Feedback (6/15/2008) from Hunter Ellinger about ACC Board Agenda Item 8471, compliance report for policy D-4: 

            Overall, I think that this report and the associated proposals for Board action represent substantial progress in the quality of the conversation on this topic, and give some hope that ACC will improve its performance in this area of widespread community concern.  Clearly this progress is linked to the strong interest expressed on this topic by trustees over the last several years.  The issues I bring up below do not detract from my satisfaction in seeing this topic get the level of attention it deserves from the Board and administration.  Congratulations to all involved.

On the other hand, some important aspects of this topic are largely ignored in the report, noncompli­ance with the current policy is understated, misinformation about Capital IDEA is repeated, and the potential risks of the planned administrative approach are not acknowledged.  Here are some questions / comments:

            [1] The central performance question in this area – What percentage of the people who enter ACC’s developmental program complete it successfully, and how efficiently do they do so? – is still not addressed.  The THEBC cohort data on page 25 of the report (a welcome addition) provides some information about First-Time-In-College students, but these comprise only about one-third of developmental students.

[2] I like the metric used in the THECB cohort table – successful completion of a related college-credit course within two years (or three years for students with particularly weak preparation).  It would perhaps be generous to compare this to the 90% one-year success rate of Capital IDEA’s College Prep Academy, but some allowance needs to be made for the part-time nature of most ACC remediation.  The best approach would be to disaggregate success rates by entry level, educational background, and course load, but some summary statistic (as this would be if it were extended to include all developmental students) is also needed.

            [3] While there is useful information in the fall-to-spring-persistence tables, they can be misleading if the interactions with low course-success rates (just above half) and extended developmental-course sequences (typically at least two courses) are not taken into account.  There is also the question of spring-to-fall (or spring-to-summer) persistence, which one suspects is lower.  Multiplying two 70% persistence rates and two 55% success rates yields only 15%, showing how these effects can compound, depending on how they are correlated.

            [4] The migration rates indicate (accurately, in my opinion) that ACC developmental programs have high standards, and have not used the more flexible post-2003 rules to simply pass underprepared students on to sink or swim in college-level courses.  This is good.  But note that the number of math students involved is quite small (193 compared to 6,816 students in math remediation in Fall 2005); in addition to the exclusion of some target courses (e.g., statistics and business math), this reflects cumulative drop-out effects and suggests that the weaker students who make it through remediation are less likely to proceed directly to a college-credit math course, even though they are the ones who need continuity most (more data on the correlation of grades, continuity, first college-level course, and college-level success would be useful).

            [5] Compliance with the current policy mandate to match developmental courses to the educational goals of the students is doubtful.  The critical issue here is what math is needed, since many degree plans call for statistics or college mathematics, neither of which need the material in intermediate algebra, which is preparatory for entering the college-algebra/calculus sequence used for math-intensive degrees.  In recent years ACC advising has urged students to take intermediate algebra irrespective of their degree goal, since completing it will let them exit mandated remediation without taking a test.  This has swollen intermediate-algebra enrollments, but reduced student success rates because for some students an extra algebra course becomes a terminal block.  Astute students can escape this by taking the THEA test at the end of elementary algebra (this is what Capital IDEA has its students do, and is the advice given by most math teachers), but most students do not do this because they never hear the advantages of this approach explained.  The unneeded courses are wasteful for both students and the college.

[6] Similarly, much of the flexibility proclaimed in the ACC developmental plan is a mirage, since students are not informed about it in a way that makes those choices visible to them.  I urge the board to get data on the actual eligibility and usage of the options listed in the report.  How many students are eligible for, and how many use, options such as the ability to defer beginning remediation for three semesters, the assessment-review program, and the lab courses?

[7] The section contrasting ACC and Capital IDEA has numerous errors, as I pointed out in a letter (http://hunter.ellinger.org/ACC/ComparisonClarification.htm) when it was first published a year ago.  If the administration finds my reading of these facts unpersuasive, they should try to rebut them – a back-and-forth conversation that corrects errors and explains misunderstandings is needed on this topic, not blind repetition.

[8] There is a natural tension between the horizontal integration implicit in unification of responsibility for the success of remedial students in a single administrator and the vertical integration implicit in the goal of connecting remediation efforts to college-credit courses.  There are dangers (ghettoizing and fragmenting, respectively) in both directions, and no structure will work well unless those using it allow for them.  ACC has had experience with one unbalanced approach, and the proposed structure will have the best chance to work if it is clear that ACC is moving forward toward greater integration in all directions, not back to an insular system.

Nothing in the (admittedly vague) agenda description is inconsistent with this positive reading of how the new organization would work.  To the extent that the proposed change in administrative structure focuses a top-level administrator on coordinating all aspects of ACC operations to maximize the ability of under­prepared ACC students to succeed in the college-level work of their chosen programs, it has real promise.  But the critical test will be whether the new approach retains and extends the strengthened connections between developmental and college-level instruction that were the central point of Dr. Nabi’s 1995-96 reforms in this area.

[9] I see no substantive problems with the proposed changes to the language of D-4, which would leave it fully in harmony with the intentions which led us to adopt it in 1996.  The Board might want to make it clear that the administration is free to choose whatever level of course restriction it feels is appropriate when students fail to progress on their remedial program; this would include the stated developmental-course-only option as well as intermediate ones in which advisor-specified college-credit courses could also be taken, a flexibility that might be particularly helpful with students who need a full load to qualify for financial aid.

[10] I do have one candidate for extending policy D-4 (related to data about student success rates for different strategies), but I will defer it to a later message since it will need a longer-term discussion and some supporting data.  My advice is for the Board to adopt some version of the proposed changes this summer, then revisit possible extensions during the general policy review next spring.