Common assessment, data warehouse and Web portal in California

A 2010 bill vetoed by former Governor Schwarzenegger would have created a potentially one-of-a-kind system in California to improve outcomes for community college students. A.B. 2682 would have required the board of governors of the California Community Colleges to establish a pilot project to create a single assessment instrument, the California Community Colleges Common Assessment, for purposes of placement and advisement in English and math. In developing the assessment, the state would have used the existing test item banks created by the California State University and the K-12 system as part of the state’s college readiness assessment (the Early Assessment Program).

The pilot would also have entailed the development of a data warehouse to collect (a) all available assessment scores generated by assessed students at all participating community colleges, and (b) all available K–12 assessment data and transcript information for students at all participating community colleges. This data would only have been used to place and advise students.

Lastly, the pilot would have involved creation of a Web portal accessible to community college personnel and students and that would provide: (a) An assessment profile, generated for each student upon request, that includes all assessment information in the data warehouse, for purposes of counseling, matriculation and course placement; (b) A pretest application that emulates the structure of the centrally delivered student assessment that students can practice on and familiarize themselves with before taking future assessments; (c) An advisement tool that provides students with information on historical success rates of remedial courses for students at various levels of academic remediation.

Although the veto message doesn't say so, it is possible the bill was also vetoed due to the expenditure necessary to bring such a system to fruition. Once states come out of the current recession, the model proposed in A.B. 2682 would be an excellent one to consider.