SACRAMENTO – Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) today announced that her plan to allow more community college campuses to implement innovative basic skills programs to improve student success rates has been placed into the Governor’s revised budget.
“I am very pleased to see that Governor Brown has included $60 million from Prop 98 to fund basic skills innovation in today’s budget revision,” said Assemblymember Irwin. “California has a tremendous opportunity to make this targeted one-time investment in our community college system that will have a long-term impact on the lives and success of students.”
Assemblymember Irwin’s plan, contained in Assembly Bill (AB) 770, calls for an increase of funding to incentivize community colleges to adopt or expand evidence-based models of placement, remediation, and student support that accelerate the progress of underprepared students. This legislation has received a wide coalition of support that includes labor and business groups, as well as student organizations and local community college districts.
Over 70% of students enrolling in California’s community colleges for the first time are deemed unprepared and in need of remedial basic skills courses. In the early efforts that served as the model for bill’s language, students’ completion rates for college-level English courses more than doubled and increased more than four times for college-level mathematics in comparison to students in traditional remediation.
In Ventura County, the three community college campuses could significantly benefit from these programs, where current student success rates for those that begin in remedial math or English are currently at 30% and there is currently no access to these innovative basic skills courses.
Assemblymember Irwin’s website: http://asmdc.org/irwin