Urgent Advocacy Needed!
brillw...@gmail.com
We need your help to have constituents of Senate District 25 contact Senator Portantino as soon as possible.
Request Senator Portantino, chair of Senate Appropriations, hold AB 928 (Berman) in the Appropriations suspense file. This bill has three major changes that will affect community college students, but the automatic placement of students on the ADT pathway is the most alarming:
The bill would require the CCCs to auto-place all students in an Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT).
ADTs are not a guaranteed transfer to the CSU campus of choice, so many place-bound students cannot transfer.
Students wishing to enroll in an impacted major are not guaranteed transfer.
The majority of students have a better chance to transfer to the major and campus of their choice with a local AA or no degree.
In 2020 only 24% of all CCC transfers to the CSUs transferred with an ADT guarantee.
Less than half of the students earning an ADT actually transfer to a CSU with a guarantee.
This will put too many students on a crowded educational path with no off-ramp to transfer. We need to ensure the pathway is a true guarantee before automatically placing more students on this pathway. This will also steer our students away from TAG agreements that allow them a true guaranteed path to the elite UC system.
Please reach out to anyone who lives in the senator’s district and ask them to contact the office to register their opposition to AB 928. This needs to happen immediately, as the decision to move the bill forward will likely be Thursday, August 26th.
All practitioner system partners (FACCC, ASCCC, SSCCC, CCLC, and CCCCO) agree that Berman must strike the automatic placement in the ADT pathway from the bill.
- ASCCC resolution in opposition
- SSCCC letter - opposed unless amended
- CCCCO analysis - opposed unless amended
- Joint System Partners letter - opposed unless amended
- Dept of Finance - opposed due to fiscal impact of the bill
Use the FACCC Action alert https://faccc.salsalabs.org/opposeab928
OR reach out directly with the resources below.
If you are a constituent of SD 25 and live in the area, please CALL Senator Portatino’s office. If you are not a constituent, then please email his office.
The number for Senator Portantino’s Glendale office is (818) 409-0400, and the number for his San Dimas office is (909) 599-7351. You can send an email to Tara McGee, Legislative Director of SD 25. Tara....@sen.ca.gov
Dear Senator Portantino,
I am deeply opposed to AB 928 (Berman), which would automatically place students in an Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) pathway, consolidate the IGTEC and CSU Breadth pathways, and create an Intersegmental Implementation Committee. The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office estimates this would cost each campus $1,150,000 on average, yet no additional funding is tied to this legislation.
In addition to the extremely high cost of implementing this bill, I oppose the automatic placement of students in an ADT pathway. This overlooks the many students, specifically place-bound and first-generation students, who may not plan on transferring, or who hope to transfer to a UC, private school, or out-of-state institution. Furthermore, automatic placement into a transfer program without consent from a student goes against the Guided Pathway framework of flexible transfer pipelines with a definitive placement that you, the Senate Committee on Education, the State Senate, and the Assembly have been funding and directing our institutions to implement. Finally, while ADTs guarantee a spot at a CSU, they do not guarantee admission at the local CSU. Providing students with better information about their pathway options would afford them self-agency, which leads to closing equity gaps. Similar to the single pathway provision in the above paragraph, this item requires more discussion and should be removed from the legislation. Instead, charge the committee with discussing how to better leverage these pathways for students.
AB 928 (Berman) is an extremely expensive bill that would harm students. Please keep this bill in the suspense file.
Thank you.
Include name
Home address
The college you attend or work at
Senate District 25 Area:
Includes the whole cities and communities of Sunland-Tujunga, Glendale, Pasadena, Altadena, Atwater Village, La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, South Pasadena, San Marino, Sierra Madre, Monrovia, Duarte, Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Claremont, San Antonio Heights, and Upland plus most of Burbank. The district includes the Bob Hope Airport and the communities of interest surrounding and using Griffith Park.
Wendy Brill-Wynkoop
President, Faculty Association of California Community Colleges