American Samoa, California, Guam, and Hawaii

Mollie Smith
Director, Occupational and Noncredit Programs
Palomar College
1140 W. Mission Rd.
San Marcos, CA 92069
(760) 744-1150, Ext 2286
msmith@palomar.edu

 

California Members
Guam Members

Transparency in California: Scorecard Released

California Community Colleges released its new accountability scorecard in early April. It is triggered by a new student success initiative and an effort to be transparent to the public. The new scorecard (www.cccco.edu) provides statewide and college specific results. The indicators cover completion, persistence, developmental education, non-credit and CTE. For more results, please visit the Region 2 website.

The challenge to the system is starkly laid out by the contrast of the 71% statewide completion rate for prepared students, defined as those who did not need developmental education, and the 41.1% rate of unprepared students. The overall completion rate of 49.5% reflects the fact that the majority of students place into developmental education classes.

The CTE indicator shows a completion rate of 55 % which is somewhat better than the overall college rate. The overall results show younger students are more likely to complete than older students and CTE minority students tend to have a higher success rate than minority students in the general curriculum.

The scorecard will help provide a clearer picture to the public and assist colleges in targeting improvement efforts. The next step in this process will be the release of a wage tracker in May. By matching student completers with wage records, the system will know how much those who have completed degrees and certificates are actually making on a program by program basis. The results released to the public will show wages on a statewide basis. Colleges will have access to the information so they can make a local analysis if they wish.