December 1, 2019 | Daily Bruin

Salvador Martinez, a fourth-year applied mathematics student and member of Beyond the Score, said the group lobbied for removing standardized testing from admission policy at the Policy Analysis for California Education conference at UC Berkeley this past weekend.

November 23, 2019 | KTVU

Top leaders at the University of California say they support dropping the SAT and ACT exams from admission requirement. UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol T. Christ, along with the UC system’s chief academic officer, Provost Michael Brown, said Friday that research...

October 9, 2019 | CalMatters

Educational accountability is attracting a lot of political attention—or perhaps lip service—these days in California. Governor Gavin Newsom has signed two bills touted as bringing more accountability to education. Better tracking of how individual students are faring could, and perhaps...

October 9, 2019 | Atascadero News

Districts and high school counselors throughout the county spend time and resources supporting students as they explore their college and career interests. In December 2018, Policy Analysis for California Education released a report entitled, “Where California High School Students Attend...

February 24, 2018 | eLearningInside

On February 21, the University of California (UC) announced that it would make online courses free for high school students to help them better compete for college spots. UC’s online program, widely known as UC Scout, is an attempt to...

February 21, 2017 | EdSource

Three out of 10 of California’s 2016 high school graduates earned a score of 3 or higher in Advanced Placement tests, allowing them to earn college credit, according to new figures from the test’s publisher, the College Board. The state’s...

Commentary authors
Tatiana Melguizo
Federick Ngo
Summary

Community colleges, serving diverse student bodies, often rely on placement tests to assess readiness for college-level coursework, resulting in roughly 80% of new California community college students enrolling in remedial classes. Concerns about accuracy and low completion rates associated with tests like ACCUPLACER and COMPASS have prompted a push for reforms, leading to various experimental changes in college placement policies. A new study explores these policy shifts, comparing the use of MDTP diagnostics with ACCUPLACER, uncovering that the switch negatively impacted remediation, causing fewer students to advance through math sequences and a rise in severe placement errors, indicating increased misplacement rates. Conversely, minor adjustments to placement cutoffs demonstrated no significant effects. Recommendations advocate for integrating MDTP diagnostics into placement policies, exploring lower placement cutoffs over higher ones due to the perceived lesser impact of under-placement compared to over-placement, and utilizing regression discontinuity for a more refined evaluation of placement impacts. These suggestions aim to optimize developmental math placement practices, leveraging diagnostic tools and cautiously adjusting cutoffs to bolster student success.