Chancellor Drummond’s Reaction to

“Rules of the Game”

The “Rules of the Game” report, released today by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy, contains some interesting observations about the enrollment and success patterns of California’s community college students. However, the report sorely underreports our student success numbers, and misses the mark relating to what works and what doesn’t. It further fails to acknowledge the work underway by the California Community College Board of Governors, faculty and staff across the System on increasing student success.

Students who are prepared to enter college and who are able to attend full-time fare well in all segments of higher education in California. “Rules of the Game” acknowledges this fact, but fails to recognize the circumstances that cause many CCC students to attend part-time or enroll discontinuously. Increased access has led to many more students coming through our doors now than a decade ago , and this increased access to the CCC System has led to many more students succeeding in college.  Moreover, our own accountability data show that over 51% of students who seek a degree, certificate, or transfer to a four-year institution do so or become prepared to do so within six years of starting at a CCC campus. Many of these students attended community college on a part-time basis, yet enough succeeded in being prepared by the California Community Colleges that over 55% of all CSU graduates and over 28% of all UC graduates were at one point CCC students.

What we do know is that student access and student success are not mutually exclusive. Our own experience in helping students who are educationally and economically challenged suggests that, if given a chance, they can and will succeed. To deny students the opportunity of succeeding by reducing the rates of college enrollment as the report suggests would be to shut the door on the dreams of countless thousands of Californians. The success rate of students who have no access to college is always zero.

A path to improve student success in California community colleges has already been developed by the California Community College Board of Governors in its recently approved System Strategic Plan. The plan includes the following actions:

• Create a strong linkage between all grade 8-12 standards tests and college placement standards. Under the present system, far too many high school students labor under the illusion that they are performing adequately until they attend college and find they are only prepared to take remedial courses. The California State University has made a strong start with its Early Assessment Program (EAP), which blends CSU test questions with the 11 th grade K-12 standards test. We need to finish and generalize this work quickly.
• Improve communication between college and K-12 instructors, so that teachers know exactly what competencies are expected from students after they graduate. The California Partnership to Advance Student Success (CAL-PASS) and other programs in the state are creating opportunities for the alignment of curriculum.
• Create a partnership between community colleges and high schools to use proven approaches that bring under-prepared students up to college level and equip them with the skills they need to succeed in better than minimum wage jobs.
• Take steps to ensure that high schools and colleges are adequately funded and that colleges have incentives to promote student success and the flexibility to meet the needs of their students. This includes increasing financial aid awards (Cal Grants) so that students can balance family, work and school in a way that supports them in taking higher unit loads and persisting from term to term.
• Instill a culture throughout our high schools and community colleges of a commitment to student achievement by providing proactive and ongoing guidance to help students meet their goals.

“Measuring Up 2006” is one of an annual series of report cards for higher education issued by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. In that report, California is given one of the few “A” grades nationally for both participation (the number of residents taking advantage of college) and for benefits (the benefit to the individual and State coming from the college experience). As we work to address the challenges in the CCC system, it is important to not “toss out the baby with the bathwater”; our dedication to access to higher education in California is paying off.