A Statewide Progress Report on Implementation of AB 705
A new law, Assembly Bill 705 (Irwin), is driving dramatic changes to how the California Community Colleges place students into English and math courses. In fall 2019, AB 705 began requiring the colleges to use students’ high school grades as the primary means of placement; restricting colleges from denying students access to transferable college level courses; and giving students the right to begin in courses where they have the best chance of completing the English and math requirements for a bachelor’s degree.
This report—a collaboration between the Campaign for College Opportunity and the California Acceleration Project— analyzes early AB 705 implementation efforts across California’s community college system. It is a follow-up to the regional analysis of 47 colleges in the Central Valley, the Inland Empire, and greater Los Angeles that was published in September 2019. Here, we examine fall course schedules and websites from 114 of the state’s community colleges to identify bright spots and problems in implementation, with particular focus on the extent to which college course offerings are aligned with the AB 705 standard of “maximizing” student completion of transfer-level English and math courses.