In addition to ambiguous exit expectations for what students should know and be able to do when they leave high school, the diversity of assessment practices among the California Community Colleges leaves the system’s entrance expectations unclear. Pressure continues to increase for colleges to adopt a more uniform approach to the assessment of incoming students.
Common assessments would be consistent with federal goals and could be informed by experiences in other states
The federal legislation drafted as part of the administration’s American Graduation Initiative (AGI) encouraged states to develop common standards for assessing students’ developmental education needs (Pusser and Levin, 2009, pg. 3). State strategies consistent with these goals would address not only the assessments used, but also placement policies, intake processes, and the integration of placement test data into state data systems.
Participants in the Complete College America discussion of the topic also favored standardizing assessment policies and practices across systems, citing the “benefits of increasing student mobility, developing common metrics of success, and encouraging dialogue among faculty on desired learning outcomes” (Jobs for the Future and Complete College America, 2009, pg. 2).
signal to the K–12 system about college-ready expectations. A range of California stakeholders have also raised this point (RP Group, 2004; Shulock and Moore, 2007; Legislative Analyst’s Office, 2008). And one of the more troubling findings of the Stanford Bridge Project was the common misperception among high school students that “community colleges don’t have academic standards” (Venezia, Kirst, and Antonio, 2003, pg. 31).
Standardization of assessments and policies across multiple colleges is far from straightforward, however. Experiences from Virginia, Connecticut, and North Carolina—all states participating in the Achieving the Dream initiative—reveal the complexities that can accompany such a re- examination. Each state found that implementing a statewide approach to assessment and placement policy leads to far-reaching questions about curriculum and instruction, counseling, budgeting, and the broad goals of community colleges. Collins (2008) discusses the experiences of the three states as they set out to consider common, systemwide cut scores for student
placement.
• In Virginia, a statewide discussion that initially focused on how to establish common cut scores led to the discovery of wide variation in the placement processes employed by different colleges in the system. The state then acted to first establish comparable placement practices among the colleges because, in the words of the system’s vice chancellor for academic services and research, “[W]e had so many differences in the way our colleges managed the procedures of placement that it’s very difficult to compare numbers across colleges” (quoted in Collins, 2008, pg. 7).
• The community college system in Connecticut also moved toward common cut scores, driven in part by concern about a lack of comparable data across the system and the friction this caused with the state’s four-year colleges. The faculty-led process
illuminated a need for better alignment between developmental and gatekeeper courses in English and mathematics. According to the system’s chief academic officer, the new policy promised big implications for staffing, professional development, and counseling because, according to projections, “some colleges would need to add up to 10 additional sections of developmental education” (quoted in Collins, 2008, pg. 9).
• The example of North Carolina, as related by Collins, shows that deliberations about common assessments and how to set cut scores are also closely related to the goals of community colleges in supporting both access to higher education and standards for college-level instruction. As the former chair of the state’s placement committee describes, “looking at what the data said . . . if any of the scores could be lower and we could keep the same . . . probability of success with students, then we saw no reason not to lower the score” (quoted in Collins, 2008, pg. 11).
Similar questions, such as about variations in matriculation practice, would likely be raised in California if the system moved toward common assessments. As noted earlier, much smaller proportions of first-time freshmen who enroll for credit receive orientation, counseling, or follow- up services than receive assessment; and not all nonexempt students are assessed. Matriculation service rates reported by colleges vary widely (CCCCO, 2009). And state funds for matriculation services were cut by nearly 52% in the state budget passed in July 2009. These categorical funds were also granted “flexibility” through 2012–13, so that district boards could elect to use them for alternative purposes.
California could learn a great deal from better assessment data
Without question, the ability to collect statewide data on assessment results would enable California’s community colleges to make more sophisticated inquiries into important questions about student success in remedial course sequences that cannot currently be addressed.
For example, the statewide data on placement recommendations in California is currently limited to campus surveys conducted for the Basic Skills Accountability Report (CCCCO, 2009). By contrast, a recent study of student outcomes in reaching gatekeeper courses in English and mathematics in the Virginia Community College System (Roksa, Jenkins, et al., 2009) was able to consider the placement recommendations for individual students. The researchers learned that 39% of Virginia community college students who were referred to a developmental mathematics course did not enroll in one. The corresponding rates in writing and reading were 35% and 41%, respectively. Moreover, the researchers found that—in both English and mathematics—students who were recommended for developmental coursework were similarly likely to take and pass gatekeeper courses regardless of whether they actually enrolled in the prior developmental
courses to which they had been referred.
These findings raise interesting questions that the Virginia system can explore further regarding matriculation practices, the effectiveness of developmental instruction, and whether alternative strategies may be enabling some students to succeed in gatekeeper coursework even though their assessment results indicate a lower likelihood of doing so (Roksa, Jenkins, et al., 2009). Similar statewide analyses cannot be conducted in California.
Common assessments are increasingly discussed and remain a possibility
In January 2008, the Board of Governors accepted a report from the Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment pertaining to common assessments for the California Community Colleges. The report described resistance to the idea, noting that “local determination of what best supports student success is a deeply ingrained concept” within the system (Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment, 2008, pg. 7). As an alternative, the Task Force’s report recommended exploiting existing uniformity in the use of a few commercial assessments to develop new tools for sharing and comparing assessment data.
The California Community College Assessment Association (CCCAA Test-Development Feasibility Taskforce, 2008) has also pursued the idea of new assessments that would be commonly available to colleges—in particular, instruments developed, owned, and managed by the system. This work has been informed, in part, by dissatisfaction with current commercial assessments. The new assessments could reduce expenditures for commercial licenses and the scoring of writing samples, and improve colleges’ abilities to measure lower-level skills in English and ESL, according to CCCAA.
A current proposal originating in the Chancellor’s Office—the Online Common Assessment Project, or CCCAssess—would provide colleges with incentives for using common assessments, taking advantage of a difficult fiscal climate for colleges. Grant funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports exploration of the technical feasibility of the concept. Legislation directing the Board of Governors to pursue a feasibility study and pilot project (Assembly Bill 2682) was introduced in February 2010. (The bill passed the Assembly and was referred to the Senate in June 2010.)
The vision is that CCCAssess would provide centralized delivery of common assessments and be a repository or data warehouse for assessment scores, which are currently not collected at the system level. This centralized approach would make it possible for the system to purchase
Under the concept, colleges would retain the right to administer other, locally selected assessments but would bear the cost of doing so, creating a financial incentive for using the common assessments. The proposed system would also enable students to take practice tests. To the extent this incentive proved compelling for colleges, students would encounter the same assessments regardless of the colleges in which they enroll.
Disciplinary subcommittees of the Academic Senate will review potential tests for common use during the next year. The feasibility study will be presented to the BOG in February 2011, with a pilot to follow. The full vision for the data warehouse also calls for it to include information on students’ achievement in K–12, such as transcripts and scores on the California Standards Tests, Early Assessment Program (see the box on the next page), and the CAHSEE. These would be available for counselors to use as “multiple measures” during the assessment process.