Curriculum

Whereas, The mission of California Community Colleges specifically includes providing remedial education for those in need of it (Education Code Section 66010.4);

Whereas, In response to the implementation of the requirements of AB 705 (Irwin, 2017) colleges are creating credit and noncredit support courses for English and mathematics, including required credit co-requisite courses;

Whereas, The regulatory language in Title 5 section 55041 on repeatable courses did not foresee the requirements of AB 705 (Irwin, 2017), and thus does not address the repeatability of credit support courses for English and mathematics;

Whereas, Title 5 §56000(e) states that academic accommodations for students with disabilities may “not include any change to curriculum or course of study that is so significant that it alters the required objectives or content of the curriculum in the approved course outline, thereby causing a fundamental alteration,” and Title 5 §56001(b) defines a fundamental alteration as “any change to a course curriculum or course of study that is so significant that it alters the required objectives or content of the curriculum in the approved course outline of the course;”

Whereas, Publishers have been developing approaches to monetize open educational resources and, in some instances, are providing textbook solutions that dramatically decrease the costs of such resources but may have unintended negative consequences;

Whereas, “Inclusive access” strategies have been introduced by publishers in various formats as an approach to decrease the cost of course resources by providing access to low-cost digital resources;

Whereas, SB 1359 (Block, 2016) requires all segments of public higher education in California to “Clearly highlight, by means that may include a symbol or logo in a conspicuous place on the online campus course schedule, the courses that exclusively use digital course materials that are free of charge to students and may have a low-cost option for print versions” (California Education Code §66406.9) as of January, 2018;

Whereas, The CB21 rubric for noncredit and credit English as a Second Language (ESL) courses has been revised in part to align with the six competencies of the Educational Functioning Levels (EFLs), thereby resulting in CB21 coding options of six letters to represent a range of competencies;

Whereas, The re-coding of existing ESL courses may result in circumstances where more than one course is appropriately coded to the same CB21 code;

Whereas, Accountability efforts, such as those related to AB 705 (Irwin, 2017), AB 1805 (Irwin, 2018), and others, rely on drawing information about students and colleges from coded elements that were not constructed to accurately calculate and align with these current, high-stakes needs;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) has urged local academic senates and curriculum committees to include information about courses that have received C-ID designations in their college catalogs, either as a single list, at the end of each course’s description, or both (Resolution 13.01 F15);

Whereas, AB 1985 (Williams, 2016) required that the Office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges develop a uniform policy to award course credit to any student who passes an Advanced Placement (AP) examination, and that policy mandated that all community colleges grant course credit for any student who earns a score of three or higher on an AP exam;