Thread by @KatieHernCA

Another thread from a community college prof supporting #AB1705, the follow up bill for #AB705. Let’s break down the main datapoint cited by opponents @ASM_Irwin @AsmJoseMedina @AsmStevenChoi68 @ChrisHoldenNews @FrankBigelowCA (1/10)

Opponents point out that success rates in transfer-level courses declined after #AB705. When you look at students *who were allowed to enroll directly in a transfer-level course* you see that the % of students passing has dipped statewide. This is true. But also misleading (2/10)

In isolation, this datapoint implies that students are being harmed by #AB705 and that remedial courses are still needed. In reality, every demographic group examined to date has higher completion when they begin in a transfer-level course, not a remedial one (3/10)

When you focus only on students allowed to enroll in transfer-level classes, you obscure from view all the capable students who began in remedial classes and never made it to transfer level. The outcomes look better pre-AB705 because most students are omitted from the data (4/10)

Pre-AB705, 15% of students who started 2 remedial classes below transfer level would complete transferable math in 3 years, while 85% did not. The overwhelming failure of this structure is hidden when we look only at students enrolled in transfer-level classes. (5/10)

Now that previously excluded students can begin directly in transfer-level courses, completion rates have increased from 49% to 67% in English and from 26% to 50% in math (2015-2019). Looking at *all* students, we see the tremendous positive impact of #AB705 (6/10)

The other misleading thing about focusing on transfer-level pass rates is that before AB 705, only 20% of students began in transfer-level classes. It’s not surprising to get higher pass rates when you exclude 80% of students from a course (7/10)

Before AB705 pass rates were also artificially inflated because 78% of students repeated one or more high school math classes. If the students taking Precalculus have already passed Precalculus – and maybe even Calc I – a good success rate is again not surprising (8/10)

I agree that we need to do more to help students struggling in transfer-level classes. We need to learn to teach a broader range of students and provide better academic and non-academic support. And community colleges are already under-resourced and stretched thin (9/10)

But remedial classes are not the solution for struggling students. We can’t use a rhetoric of student “choice” to maintain ineffective, inequitable structures. We must listen to student leaders who urge us to support #AB1805 @SSCCC_OFFICIAL @SMAC_CCSF (10/10)