Despite budget cuts, Long Beach Unified, Long Beach City College and Cal State University Long Beach will deepen their commitment to the Long Beach College Promise, a joint effort to help students transition from high school to community college to a four-year university.
The College Promise offers a semester of tuition-free community college, guaranteed enrollment for qualified CSULB applicants, college education classes for parents, and college preparation courses for high school seniors, reports John Fensterwald of Educated Guess on Thoughts on Public Education. (John was a colleague when we worked for the San Jose Mercury News editorial pages in days of yore.) A new college readiness assessment will be added soon.
Statewide, only 30 percent of students graduate with a two- or four-year degree after six years. Three-quarters of community college students and more than 50 percent of California State University students arrive on campus unprepared for college level math and/or English. Long Beach Unified’s ambitious goal, says Superintendent Christopher Steinhauser, is to reduce to zero the need for remediation – at least for those students headed to CSULB.
A Long Beach native, Steinhauser graduated from both LBCC and CSULB. His district, the third largest in California with 86,000 students, is 52 percent Latino and 16 percent African American.
California State University’s Early Assessment Program (EAP) warns high school juniors if they need online remediation courses or CSU-designed English classes to prepare for college-level classes. Starting in the summer of 2012, CSU will require non-proficient students to show they have started remediation before enrolling at a CSU campus.
Starting next year, all Long Beach Unified juniors will take the English portion of the EAP, regardless of whether they plan to attend a CSU school. Those who don’t pass will be required to take a special English class in 12th grade in place of an elective. Those who pass the Promise’s new college readiness assessment will be exempt from LBCC’s entrance exams and will get priority enrollment. Eventually, CSULB may accept the assessment as well.
Last year, 500 Long Beach graduates took advantage of the free semester at LBCC, worth about $400 each. Next year, an estimated 1,800 students are expected to qualify.
Other elements of the Promise include a four-week course for high school parents on how to prepare their kids for college, as well as field trips to college campuses for elementary students (LBCC for fourth graders, CSULB for fifth graders, and, starting next year for sixth graders, trips to private colleges like the University of Southern California and to University of California campuses). In addition, LBCC and CSULB have been working with LB Unified teachers on improving algebra instruction.
In 2009, 74 percent of Long Beach Unified graduates went on to college, up from 68 percent in 2007. About one third of graduates enrolled in LBCC. Their retention rate — two thirds remained enrolled a year later — is twice the average for students from other high school districts.
CSULB enrolled 650 Long Beach Unified graduates this year, compared with only 450 the year before.
