Dozens of community colleges offer remedial classes; bill to ban them awaits Newsom’s signature

EdSource

Michael Burke

September 6, 2022

Remedial education at California’s community colleges is facing a death blow.

Awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature is a bill that would mostly ban remedial math and English classes, which can’t transfer with credit to four-year universities. If he signs the bill, it will affect more than 40 colleges that continue to offer those classes five years after the state told them to allow students to bypass the courses.

Assembly Bill 1705 soared through the state’s Legislature, winning the approval of lawmakers who are frustrated that some students are still being funneled into remedial classes. Lawmakers contend that many of the colleges offering remedial courses are violating the spirit of a 2017 law, Assembly Bill 705, which said colleges can’t place students in remedial classes unless they are highly unlikely to succeed in transfer-level coursework.

The new law builds off the initial one by creating stricter rules detailing the limited scenarios when colleges are allowed to enroll students in remedial classes. Certain groups of students would be exempt from needing to go directly to transfer-level classes, such as some disabled students, students who didn’t graduate from high school and students in some career technical education programs. A college could also enroll a student in a remedial course if the college can prove, based on the student’s high school grades, that the student would be more likely to earn a degree by doing so.

Colleges would be expected to enroll the rest of the students in transfer-level classes.

Continue Reading