College readiness test’s next phase
Common Core to model California's EAP
California’s Early Assessment Program and affiliated efforts to get students college-ready are viewed in national education circles as a rare achievement, a model of K-12 and higher ed collaboration.
The recent naming of one of EAP’s key figures, California State University’s Beverly Young, to the Executive Committee of Smarter Balanced, the multistate group creating the Common Core assessment, is a sign that a new incarnation for EAP may be its ultimate triumph.
EAP is what high school juniors take, as a supplement to their state standardized tests in math and English language arts, to determine if they are college-ready. For those who aren’t, CSU has developed an expository reading and writing course and is developing a course in math for students to take as seniors. A number of states have adopted the reading and writing course for their own students.
“California’s EAP model is the best method currently available in the nation to assess and signal to students their preparedness for college-level coursework, providing them with an opportunity to correct deficiencies before they enter college,” said a report, “California’s Early Assessment Program: Its Effectiveness and Obstacles to Successful Program Implementation,” which was released this week. It was produced by PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education) and written by Hilary McLean, former communications director for the state Department of Education.
California is a governing member of Smarter Balanced. CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs, who’s been involved with EAP since its creation in 2004, will serve as one of two representatives of higher ed on the nine-member Executive Committee.
In announcing Young’s appointment, a Smarter Balanced press release reaffirmed the “goal of having the assessments be accepted indicators of college and career readiness.” Young this week said that she’ll be advocating that an EAP-type approach be incorporated into the 11th grade Common Core test. But she also acknowledged that, conceptual agreement aside, it will be a challenge to persuade colleges and universities from various states, all of which have their own standards for college readiness, to accept the test results. “College faculty will have to be brought in at the front end” of the test development, Young said this week. “Otherwise, they will not accept this.”
PARCC – the other Common Core assessment consortium – has explicitly said it wants to base its college-readiness system on EAP, and has hired Allison Jones, a former CSU administrator in charge of EAP, to lead its effort.
Reputation exceeds impact
Even in California, EAP is not universally accepted. The University of California has steered clear of it, even though a quarter of its students systemwide need remediation classes in English (UCs don’t label their catch-up classes as remediation, but that’s what they are). And only about half of the state’s 112 community colleges accept EAP as a test for determining whether students are ready for credit-bearing courses.
CSU has invested a lot in EAP. On its dime, it developed the test and pays faculty to grade the 45-minute writing portion of it. It created the writing course and online math and English tutorials. It hired regional EAP coordinators to work with high schools and has trained more than 6,000 high school teachers to lead the writing course.
Still, respect for EAP probably exceeds its impact within California. It’s been a struggle to get students to understand what EAP is and to act on the results. Only 400 of the more than 1,000 high schools in the state offer the year-long expository writing and reading course, Young said.
Participation in EAP has steadily increased to more than 80 percent in English Language Arts. Source: California's Early Assessment Program (Click to enlarge).
Though voluntary, more than 80 percent of juniors now take the English piece, and nearly 40 percent take the math; fewer take the latter because they have to be enrolled in Algebra II as a junior, because CSU requires three years of math for admission. The test consists of 15 multiple-choice math and English questions, plus the writing piece.
If, as promised, Smarter Balanced’s assessment incorporates more complex short-answer questions and is computer-adaptive, posing questions based on the student’s previous answers, it could improve on EAP. EAP was not intended to be a diagnostic tool, but it could provide more information, particularly for community colleges, on gaps in students’ math knowledge. “The end game now is how to go beyond EAP with the Smarter Balanced assessment,” said PACE Executive Director David Plank.
CSU created EAP with the goal of reducing the number of students needing remediation to 10 percent of entering freshmen. That simply hasn’t happened. The percentage of juniors taking EAP deemed ready for college has edged up slightly to 15 percent in math and 21 percent in English. About two-thirds of entering CSU students still need remediation in either English or math, even though they have a 3.0 grade point average. Researchers estimate that EAP has cut the need for remediation by 6 percent in English and 4 percent in math.
The report listed some of the obstacles:
- Students don’t understand the scores and what they mean; they assume, based on their grades, they are college-ready.
- Since they’re part of the state standardized tests, EAP results don’t come back until August, which is late for scheduling the expository writing class;
- Some high schools remain resistant to the CSU course, preferring to teach literature to seniors;
- There’s a disconnect: Most high school teachers assume their students are college-ready; far fewer college instructors agree.
The picture may change soon. CSU campuses are adopting the policy that students must complete remediation courses before they arrive for school; that will encourage more to take expository writing and the new math course as high school seniors. Long Beach Unified, as part of its Long Beach Promise, requires students who don’t pass EAP to take the writing course. The year-long math course that Long Beach is piloting will go statewide this fall.
Starting this fall, Young said, students who test proficient on their standardized English language arts test and take the year-long expository writing course with a C or better will be designated college-ready in English.
“EAP has not proven a panacea,” said Plank. “Its primary value is the signal it sends to students to be ready for college. As the signal strengthens, impact on student outcomes will increase also.”
A couple mistakes:
1) The math test does not consist of 15 questions, or they’d be able to slap it on to any junior’s math test. The questions are in addition to the CST questions.
2) It’s not just Algebra 2, but Algebra 2 and Summative Math, which means Algebra 2 or higher.
3) The reason they attach the test to Algebra 2 and higher is not “because they require 3 or more year of math”, but because they had to do a lot in order to convince the CST to accept the addition, and the geometry test doesn’t have enough of the needed content to cover the tested material. A kid in geometry his junior year could have had three years of math, thus meeting the requirement.
“About two-thirds of entering CSU students still need remediation in either English or math, even though they have a 3.0 grade point average. ”
You write as though these two clauses are somehow related. As you just discussed, most juniors are not in Algebra II or higher, and a disproportionate number of those would need remediation, regardless of their GPA.
Of course, the EAP can’t help fix the remediation problem, so long as the CSU is not permitted to refuse admission to those who aren’t capable for college level work.
Most CSUs use SAT/ACT scores as a second pass out of remediation. For most CSUs, the cutoff is around 530 for English or math. That is a score higher than all but 20% of African Americans and 30% of HIspanics ever attain. That’s why CSUs are still using GPAs, even though we all know they are generally fraudulent, because any test-based standard would leave out an unacceptable number of blacks and Hispanics.
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I would like to add that the CSU is not requiring students to complete their remediation before entering the system. The Early Start Program is being implemented this year to assist students who are remedial. The goal of ESP is to help remedial students “begin,” not complete, their remediation the summer before entering the CSU. Please see this website for more information:
http://www.csumathsuccess.org/students/early_start
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FWIW, something I read the other day that might provoke some though (Vollmer):
Today, one of the hot button issues of the “back-to-the-past” contingent is the seemingly large number of college freshmen who require remediation. This subject receives a lot of press, and is offered as positive proof of failing schools. In this context, I offer the following quote. It appeared in the Los Angeles Times attributed to Professor Theodore M. Greene of Princeton University.
Most people agree that this is a perfect example of the declining quality of our schools. The problem with the argument, however, is that Professor Greene uttered this statement about the poor quality of high school graduates in March 1946. And when he spoke, he became part of a long line of complainants. Thirty-eight years prior, a 1908 Carnegie report discovered that large percentages of America’s high school graduates were being admitted to elite colleges with “conditions,” i.e., in need of remediation. Further back, in 1900, when only the top 2 percent of high school graduates went on to college (compared to 62 percent today), 378 of America’s 450 colleges reported that incoming freshman needed remedial work. Eighty-four percent!
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Thanks for the info, Cal, regarding points #1 and #2. They were my shorthand summary mistakes; the PACE report is accurate on the issues you raised.
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I agree. I think the eap is one of the only tests in ca that gives a real picture of student college readiness. Last i looked, the average performance among low income students on this test is less than 10% proficiency. Now the question is whether we are willing to be honest early enough in a child’s academic career to make a difference. Today for example, a third grader who tests proficient on the cst is achieving at about the 40th percentile nationally according to naep. To have a legitimate expectation of college, students need to be above 70th percentile, which ironically is our cut for advanced. My great hope as we implement common core is that we are willing to be honest with children about their college readiness early enough to do something about it. Having ms young on this committee is a great sign and i hope she is ready to fight for the same honest assessment she created with the eap.
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A more noble goal might be to have A through G coursework actually prepare students for college. That way, if a s tudent preferred to take a literature based English course, perhaps they could get the “expository course” content in another academic course…history perhaps.
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