Remediation Redesign at Cuyamaca College: Dramatic Gains in Transfer-level Math Completion Hal Huntsman, City College of San Francisco Myra Snell, Los Medanos College California Acceleration Project Accelerationproject.org

Agenda The problem we are trying to solve Cuyamaca’s solution and its amazing results Cuyamaca in light of AB705

The Problem Statewide, more than three-quarters of incoming students are classified “unprepared”

Placement produces inequity Students’ Starting Placement % Completing Transfer-Level Math in 3 Years One Level Below 35% Two Levels Below 15% Three or more Levels Below 6% Across CA, more than half of ALL Black and Latinx students placed into remediation are placed at this level. Statewide data, Basic Skills Cohort Tracker, Fall ‘09-Spring ‘12

Placement is an equity issue A study by Greg Stoup of the three community colleges in Contra Costa County estimates that 50-60% of racial inequities in degree completion and transfer-readiness is explained by initial placement.

Multiple Measures, Co-requisites, Math Pathways: Cuyamaca College 5 math pathways: General Ed, STEM, Business, Education, Technical Placement based on students’ high school GPA & math coursework, testing can only boast placement; differentiated placement by pathway All introductory transfer-level courses are taught with and without support; support is an attached 2-unit support course in a cohort model Lowest possible placement is one non-transferable course -- Intermediate algebra with corequisite support, for students in Business and STEM pathways. All students can take Statistics with support.

Cuyamaca College Access: Fall 2015 vs Fall 2016 The slide is busy, but the Takeaway is … we closed the achievement gap with regard to access

Dramatic Gains in Transfer-Level Math Completion Cuyamaca one-year throughput rate for first-time math students placed into remediation and enrolled in coreq at the transfer-level Before: 10% After: 67% Compared to statewide throughput rate for all first-time math students: 17% in one year 29% in two years

Cuyamaca Transfer-level Math Completion Adapted from Educational Results Partnership & The RP Group presentation

Cuyamaca Transfer level Math Completion Adapted from Educational Results Partnership & The RP Group presentation

Statistics with support (first time students) Initial Placement Fall 2013 Transfer Math Completion in Two Years 2016 – 2017 Statistics + Coreq Intermediate Algebra 36% 70% Elementary Algebra 19% 71% Prealgebra or Arithmetic 4% 57% Cohorts are first time math takers One Level … Traditional (215) … Transfer Math with support (57) Two Levels … Traditional (296) … Transfer Math with support (91) Three Levels … Traditional (84) … Transfer Math with support (23) Initial Placement is the student’s placement based on their Accuplacer score All students in which the transfer course with support was their first math course (Statistics; Business Calculus; PreCalculus; College Algebra) Fall 2013 Cohort is looking at the percentage of students who were successful in a transfer-level math course given two years Showcases student capacity

Introductory transfer-level BSTEM with support (first-time students) Initial Placement Fall 2013 Cohort Transfer Math in Two Years 2016 – 2017 BSTEM Transfer Math + coreq Intermediate Algebra 36% 60% Elementary Algebra 19% Prealgebra or Arithmetic 4% 50% Get rid of n’s and say out loud that there are only 4 students at 3+ levels below One Level … Traditional (215) … Transfer Math with support (42) Two Levels … Traditional (296) … Transfer Math with support (10) Three Levels … Traditional (84) … Transfer Math with support (4)

Karly Franz Goal: Teach high school biology Returning Adult: Out of school for 5 years Studied fashion design, worked as a historical costumer Placement via Standardized Test (Accuplacer): Intermediate Algebra Corequisite Remediation: Enrolled directly in Pre-Calculus with 2 units of concurrent support Grade in Pre-Calculus: 89

Caleb Rendon-Guerrero Background: High school dropout who’d been in and out of criminal justice system Goal: To “be the solution not the problem” in his family, create a non-profit to help kids like him Placement via Standardized Test (Accuplacer): Elementary Algebra Corequisite Remediation: Enrolled directly in College Statistics with 2 units of concurrent support Grade in Statistics: B Current Status: Second-year student, GPA of 3.6

For more on Cuyamaca’s Program Go to AccelerationProject.org Under Publications Read Leading the Way: Cuyamaca College Transforms Math Remediation

Cuyamaca in light of AB705 AB705 is a game changer for community colleges. Is what Cuyamaca is doing AB705-compliant?

What AB705 says Common misunderstandings about AB705: “If my college is using MMAP rules, we are AB705-compliant.” “If we place students into a two semester sequence so that they can finish transfer-level math in a year, then we are AB705-compliant.” AB705 is about how we place students into math and English courses. But the criteria will make it very hard to place students into stand alone remediation.

What AB705 says Colleges must use one or more of the following measures in placement: HS coursework, HS grades or HS GPA Role of placement testing is unclear and left up to the Board of Governors Low performance on one measure may be offset by high performance on another The student can bypass remediation based on any one measure

What AB705 says To deny a student access to transfer-level math (i.e. to place a student into remediation), colleges must meet two bars: #1: Demonstrate that the student is “highly unlikely” to succeed in transfer-level, as determined by placement research that includes their high school grades AND #2: Demonstrate that placing a student into a remedial course will give them the best chance of completing transfer-level math within one year Bottom line: your placement policy can’t leave students worse off than if they enrolled directly in transfer-level

AB705-compliant placement rules? MMAP researchers are part of the CCCCO’s AB705 Implementation Team (IT). They are working to develop a new set of AB705-compliant placement rules to replace MMAP. They presented the following analysis at a recent AB705 IT meeting but this research is ongoing. We are sharing this analysis to help you understand AB705 placement criteria.

Placement into Transfer-Level Statistics Will placement research be able to identify a group of students who are better off placed into a developmental course than directly placed into statistics?

Bar #1: Who is “highly unlikely” to succeed in Statistics? Statewide Research from Multiple Measures Assessment Project High School Criteria Average Success Rate in College Statistics GPA >= 3.0 OR 2.3 <= GPA < 3.0 & C or higher in PreCalculus (58% of students in statewide sample) 70% and higher 2.3 <= GPA < 3.0 & C or higher in Algebra II (19% of students in statewide sample) 58% 2.3 <= GPA < 3.0 & did NOT pass Algebra II with C or higher (10% of students in statewide sample) 49% GPA < 2.3 (12% of students in statewide sample) 40% Adapted from Educational Results Partnership & The RP Group presentation

Bar #2: For the lowest MM group, what placement maximizes the probability of completing transfer-level Statistics within a year?

What about Business and STEM? To produce more accurate estimates of throughput for students in B-STEM, they attempted to identify and remove students: with terminal AA as an educational goal taking Statistics and/or Liberal Arts Math

Bar #1: Who is “highly unlikely” to succeed in PreCalculus? Statewide Research from Multiple Measures Assessment Project High School Criteria Average Success Rate in College Statistics GPA 3.4 and above OR (23% of students in statewide sample) 78% and higher 3.1 <= GPA < 3.4 (21% of students in statewide sample) 67% 2.6 <= GPA < 3.1 (36% of students in statewide sample) 56% GPA < 2.6 & PreCalculus (5% of students in statewide sample) 49% GPA < 2.6 & NO PreCalculus (16% of students in statewide sample) 38% Adapted from Educational Results Partnership & The RP Group presentation

Bar #2: For the lowest group, what placement maximizes the probability of completing PreCalculus within a year? Adapted from Educational Results Partnership & The RP Group presentation

What about Business and STEM? Research is ongoing, but the current analysis suggests that all students who have completed Algebra 2 in high school should have direct placement into Precalculus under AB705.

Are you kidding! But the predicted pass rates are so low! AB705 criteria give students the best shot of completing transfer-level math AB705 allows concurrent support when the student is enrolled in transfer-level math if support will increase likelihood of success.

Additional AB705 Caveats If HS transcript data is not available, allows for self-report, guided placement or self-placement. Exceptions: Students who don’t intend to transfer and whose programs have specific math requirements not met by transfer-level coursework.

AB705 Implementation Timeline CCCCO announced in December that colleges must be AB705 compliant by Fall 2019. Therefore … New courses (e.g. coreqs for transfer-level) need to be developed, locally approved, and submitted for articulation by Fall 2018 New placement policies need to be in effect by early Spring 2019 in time for early assessment of high school students Anticipate more implementation guidelines from the CCCCO this spring.

Assessment & Placement – CCCCO https://assessment.cccco.edu/ http://www.californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/Portals/0/GovRelations/Enacted-Bills/ab-705-summary.pdf