Monday, July 7, 2014

Common Assessment Initiative (CAI) for California Community Colleges

I just witnessed a common occurrence in our front office when a Vietnamese student with his father walked in to request a waiver of the placement requirement here, based on his DeAnza College ESL course level. Current policies are highly restrictive. A student's placement level applies only to the college where the placement test occurs. So, the student was told to take our placement test again to determine his right level at Palomar. Now, this is not a problem unique to Palomar. Currently, community colleges don't recognize each other in this regard. But things are going to change. A Common Assessment Initiative (CAI) is actually under way, again. And not only for ESL, but for math and English also. With a common assessment for colleges, students can expect to move freely between colleges without having to re-take each college's placement test, and everyone will know what Course A at DeAnza means compared to Course B at Palomar if the cut-scores are revealed. 

The following 12 colleges have been selected from more than 30 that applied to pilot the yet-to-be developed/adopted test delivery platform and the math, English, and ESL test content early next spring (simulating the timing of placement testing of students entering fall 2015).
  1. Bakersfield 
  2. Butte
  3. Chaffey
  4. DeAnza
  5. Delta
  6. Diablo Valley
  7. Fresno City
  8. Rio Hondo
  9. Sacramento City
  10. Saddleback
  11. Santa Monica
  12. West Los Angeles
For more information about CAI, check this website: http://cccassess.org/downloads

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