AB705 Study and New Report Examines Implementation Progress to Date in Los Angeles Community College District
The California Community Colleges (CCC) constitute the key entry point to college for the large majority of Black, Latina/o/x, and Indigenous populations as well as low-income students. As such, it is critical that they provide high-quality instruction along with a robust set of academic and wrap-around supports necessary for the students to fulfill their educational potential and goals. As has been documented nationally, a major roadblock for student success is placement in a long sequence of developmental education math and English courses.
After more than a decade of trying to tackle this problem through basic skills-related initiatives, task forces, and programs, California passed Assembly Bill 705 (AB705) in 2017, arguably one of the most ambitious higher education reforms in community colleges to date. Starting in Fall 2019, 116 colleges throughout the state replaced standardized tests with multiple measures of high school performance to determine college “readiness,” which resulted in most students being placed directly into transfer-level courses. Through these changes in placement, along with curricular and student support reforms, each college is expected to maximize the probability that entering students complete transfer-level English and math courses in one year’s time.
For over a decade, I have led the University of Southern California and Los Angeles Community College District Research-Practice Partnership (USC-LACCD RPP) that strives to understand the institutional barriers that are common in developmental education, document their consequences, and work with educators to change practice.
Our work has shown that placing students in a long-sequence of developmental courses is detrimental to student’s learning and completion of transfer-level math and English courses.1 We documented that prior to Assembly Bill 705 (AB705), 37% of the community college students in LACCD who took Algebra 2 or higher in 12th grade and passed it with an A were placed below Algebra 2. Furthermore, 55%, 36%, 40%, and 15% of students whose highest math was Algebra 2, precalculus, statistics, or calculus, respectively, were placed in arithmetic, pre-algebra or Algebra 12. Termed inter-sector misalignment, this persistent discounting of students’ progress and achievement in high school disproportionately affects racially minoritized students3, English Language Learners4, and pushes STEM-aspiring students off a STEM track5.
For the past two years I, along with Dr. Federick Ngo (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Dr. Cheryl Ching (University of Massachusetts Boston), postdoctoral researchers, and doctoral students have continued the USC-LACCD RPP. With the support of the Spencer Foundation, the RPP is doing a mixed-methods evaluation that examines how community college practitioners and faculty are engaging in the implementation of AB705, and whether implementation relates to educational outcomes. To date, we have some interesting quantitative and qualitative preliminary findings.
The quantitative analysis suggest that racial equity gaps in access to and completion of transfer-level coursework significantly narrowed, and some even closed under AB705. In fall 2019, the first semester of AB705 implementation, the enrollment of first-time in college (FTIC) students tripled in transfer-level math (29%, up from 10% in fall 2017) and more than doubled in transfer-level English (56%, up from 25% in fall 2017). By race/ethnicity, the share of Black FTIC students enrolling in transfer-level math grew by a factor of 5, Filipina/o/x students by a factor of 3, and Latina/o/x by a factor of 3.4. Even though course pass rates declined in both transfer-level math and English, results illustrate that in one-semester, the proportion of entering students who earned a passing grade grew by a factor of 1.8x in English, and nearly 2.1x in math (this outcome is called “throughput”). This growth was especially large for Black, Filipina/o/x and Latina/o/x students, suggesting AB705 is removing barriers to racially-minoritized students’ entry and completion of these critical courses6.
Preliminary findings from the qualitative component of the project help explain some of the challenges that the LACCD is facing related to full-implementation of the policy. Our qualitative data include a district-wide survey of leaders, faculty, and staff; documents related to AB705 from state, district, and campus sources; interview with district administrators; and interviews with those involved with implementing AB705 on their campus. What we are seeing is that the mandate of AB705 was a powerful force for compelling changes to longstanding assessment and placement practices and approaches to preparing students for college-level work. Yet, there remains skepticism — particularly, although not exclusively, from English and math faculty — of AB705’s impact on student outcomes and learning.
We have presented the results from our AB705 study yearly at RPP Convenings since 2019. In 2020, our Convening was focused on the racial equity implications of AB705. This past December, our 2021 RPP Online Convening shared with LACCD faculty, staff and leaders our preliminary survey and interview findings. The Convening’s purpose was also to acknowledge and celebrate initial accomplishments in terms of access to transfer-level courses and to identify key challenges that faculty are facing as they continue implementing AB705.
We have learned valuable lessons from working successfully under an RPP for the past decade. First, engaging very early on with leaders, practitioners, and faculty to identify key research questions related to their practice is critical. California’s decentralized governance structure, coupled with the steady stream of often overlapping policies and reforms, requires a mixed-methods research design to investigate the outcomes and process of implementation.
Second, it is critical to present research findings to policymakers and practitioners in a timely manner and on an ongoing basis to support the hard organizational change work that practitioners are undertaking to advance student success and equity. This research can help identify the potential mechanism/s to enact the changes necessary to improve student learning and certificate and degree attainment.
Through the CCC Chancellor’s Vision for Success, the state’s 116 community colleges have charted a path towards greater opportunity and equity for the racially-minoritized and low-income students. These students disproportionately rely on the CCC to realize their educational goals and to reap future social and economic benefits for themselves, their families and their communities. The collaborative work of the USC/LACCD RPP is one small but hopefully significant way of supporting LACCD’s faculty, staff and leaders to remediate the institutional inefficiencies that have deterred minoritized students from fulfilling their academic potential.
1 Melguizo, Kosiewicz, Prather, & Bos, 2014; Fong, Melguizo & Prather, 2015; Ngo & Melguizo, 2016; Fong & Melguizo, 2016; Melguizo, Bos, Ngo, Mills & Prather, 2016.
2 Melguizo & Ngo, 2020.
3 Ngo & Melguizo, 2020.
4 Melguizo, Flores, Velasquez & Carroll, 2020.
5 Park, Ngo & Melguizo, 2020.
6 Melguizo, Ching, Ngo, Harrington, 2021; Ching, Yucel, Ngo, Swanson, Melguizo, & Harrington, 2022.