Noncredit Matters

At a recent meeting called by the State Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges in Anaheim, participants learned--

• California community colleges' mission includes serving noncredit students
• Currently, noncredit serves 66% of all BSI/ESL students statewide, so noncredit is quite an engine in this regard
• Noncredit might well be an powerful approach to learning where time is not a constant (unlike in credit where it is all about time! Also, recall how long it takes for someone to really master a new language: 7 years! Lee S. Shulman's article was distributed at the meeting.)
• The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has been a wonderful advocate for noncredit now and has issued more than a dozen recommendations for both state and local action in order "to secure momentum towards equity for noncredit students." We should make sure that our local senate is aware of these noncredit-specific recommendations
• CBOs (community-based organizations such as Catholic Charities) are our natural allies in the fight to protect noncredit
• We should work with school administrators regarding the need for CPCD (i.e. noncredit certificate of completion; or enhanced noncredit apportionment rate from the state) funds to support noncredit.

Participants from noncredit ESL, noncredit English, noncredit math, noncredit reading, and noncredit adult basic ed from community colleges across the state worked hard to finalize the CB 21 rubrics for noncredit. As a result, the current iteration of the rubrics now appears on this state basic skills web page--just look under the correct discipline with the credit rubrics.