-0 |(May 30, 2012) |SENATE: |36-0 |(August 9, |
| | | | | |2012) |
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Original Committee Reference: HIGHER ED.
SUMMARY : 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. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the Legislative Analyst's Office, in consultation
with the CSU to submit a report to the Legislature detailing
the impact of the CSU Early Start Program on student
mathematics and English proficiency beginning January 1, 2014,
and every two years thereafter, and to include, but not be
limited to, the following:
a) Information on the program's impact on remediation
rates;
b) Information on the program's impact on the length of
time students spend in remediation;
c) Demographic information on participants, including race,
ethnicity, financial aid eligibility, geographic origins
and other pertinent data;
d) The number of enrollees statewide and by campus and the
number who earned credit from the program; and,
e) The number of enrollees that became proficient, did not
remediate successfully, and that were disenrolled,
statewide and by campus, one year after participating in
the program.
2)Sunsets these provisions on January 1, 2018.
AB 2497
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The Senate amendments are clarifying and technical.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill was almost identical to the
version approved by the Senate.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS : According to a March 2011 issues brief by the 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: 1) 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, 2) 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
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.
Analysis prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
FN: 0004664
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