If El Camino students felt anxiety in passing transfer-level English and math courses, Gov. Jerry Brown’s AB 705 law might not help.

The statewide AB 705 law passed by Gov. Jerry Brown, will go into effect Jan. 1, 2019, and will require community colleges to speed up the process of student eligibility for transfer-level English and math courses.

This law will incorporate the use of high school coursework, grades, and GPA’s to determine where students should be placed instead of a placement exam.

While this may be good for students who are nervous test takers, this may come as a concern for students who genuinely aren’t ready to move into a transfer-level class.

According to the success and retentions rates from the El Camino College website, anywhere from 55-58 percent of students passed English A while 56-59 percent of students passed English B since 2015.

In addition, on average 62-64 percent of students at EC passed English 1A since 2015.

Students will have the opportunity in requesting to take Integrated Reading and Writing Enhanced courses (RWE) which will be offered as a replacement for English A and B which are the current prerequisite courses for transfer-level English 1A.

Certainly, the Union recognizes that students fail courses for all sorts of reasons but as the numbers show, students aren’t ready to be placed in these transfer level classes.

It is important that EC continues to promote resources such the Writing Center, Learning Resource Center, teacher conferences, library workshops, and tutoring services.

Math 73 and 80 are the current prerequisite courses to be eligible to take any transfer-level course at EC.

According to the EC website, anywhere from 49 to 55 and percent of students passed Math 73 and around 39 to 45 percent of students passed Math 80 since 2015.

If students are having a rough time passing these prerequisite classes, they will feel even more pressured and stressed if they have to move onto a transfer-level course that they are not nearly prepared for.

The age range of EC students vary, therefore students coming back to school after 10 to 30 years may have a hard time trying to find the confidence to even take a prerequisite class and this law is just going to try and move them along after a year, despite the students’ own reservations.

However, this will open up more English 1A and more transfer-level math courses in the upcoming semesters which will be helpful since many of these courses are difficult to get into because for the first week of the semester many students are trying to take these same classes.

In addition to EC, other community colleges are going to be directly affected by this law as well.

At Compton Community College, 51 to 55 percent of students passed English A and 43 to 59 percent passed English B since 2015, according to the El Camino College website.

On average, 51 to 58 percent of students passed English 1A since 2015.

Once this law goes into effect, it will have a large impact on students because many of them are not ready to be placed into transfer-level classes.

Students should be allowed to take the classes that they see fit for themselves and should be able to go at their own pace.

Although it’s important that EC continues to support those students who may not be ready to level up, it’s also important for students to know what suits them best.

Editorials are unsigned and are written and voted upon by the editorial board.