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they entered the California Community Colleges system, as documented through a consistent matriculation process, regardless of whether students actually took a remedial course.

Unfortunately, as noted earlier, California currently does not collect statewide, student-level data on the academic readiness or recommended placements of students when they enter community college. (Further, variations among campuses in the assessment and placement process suggest that such data, if available, would not provide a consistent view of incoming students’

developmental needs—see the box on pages 13–14.)

As a result, this study can identify only which students in the first-time Fall 2002 cohort actually

enrolled in remedial courses within a writing, reading, and/or mathematics sequence at some

point during their studies. These data do not represent all students who needed such instruction. Not all students take placement tests, and not all students who are assessed follow the placement recommendations they receive. Almost certainly, some students who could have benefited from remediation are not included among the ranks of those students who actually enrolled in remedial courses.

For example, faculty at Evergreen Valley College recently found that, in general, “the majority of [their] students who take a math assessment test do not enroll in a math course, and many enroll in a course other than the one in which they placed.” To the latter point, although Vietnamese students at the college who are assessed in mathematics typically place into the course located three levels below the transfer level, these students typically enroll in transfer-

Valley College, 2009, pp. 12, 15).

As Moore, Shulock, and colleagues (2007) note, this key limitation makes impossible any statewide comparison of students who “need” developmental education with students who “do not,” at least as determined through the colleges’ own assessment processes.

Acknowledging this limitation, however, the following sections show that community college students in the study sample who enrolled in a remedial course constitute an important population that deserves attention and stands apart from other students in important ways.

Assessment practices vary widely among the California Community Colleges

Even if the California community college system did collect statewide, student-level data on placement test results and assessment recommendations, the meaning of these statewide data with respect to students’ incoming needs would still be unclear. The assessment process for student placement is an area where California’s tradition of local determination is both strong and debated.

The California Community Colleges assess students to determine their incoming needs and aptitudes, and to inform course placement and referral to services. The vast majority of assessments in mathematics, writing, and reading are proctored on the state’s more than 100 community college campuses, though most colleges proctor at least some assessments at local high schools (Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment, 2008, pp. 28, 34, 40).

Title 5 regulations establish, for example, that:

• Colleges may not use assessment to exclude a student “from any particular course or educational program, except that districts may establish appropriate prerequisites” (§55521a5).

• No “single assessment instrument, method or procedure”—nor “two or more highly- correlated instruments”—may serve as a sole predictor of student success when placing students. Rather, assessment must consider “multiple measures” (§55521a3). The measures most commonly reported—after “objective tests (e.g., multiple choice)”—in an Academic Senate survey of colleges in 2004 included academic transcripts and personal interviews and information (ASCCC, 2004, pg. 26).

• Colleges must also rule out “disproportionate impact” on different student groups that “is not justified by empirical evidence demonstrating that the assessment . . . is a valid and reliable predictor of [student] performance” (§55502d).

Colleges tend to use a few commercial assessment instruments

The Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment described widespread use of certain computerized, commercial assessments by colleges in 2005–06:

• In writing, 80 colleges used a commercially developed test, with 37 colleges using ACCUPLACER and 22 using COMPASS.

• In reading, 91 colleges used a commercially-developed test, with 46 using ACCUPLACER and 23 using COMPASS.

• In mathematics, 100 colleges used a commercially-developed test, with 42 using the CSU Mathematics Diagnostic Test Project (MDTP), 41 using ACCUPLACER, and 18 using COMPASS (Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment, 2008, pg. 8). Some colleges have developed their own tests. And in each subject area, a handful of colleges employ a self-assessment process in which students take an active role in determining the courses for which they are prepared (e.g., see Barr, 2005; Felder, Finney, and Kirst, 2007).

Other aspects of assessment practice differ more

There is concern that variation in local assessment processes leads to different treatment of— and consequences for—the same students depending on where they enroll (e.g., see Moore, Shulock, et al., 2007, pg. 31). Some sources of variation include:

• Policies for exempting students from placement assessment, • How many students are assessed,

• The transparency of the assessment process, and

• The portability of assessment recommendations among colleges.

Statewide, 11.8% of first-time freshman were exempted from placement assessment for credit coursework in Fall 2007, and 66.1% received placement assessment services (CCCCO, 2009, Tables C6 and C7). Local exemption policies have some common characteristics. For example, the vast majority of colleges report exempting from assessment tests students who already hold a bachelor’s or associate degree (Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment, 2008, pp. 60– 62). And Title 5 regulations (§55532) provide that certain criteria—e.g., a student is “undecided about his or her educational objectives” or “does not intend to earn a degree or certificate”—may not be used as the sole basis for exempting a student.

But there is also variation with respect to whether colleges exempt students who intend to upgrade their job skills, who plan to advance their careers, or who do not enroll in an English, mathematics, or ESL course (Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment, 2008, pp. 60–62). A previous survey found that the colleges variously use coursework from other colleges,

Advanced Placement test scores, and other considerations in exempting students from placement evaluation. At that time, 25 responding colleges reported that they “do not waive placement evaluation” (ASCCC, 2004, pg. 27).

In forthcoming research on the impact of community college assessment and placement practices on U.S.-educated language minority students, George C. Bunch and colleagues (Bunch, 2010) describe other sources of variation among colleges, such as local policies for when students may re-take an assessment. Colleges also varied in how they used multiple measures: these might consist of additional questions embedded in an assessment instrument; in other cases, students might need to specifically request or bring additional information to be considered. Clear

information regarding what students have a right to expect is essential for navigating these processes, but the availability of such information (e.g., via college websites)—and the relative straightforwardness or technicality of the information provided—also varied, Bunch and colleagues report.

Finally, colleges do not necessarily accept one another’s placement recommendations in writing, reading, or mathematics. This lack of portability of student assessment outcomes—and the “testing burden” it can place on students who enroll in more than one college—was one

motivation for the Board of Governors to call, in March 2007, for an evaluation of the possibility of common assessments across the system. The possibility that poor portability of assessments posed challenges for students in the Fall 2002 first-time cohort considered in this study is very real: approximately one-third of those who took a remedial course changed colleges at some point during the seven-year timeframe studied.

The Consultation Council’s task force report found that lack of portability is often driven by variations in how colleges structure their curricula—a topic explored in this report beginning on page 20. Colleges frequently cited “lack of alignment in curriculum” and concern that “other tests do not meet the needs of our curriculum” as reasons why they might not accept another college’s placement recommendations (Consultation Council Task Force on Assessment, 2008, pp. 32, 38,