Top Policy Issues in Community College ESL: Act, or React?Leigh Anne Shaw, Skyline CollegeKathy Wada, Cypress CollegeSydney Rice, Imperial Valley College

Why We Teach ESL

ESL

What We Didn’t Sign On For

The New Era of ESL

Areas of ACTion for ESL

• Coding of ESL courses and resulting tracking• Common Assessment Initiative• AB 104 (Adult Education Block Grant)• Control over changes in ESL delivery• How Credit and Noncredit can work together

• C-ID for ESL courses

Common Assessment Initiative

• Purpose• “Students will be able to take one assessment and the

results will be transferred easily throughout the system” • Colleges will have “autonomy to use the assessment as

a placement mechanism in ways that are most useful for their schools.”

– William Fisher, CAI Lead Researcher

Common Assessment Initiative

• Provider selected, creation in process• Unicon, Inc. and Link-Systems International, Inc.• ESL, English and Math teams composed of

faculty/staff• Timeline • Spring 2016: 12 pilot colleges field-test• Fall 2016: pilot colleges will use full version of

platform for placement into Spring 2017 courses• Fall 2016 - 2018: Remaining colleges come on

board in phases, at intervals avoiding busy times of the year

Common Assessment Initiative• Topics for ACTion for ESL faculty• Interim assessment strategy • Many providers of placement tests are dropping their

products – colleges need an interim assessment• Some colleges have contracts past 2018 – there will be

no penalty for finishing existing contracts• Align descriptors to local ESL course levels• Work with assessment center to set cut scores• Work within department to align courses to CAI rubrics

for ease of placement for students coming from other colleges

• Stay on top of it: http://cccassess.org/

Adult Ed Block Grant

• AB 86 legislation of 2013• “planning to plan”• Two-year collaboration in 71 consortia throughout

state• 1 consortium = 1 CCC district and 1 K-12 (Adult Ed)

district• AB 104 – the Adult Education Block Grant (AEBG) of 2015• Implementing plans from the two year planning under

AB 86• $500 million allocated to consortia, much going

towards the maintenance of capacity for Adult Ed

Adult Ed Block Grant

Updates from AEBG• Consortium deliverables due Nov 2nd:• Governance Template; Amended 3-yr Plan;

Annual plan; Appropriation Agreement• Measures of success: numbers served, skills

improvement, completion of diplomas/certs/degrees, placement into jobs, improved wages

Adult Ed Block Grant

• Topics for ACTion for ESL faculty• AEBG should be collaboration among the experts (US!)• Some consortia are more faculty-driven than others• Modifications and pathway creation need to come from

faculty, not administrators• Collaboration among credit, noncredit, adult ed• Out of box approaches to data collection needed;

sharing of best practices among our field

Stay on top of it: http://aebg.cccco.edu/

Control Over ESL Programs• Misconceptions about credit ESL programs• Don't focus on academic skills• Only focus on life skills• Expensive

RESULT?Because AB 86 moved rather quickly, many in administration took it as an opportunity to reshape ESL programs:

- change credit to non-credit - take away transferability - dissolve programs.

Control Over ESL Programs

• LAO Recommendations 2012• “Provide a Clear and Consistent Distinction at CCCs Between

Adult Education and Collegiate Instruction”• Restrict credit instruction in English and ESL to transfer–

level coursework, and credit instruction in math to one level below transfer. Require courses below these levels to be offered on a noncredit basis.

• This is not a mandate. This is not law.• Title 5 has not been changed to redefine ESL.• Prior to Fall 2015 plenary, ASCCC had no position; they

stated that it was up to local CCC senates to determine their college’s noncredit/credit cut-off point.

Control Over ESL Programs• Rumors were rampant. Non-ESL faculty, and Academic

Senates were mis-informed or simply unknowledgeable about ESL.

• ASCCC Resolution: ACTion

Reaffirm credit ESL as part of a pathway that included non-credit and adult education.

Reaffirm that curriculum decisions about what is credit and non-credit should rest with faculty, not with administration.

Credit & Noncredit ESL

Credit Noncredit Not-for-credit Other ESL

CCCCO instructional categories

10 instructional categories permitted

Fee-Based (Community Service/Ed)

Contract Education/IEPs

Earns apportionment

Earns apportionment

Does not earn apportionment

Does not earn apportionment

Degree,Certificate

Repeatability limits

CTE Certificate available

Entirely self-supporting

Funded by a bus./org

Restricted in enrollment.

Credit & Noncredit ESL

• One solution to the repeatability issues for ESL: Creating “mirror” courses of credit and noncredit• Two separate course numbers, same level, same outcomes, one

instructor• Credit and noncredit students attend same class• Credit students are required to be graded (i.e. on a project or

final exam), while noncredit students are not• Noncredit students are held to the same class expectations as

credit students (attendance, participation, homework, outcomes)• Local matriculation process can be revised to allow noncredit

students to achieve benchmarks towards enrollment in subsequent credit courses (multiple measures placement)

Credit & Noncredit ESL

• Benefits to ESL students in mirror courses• Creates pathways from noncredit or adult ed into credit• Students can repeat to gain more time building critical skills• Noncredit is free and receives apportionment from state• Students who would not otherwise consider college can be

introduced in a supportive way• Students who passed the credit course can retake noncredit to

brush up on skills for work, life, etc.• Benefits to colleges and faculty• Higher enrollment, fewer stopouts/dropouts• Allows ESL to respond to more needs of the community• Argument for parity of load/pay between credit and noncredit

faculty

Credit & Noncredit ESL

• Topics for ACTion for ESL faculty• Make sure decisions to move to credit or noncredit are

faculty-led, not administrative-led; student-driven, not funding-driven• Work toward achieving parity of load/pay for credit &

noncredit.• In the new age of equalization and pathways, both

are equally valuable• Credit and noncredit can, and need to continue to,

support each other via pathways for our students

C-ID for ESL• Course Identification Numbering System (C-ID) replaced the

old CAN system; provides a mechanism to identify comparable courses• Example: If all these courses are sequenced at their respective

colleges, and if they all have C-ID articulation,

• A student completing ESL 95 at College ABC could transfer to College LMNOP or College XYZ and enter the English class next in sequence – no placement test required.

College ABC College LMNOP College XYZ

English 1A English 100 English 105

ESL 95 ESL 980 ESOL 400

C-ID for ESL• C-ID descriptors were created by a Faculty Discipline Review

Group (FDRG) in English for three levels below Freshman Composition • Makes no mention of credit or noncredit; the course content and

rigor of assignments is all that identifies it• Prerequisite language allows “or ESL course equivalent”• Is called “English 95” but is merely a template for any English or

ESL course that could be submitted for articulation• The ESL FDRG met and decided that only one level of ESL

would be C-ID articulated at this time. There is no movement to create further articulation for more than one level below Freshman Comp

C-ID for ESL• What does it mean?• ESL faculty may, but are not pressured nor required, to submit a

one-level-below Freshman Comp ESL course for C-ID approval. • Any C-ID approved course simply needs to adhere to the

minimum content requirements available on the C-ID website for English 95.

• Any course that is not approved may be revised and submitted again.

• The goal is to streamline students’ experiences to help them reach their goals without repeating coursework they have already taken.

C-ID for ESL

• Topics for ACTion for ESL faculty• C-ID for ESL courses is entirely voluntary, but it may be

valuable in• Helping students skip over unnecessary courses and use coursework

they’ve taken to reach their goals• Affirming the value of credit and noncredit ESL courses whose

content matches that of the C-ID course one level below Freshman Comp

• Establishing rigor that ensures transferability or degree applicability

Stay on top of it: https://c-id.net/

The time for ACTion is now!

Sydney Rice sydney.rice@imperial.eduKathryn Wada kwada@cypresscollege.edu Leigh Anne Shaw shawl@smccd.edu