University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

AB 705: the equity policy – race and power in the implementation of a developmental education reform

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AB 705: the equity policy – race and power in the implementation of a developmental education reform

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AB 705: THE EQUITY POLICY – RACE AND POWER IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION REFORM

By

Adrián L. Trinidad

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
URBAN EDUCATION POLICY

December 2021

Copyright 2021 Adrián L. Trinidad

i

Dedication

This dissertation is dedicated to all the children in south central Los Angeles who are told they
cannot achieve their dreams. We can and do.

In loving memory of Michael Angel Figueroa, who passed tragically on August 9
th
, 2021. You
will forever be in our hearts.

ii

Acknowledgments

A hood mantra and my life motto have been “if you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get
ready,” and my “readiness” (dissertation pun) was made possible by many. To start, my ability to
reside in the indigenous people’s Tongva land (Los Angeles) would not be possible without my
family’s migration from Colonia Emiliano Zapata Tepetongo Zacatecas México. A family of ten,
raised in a ranch by my abuela, Paula Román Ramirez, the Muro family shows the values of
strength and love. My tíos y tías, Herberto Muro, Emma Enriquez, Rosa Escobedo, Enrique
Muro, Jose Muro, Angel Muro, Teresa Mendoza, Gustavo Muro, Patricia Fales and Baltazar
Muro, have shared stories of resistance, care, and family that made me who I am. Thank you for
modeling these values and showing me the importance of leading with humility and kindness.
My educational journey to this Ph.D. began with my lifelong teacher, my mamá, Rosario.
I am fortunate to have been raised by such a strong, compassionate, and loving mother. Since
kindergarten, from asking “¿que aprendiste hoy?” (what did you learn today?) to celebrating our
educational achievements, you have made me a lifelong learner. Thank you for showing our
family how to make the best of any situation and always treat others with respect. To my papá,
Eleodoro, your battle with schizophrenia has been my greatest challenge and my most valued life
lesson. Thank you for showing me care in your own way and always loving me. To my brother
Alex, who wanted to keep me crawling so I would not fall and hurt myself as a baby, the
example you set for me was invaluable. You have paved the road and supported me to sprint
across it. I can never thank you enough. To my brother Aldo, my role model whom I respect so
dearly, thank you for showing me the values of never being afraid to fail, having strong ethics,
and keeping my word. Both of you have supported and loved me more than I can ever express.
To my familia, this degree is our collective accomplishment.
iii

My educational path expanded early on because of programs and people. I am grateful
for A Place Called Home, a nonprofit whose mission was to provide gang-affected youth in
south central a haven and safe space to simply “be a kid.” Through this program introduced by
Elsa Gutierrez, a family friend and school counselor, my brothers and I were exposed to vital
school resources. It is also here where Alex met a mentor, Gary Credle, whom I credit with
exposing my family to substantial opportunities. My resources and know-how to attend college
would not have been possible without these investments in my community. Thank you for
making this possible.
My experience as a student at Los Angeles Trade Technical College was transformative
in developing my deep passion for community colleges. Here I built a strong sense of community
from counselors, faculty and staff who made LATTC feel like home. At LATTC I met professor
Roberto Mancia who exposed me to the literary works of Toni Morrison, Rigoberta Menchu, and
many more. As an immigrant, you spoke about how your Spanish tongue was not “Spanish
enough” among family and never “English enough” for your U.S. peers. Caught between two
worlds and never accepted in either, your stories made me feel like I could belong in college.
The sense of empowerment you created in the classroom was powerful. Thank you for sparking
my intellectual curiosity and giving me the fuel to pursue many opportunities beyond Trade.
When I transferred to USC, my world opened because of the Norman Topping Student
Aid Fund. Directors Christina L. Yokoyama and Dr. Felipe Martinez created a space like no
other. From retreats to service events to banquets, this program and its staff provided me with the
family, resources, and necessary socio-cultural know-how to successfully navigate a space like
USC. Topping was a life-changing experience, and for that, I am forever grateful and will pay it
iv

forward. To Topping scholars and friends, too many to name here, thank you for leading with the
spirit of service and modeling good leadership for me. Keep that commitment alive.
Through Topping, I developed valuable relationships with USC faculty. My first class at
USC on immigration with Dr. Emir Estrada, a proud Zacatecana, made my transition to the
university rich and affirming. I appreciate our luncheon together and your words of
encouragement over the years. I am grateful to Dr. George J. Sanchez for relating your
experience growing up in Los Angeles and demystifying higher education. From traveling
together to Japan to explaining graduate school, you were a key figure in exposing me to
opportunities. Thank you for staying committed to our community. I appreciate Dr. Jody A.
Vallejo for exposing me to the world of research. Dr. Veronica Terriquez was key in teaching me
the ropes of research methods and study design. You challenged me to become a better thinker
and, most importantly, to do work that makes a difference. Thank you.
These relationships led me to an amazingly distinguished dissertation committee. I am
eternally grateful for my advisor, Dr. Estela M. Bensimon, who supported my professional and
personal growth over the past six years. This dissertation was strengthened by your generous
feedback and many meeting hours discussing writing a theoretically rich and meaningful
analysis. Thank you for challenging me to use my words to dismantle systems of oppression.
Your trust in me and the doors you opened have given me the ability to go on and challenge the
status quo. I have had the most incredible luxury of learning alongside one of the fiercest
advocates for racial justice. I am indebted to Dr. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, who introduced me
to Estela and enhanced my time at USC in so many ways. From advising my sociology thesis to
collaborating to study south central parks and community gardens, you have nurtured my
development as a scholar and helped enrich this dissertation. I want to thank Dr. Shaun R.
v

Harper for challenging me to advance more consequential questions in my scholarship and
reclaim my purpose. Your leadership has been a model of how to use platforms to redistribute
power among the people and advocate for the most oppressed members of our society. Thank
you for being in my corner to support my doctoral journey (and beyond) from the start.
While at USC, I have been fortunate to have a big scholarly family to support me. To the
O.G.’s – Dr. Cheryl D. Ching, Dr. Cynthia D. Villarreal, Dr. Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux, Paloma
Saenz, and Dr. Román Liera – thank you for creating a space of love, laughter, tears, and joy.
From Cheryl co-advising me on this dissertation to Paloma being the greatest officemate,
chatting Lakers basketball with Román, venting over the job market with Cynthia and so much
more, to having a badass role model like Lindsey (despite being a Clippers fan), I have thrived in
this program because of each of you. During our movie nights, I also loved guest appearances by
Antony, Dianita, Issac and Lina. Thank you all for giving me the courage, knowledge and
affirmations to persist. The Latinx collective created by Dr. Diane Nevárez to develop a sense of
belonging in this Ph.D. program was a beautiful space to learn and grow together. I loved the
authenticity and commitment of this group, past and present members, to support ourselves and
our comunidad. I am especially appreciative of Theresa Hernandez and Mabel Hernandez, who
helped coordinate events. Thank you to the Slaughterhouse and API Collectives whose
leadership excites me about the future of education.
I am thankful for the research team at the Center for Urban Education, including,
Esmeralda Hernandez-Hamed, Dr. Jason Robinson, Jordan Greer, Marlon Fernandez Castro,
Deanna Cherry, Dr. Dayna Jessie Meyer, Dr. Maxine Roberts, Dr. Eric R. Felix, and other CUE
staff and student assistants including Ana Mercado, Andrea Porras, Daniela Cruz, Karla Barrón,
Samantha Kosai and Simon Liu, whose daily work to stride towards equity taught me so much. I
vi

am especially grateful for my hermano and Zacatecano, Dr. Daniel Galvan, who has supported
and uplifted me when I needed it most. So many good memories and people from this office that
I will cherish forever.
USC faculty supported my critical consciousness and development. Dr. Manuel Pastor
and Dr. Viet Thanh Nguyen were influential in my pursuit of research opportunities that closely
examine racism. At Rossier, I have been fortunate to learn more closely from Drs. Julie Marsh,
Julie R. Posselt, Tatiana Melguizo, and William G. Tierney. The Ph.D. program was logistically
a breeze because of the fantastic work of Laura Gibbons Romero, Alex Atashi, Patrick Patterson,
and others before. Thank you for all your dedication to students. My time at Rossier was
affirming because facilities staff, Felix, Dora, and Angel, who always encouraged me to “echarle
ganas.” You made this foreign space feel like home.
Special thanks to the #lastobamacohort that kept me afloat during courses. Together, we
did it! I am especially grateful for Drs. David Velasquez, Liane Hypolite, Martin Gamboa, and
Theresa Hernandez who have modeled teamwork and leadership. Each of you have made me a
better person and you will always have a special place in my heart. I am grateful for badass
mujeres, doctoras Arely Acuña, Diane Nevárez, Marissiko Wheaton, and Quỳnh Tiên Nguyên
Lê, who with humility are among the strongest and smartest educators that I know. I am
fortunate to have met many at the Pullias Center for Higher Education. Thank you Aireale
Rodgers, Dr. Antar A. Tichavakunda, Deborah E. Southern, Diane Flores, Dr. Federick Ngo,
Jude Paul Matias Dizon, Kaylan Baxter, Steve Desir, and Dr. Zoe Blumberg Corwin, for all our
many conversations together and for inspiring me throughout this journey. The greatest treasure
from Pullias was befriending the soon-to-be doctor, from Echo Park to Ph.D., Carlos Galan. Our
friendship has fed me life during this dissertation through long calls, game nights, conference
vii

adventures, and much more. Thank you for being a beacon of light and positivity. You have been
the greatest hypeman and have supported me in more ways than you may realize.
My longest-running friends of elementary school, Lorenzo Chavez and Antonio Cerna –
thank you for always being there for me all these years. My close friend Christopher Yik, from
the moment I saw those beat-up Honda keys (like mine), I knew we would be close friends. I am
grateful for Jorge Martinez, who is among the hardest working people I know, and selflessly
supported me when I needed it most. I grew from my friendships with Dr. Edwin Hernandez, Dr.
Jamal Evan Mazyck, Natalie Reyes, and Kassandra Flores, each of who have given me so much
encouragement from the beginning. My dear friends, Jose Ortega and Carolyn Boteilho, thank
you for many years of friendship. I have treasured our many trips, game nights, and long healing
conversations.
During the COVID-19 global pandemic and this dissertation, I am grateful for the
greatest movie crew ever commissioned at AERA – Dr. Suneal Kolluri, Dr. Liane Hypolite, Dr.
David Velasquez, Grace McCullough, and Monique Beckman. From movie dress-ups to
preparing highly elaborate games for selecting movies, this group gave me energy each week as
we talked about the pandemic, dissertations, and all things life. This dissertation would not be
possible without the help of participants who opened up their worlds to me. Thank you for
sharing your experiences with me. I hope that this dissertation has given your stories the nuance
and value they deserve.
Last but not least, this journey would not have been possible without my ride or die,
Monique. You have seen me grow over ten years and have given me the strength to finish. I’m
grateful for your patience, encouragement and love after all these years. During the most
challenging moments in this journey, you were the most candid sounding board and warmest
viii

shoulder to shed tears. Whether it was taking me on adventures, modeling to help me hone my
photography craft, or reading drafts of this dissertation, I always counted on you without
question for the support I needed. No words can describe how much you mean to me and how
much your sacrifices made this possible. The completion of this dissertation was a collective
effort and I hope you enjoy the fruits of your labor in our life-long ride together.

Chapter closed.

ix

Table of Contents
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... ii
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... ix
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... xii
List of Figures .............................................................................................................................xiii
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... xiv
CHAPTER 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
Purpose and Research Questions ....................................................................................... 9
Study significance ............................................................................................................ 11
Organization of Dissertation ............................................................................................ 12
CHAPTER 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................. 14
Developmental Education as a Major Barrier to Student Success ................................... 17
AB 705 – Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012 ........................................... 27
State Policy Approaches to Developmental Education Reforms ..................................... 34
Implementation of Developmental Education Reforms .................................................. 37
CHAPTER 3: Theoretical Framework......................................................................................... 42
Sensemaking .................................................................................................................... 45
Critical Sensemaking ....................................................................................................... 50
Critical Race Sensemaking .............................................................................................. 54
Chapter Closing ............................................................................................................... 65
CHAPTER 4: Research Design ................................................................................................... 67
Site Selection ................................................................................................................... 68
Data Collection ................................................................................................................ 77
Data Analysis ................................................................................................................... 81
Chapter Closing ............................................................................................................... 85
x

CHAPTER 5: The Delivery of Developmental Education at Two Colleges ............................... 87
Developmental Education at Village College .................................................................. 88
Developmental Education at Sunnyville ........................................................................ 100
Chapter Closing ............................................................................................................. 107
CHAPTER 6: How Institutional Actors Made Sense of AB 705 .............................................. 109
Advocates Believed AB 705 Increased Access to Transferable Courses Eliminating “Exit
Points” ............................................................................................................................ 111
Opponents Criticize AB 705 as Fallaciously Motivated ............................................... 121
Chapter Closing ............................................................................................................. 133
CHAPTER 7: Awareness of Racialization in Developmental Education ................................. 136
Advocates Disturbed by Racialized Placement Trend within Developmental Education
........................................................................................................................................ 137
Opponents saw AB 705 as Necessary and Developmental Education through a Race
Evasive Lens .................................................................................................................. 146
Chapter Closing ............................................................................................................. 154
CHAPTER 8: How Institutional Leaders Implemented AB 705 ............................................... 156
Village’s English Division: A New Disruptive Leader Challenges the Status Quo ...... 159
Village’s Math Division: A Influential Leader Convinces Faculty to do the “Right Thing”
........................................................................................................................................ 174
Sunnyville’s English Division: Equity Leaders Accommodate Faculty’s “Equity
Journeys”........................................................................................................................ 180
Sunnyville’s Mathematics Division: A Compliant Leader Reluctantly Meets Mandates
........................................................................................................................................ 190
Chapter Closing ............................................................................................................. 195
CHAPTER 9: Discussion and Implications ............................................................................... 198
Summary of Major Findings .......................................................................................... 199
xi

Connecting Findings to Research and Theory ............................................................... 207
Implications for Policy ................................................................................................... 216
Implications for Practice ................................................................................................ 218
References .................................................................................................................................. 221
Appendix A: Policy Context: California Initiatives Leading up to AB 705 .............................. 263
Appendix B: AB 705’s Goals Regarding Assessment, Placement, and Curriculum ................. 266
Appendix C: Historical Context of Developmental Education in the U.S. 1800s-Present ........ 268
Appendix D: U.S. States Implementing Changes to Developmental Education ....................... 271
Appendix E: Service Area Characteristics of Study Sites (2017) .............................................. 274
Appendix F: General Interview Guide for Faculty, Counselors, Administrators, and Staff ..... 275
Appendix G: Summary Characteristics of Interview Participants ............................................. 278
Appendix H: Summary of Course Sequence Changes Pre and Post-AB 705............................ 280
Appendix I: Post-AB 705 Success Outcomes for Village and Sunnyville ................................ 281
Appendix J: Request for Interview: AB 705 Policy Implementation ........................................ 284
Appendix K: Study Limitations ................................................................................................. 285

xii

List of Tables

Table 1. Sensemaking Approaches Applied to AB 705 .............................................................. 44
Table 2. Percent of full-time enrollments and percent of students enrolled into basic skills
courses for the 2017-2018 academic year disaggregated by race and ethnicity ........................... 70
Table 3. Completion rates of each subgroup who attempted for the first time a developmental
course and successfully passed a college-level English or math class within six years ............... 72
Table 4. Village 2-year throughput rates of transferable English for students placed in a
developmental English course (Traditional track) ........................................................................ 89
Table 5. Village 3-year throughput rates of transferable math for students enrolled in a
developmental math course* (traditional STEM track) ................................................................ 95
Table 6. Village 1-year throughput rates of transferable math for students placed in accelerated
course * (accelerated + corequisite) .............................................................................................. 98
Table 7. Sunnyville 3-year throughput rates of transferable English for students placed in a
developmental English course* (traditional track) ..................................................................... 102
Table 8. Sunnyville 3-year throughput rates of transferable math for students placed in a
developmental math course * (traditional track) ........................................................................ 105
Table 9. Sunnyville 3-year throughput rates of transferable math for students placed one level
below transfer* (accelerated track) ............................................................................................. 106
Table 10. Summary Characteristics of Advocates and Opponents at Village and Sunnyville .. 111
Table 11. Profile of Village and Sunnyville Division Leaders .................................................. 158
Table 12. Organizational Arrangements of Village and Sunnyville that Influenced Faculty
Responses to AB 705 .................................................................................................................. 159

xiii

List of Figures

Figure 1. Percentage of first-time California community college students who attempted a
developmental English course and completed a college-level course in English within six years
....................................................................................................................................................... 26
Figure 2. Percentage of first-time California Community College students who attempted a
developmental math course and completed a college-level course in math within six years ....... 27
Figure 3. Critical Race Sensemaking ........................................................................................... 55

xiv

Abstract

Parker (1998) and Tate (1997) urge policy scholars to study not whether racism exists
within education systems but to examine how racial meanings provide the basis for action, which
can impact minoritized students (Evans, 2007). This study examines how racial meanings are
evident in actors’ sensemaking and actions to implement AB 705. Using concepts of critical
sensemaking (Helms Mills et al., 2010) under a racialized organizations lens (Ray, 2019), critical
race sensemaking is conceptualized to consider how meaning is constructed and actualized to
inform the dominant racial order, as evident for example, in the over placement of minoritized
students into developmental education. The framework allows examining whether actors
believed the policy was motivated as a means to achieve racial equity.
This study uses 38 in-depth interviews with community college actors responsible for AB
705’s implementation at two sites to address three goals. First, it examines the ways institutional
actors made sense of the goals and desired outcomes of the policy. Second, it investigates
whether awareness of developmental education as a racialized practice shaped how actors made
sense of AB 705. Finally, it examined how leaders exercised their agency and power to influence
the policy’s implementation from the standpoint of racial equity.
To the first goal, the findings show implementers had varying interpretations of AB705
based on various experiences. The spectrum of interpretations were categorized as ‘advocates’
and ‘opponents’ of AB 705. Advocates were: 1) believers of data identifying prevailing equity
gaps, 2) avid consumers and purveyors of professional development, and 3) previous
experimenters of acceleration. This led supporters to believe that AB 705 would increase access
to transferable courses, affirms students as college-ready, and as a social justice initiative with
transformative potential to close equity gaps. In contrast, opponents guided by many years of
xv

teaching experience framed AB 705 as poorly informed and fallaciously motivated by desires to
save funding.
To the second goal, awareness of racialization was similarly split on a spectrum of
beliefs. Advocates welcomed AB 705 because they recognized that racialization was an inherent
feature of developmental education. They identified racialization in two areas: patterns of
racialized placement and course curriculum that centers exclusively on whiteness (Leonardo,
2009). To advocates, this recognition turned into support of AB 705’s mandate to expand access
and also the questioning of the existing curriculum. In contrast, opponents saw developmental
education as a necessary academic intervention to correct student deficiencies described in coded
and sometimes racially explicit ways (Pollock, 2004).
To the third goal, this study found that leaders who were aware of racialization in
developmental education and supportive of its reform were much more influential in pressuring
the implementation of AB 705 from the standpoint of racial equity. They facilitated dialogue
about race and openly challenged racist assumptions in faculty beliefs and practices.
Additionally, executive leadership was differentially involved in supporting the equitable
implementation of AB 705 and exercised their influence accordingly. The study contributes to a
dearth of literature on race and power in the sensemaking of higher education policies with
aspirations for racial equity. I conclude the dissertation with implications for practice and policy.

1

CHAPTER 1: Introduction
California Community Colleges as Racialized
Community colleges are the primary entry point to higher education for racially
minoritized students (Cohen & Brawer, 2008); in fact, minoritized students are overrepresented
in these colleges and the majority, despite having high aspirations to earn a B.A., do not go on to
complete bachelor degrees (McFarland et al., 2019). At community colleges, racial stratification
is evident in degrees awarded (Contreras & Contreras, 2015), transfer to 4-year institutions
(Bailey et al., 2005; Bustillos et al., 2017; Hagedorn et al., 2007), funding formulas (Dowd &
Grant, 2006), college leadership (Bustillos & Siqueiros, 2018), access to transfer-level (Mejia et
al., 2016) and STEM courses (Cohen & Kelly, 2018), and even counselor (Maldonado, 2018)
and faculty (Roberts, 2019) perception of students’ abilities. Described as the de facto minority-
serving education sector (Malcom, 2012), community colleges with the least funding per student
compared to 4-year public and private institutions (McFarland et al., 2019) have historically
served racially minoritized students that have experienced significant inequity and disadvantage
in educational opportunity (Kao & Thompson, 2003; Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015).
In California, its Master Plan for Higher Education created a tiered public higher
education system with distinct missions (Coons et al., 1960). The ten-campus University of
California (UC) system accepts the top-performing students and serves as the state’s premier
research institution. The 23 campus California State University (CSU) system primarily educates
undergraduates and offers professional programs. The California Community Colleges – which
are open access colleges with multiple roles – provide students with liberal arts and transfer
education, vocational training, developmental education, and noncredit community learning
(Dougherty, 1992). As scholars have argued, creating a tiered education system that sorts
students based on selectivity and merit has resulted in opportunity prospects that vary by race
2

and ethnicity (Bastedo & Gumport, 2003; Bowles & Gintis, 2002). Minoritized students who
make up the vast majority of community colleges have limited chances of transferring to the
CSU system generally and especially to elite UC institutions (Bustillos et al., 2017). Since
college access is highly linked to racial and socioeconomic segregation in K-12 schools (Owens,
2010; Reardon & Owens, 2014), community colleges create a contradiction between access and
equitable outcomes whereby minoritized students who require additional support to be successful
receive the least institutional resources (Dougherty, 1994; Dowd, 2007).
Critical scholars of community colleges have attributed their low completion and transfer
rates (Goldrick-Rab & Pfeffer, 2009; Melguizo et al., 2011) to their differentiated and stratified
foundation (Karabel, 1972). In other words, the characteristics of community colleges (e.g., open
access, inadequate funding) create conditions of structured “failure” (Karabel, 1972, p. 539),
particularly for racially minoritized students (Dowd, 2007). Burton Clark (1963) used the term
“cooling out” to describe the processes used by community colleges to dampen students’
aspirations. For instance, counselors may discourage these students from transfer to universities
and instead recommend them to pursue a trades certificate (Clark, 1963). Others have described
these colleges as “contradictory colleges” given the lure of educational opportunity; open access
has not led to the completion of degrees for most students (Dougherty, 1994). Rather than
provide avenues for second chances to social mobility, community colleges maintain dominant
stratification patterns in higher education (Brint & Karabel, 1989), often along racial lines
(Malcom, 2012).
Developmental Education as Racialized
Developmental education is symbolic of the community college as a racialized
organization. In California, upwards of over 87 percent of Black, Latinx, and American Indians
3

find themselves trapped in non-credit math, English, and reading courses until they give up and
drop out (Rodriguez et al., 2016). Only 16 percent of developmental students make it through the
developmental education gauntlet, go on to college-level courses, and complete degrees or
certificate degrees, while only 24 percent transfer after six years (Rodriguez et al., 2016).
Through the use of developmental education, community colleges serve as gatekeepers to 4-year
colleges for primarily minoritized students because developmental education is
disproportionately and mistakenly deemed necessary for these students (Dowd, 2007).
Remedial or developmental education (DE)
1
is a sequence of courses that 2- and 4-year
colleges require of students whom they identify as not being academically ready for college-level
English and math courses (Sparks & Malkus, 2013). These courses can be found in just about all
colleges that are open- or quasi-open access, and in the case of community colleges,
developmental education courses can consist of as many as four levels of courses below credit-
bearing college courses (Bailey, 2009). The primary method for placement of students into
English and math courses is through assessment tests, which research has proven severely
misplaces students in general but especially racially minoritized students (Scott-Clayton et al.,
2014).
As the vanguard of access and opportunity (Avni & Finn, 2019), serving half of the entire
U.S. undergraduate population (McFarland et al., 2019), community colleges have a significant
equity problem. Far too many students – especially Black, Latinx, Southeast Asian, Pacific

1
Throughout this dissertation, the terms basic skills, remedial education and developmental education are used
interchangeably according to how they are used in the cited literature. All of these terms are regarded as referring to
the same set of courses (Rodriguez et al., 2016). Scholars such as Kurlaender and Larsen (2013) refrain from using
the term “remedial education” to avoid deficit frameworks of student success, and instead opt for “developmental
education.” The policy of concern in this study, Assembly Bill 705, uses “remedial education” exclusively in its
legislative language. Hence, these terms are used interchangeably both as used in the literature and how they appear
in data collection.
4

Islander, and American Indian students (Bettinger & Long, 2005; Sparks & Malkus, 2013)
2
– are
placed into developmental education courses with very high dropout rates. Developmental
education, a purportedly equity-focused strategy (Bahr, 2012) – to prepare those students
considered “underprepared” – turned out to be contradictory to their mission as second chance
colleges for students who are excluded from admission to 4-year institutions (Cohen & Brawer,
2008). Instead, developmental education has been an inexorable obstacle for racially minoritized
community college students to complete degrees or transfer to a 4-year university (Complete
College America, 2016)
3
.
Black and Latinx students enroll at higher rates into lower developmental course
sequences than some Asian American subgroups and white students, even though Black and
Latinx students have the same college readiness level (Mejia et al., 2016)
4
. Most students
struggle to finish developmental courses when they enroll, especially if placed in two or more
courses below college-level (Bailey et al., 2010), which is common (Melguizo et al., 2014; Ngo
& Kwon, 2015). Students’ experiences taking these courses are racialized (Roberts, 2019), as are
faculty and counselor perceptions about students' abilities (Maldonado, 2019; Roberts, 2019).
These developmental students are also taught by faculty adjuncts who have the least legitimacy
and resources (Gerstein, 2009).

2
I use the term Latinx rather than “Hispanic” or “Latina/o” to be gender inclusive when referencing peoples of Latin
American descent. I recognize data collection practices from the U.S. Census and educational institutions have yet to
acknowledge the intersectionality of race, language, culture, and gender. Therefore, I replace “Hispanic” and
“Latina/o” with “Latinx” when sharing data collected by these agencies and institutions. For a thorough description
of the Latinx term as used in higher education, see Salinas and Lozano (2017).
3
I use the term “minoritized” rather than “minority” to emphasize that persons are not born into a minority status,
but are subordinated and rendered into minority positions by U.S. social institutions (Gillborn, 2005; Harper, 2012).
4
I choose not to capitalize white to decentralize whiteness in discussions of race and ethnicity.
5

Racialization and Antiracist Policy
Although race is a social construct, it circumscribes a social reality that produces “real
effects on the actors racialized as “Black” or “white” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 9). Race has
“definite social consequences” that exist even when race is not explicitly named (Omi & Winant,
2015, p. 110). When processes such as interactions with counselors and faculty impart social and
symbolic meaning to race, the basis is formed by which to “other” and exclude some racial
groups (Ray, 2019; Omi & Winant, 2015). For example, counselors' belief that white students
deserve better placement than Latinx students is a form of racialization (Maldonado, 2019), as is
the perception that Black students are not capable of performing well in developmental math
(Roberts, 2020). Hence, racialization, the process of assigning racial meaning to relationships,
social practices, or groups (Omi & Winant, 2015), is evident in both community colleges and
developmental education given that key measures, including enrollment, funding, and success
outcomes, are often stratified along racial lines (Attewell et al., 2006; Gumport & Bastedo,
2001).
In the past ten years, there has been a flurry of experimentation with developmental
education reform. These reforms, including accelerated courses, direct placement into college-
level courses based on high school performance, and combinations of college-level courses with
supplemental instruction, have shown promising early results (Scott-Clayton, 2012). The
movement to eliminate developmental English and math courses has gained momentum, as
evidenced by the growing number of states that now mandate the acceleration of students’
placement into college-level classes (Jones et al., 2012). Recently, California has joined this
national movement to reform developmental education across its 116-community college system.
Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705) in California attempts to transform the pattern of inequitable
6

outcomes in developmental education by essentially eliminating it. AB 705 attempts to challenge
the existing power of remediation in shaping outcomes by race and ethnicity and can potentially
undo the consequences of racialization in developmental education.
Ibram X. Kendi (2019a) provides a helpful way of understanding race and racism in
policy. He proposes that policy outcomes (including practices, processes, and structures) can be
racist or anti-racist. Policies are racist if they have racist outcomes, while policies can be “anti-
racist” when producing racial equity and true equality among racial groups (Kendi, 2019b). In
the case of California, AB 705, the policy eliminating developmental education, can be viewed
as producing racial equity because the minoritized students who are disproportionately impacted
by developmental education now have an opportunity to enroll directly into transfer-level
courses. The legislative text of AB 705 underscores its equity implications because placement
policies into English and math courses have “serious implications for equity, since students of
color are more likely to be placed into remedial courses” (California Community College
Chancellor’s Office, n.d., p. 2). Yet, for policy to have racially just outcomes, much depends on
how implementers understand the policy and how policy intents are translated into practices.
This study focuses on how institutional actors make sense of and implement AB 705, in
particular, how race and racial equity play out in implementation decisions and practices.
Assembly Bill 705: A Challenge to Racialization in Developmental Education
In 2017, Governor Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. signed into law Assembly Bill 705 (Senate
Bill - SB-1456). AB 705 is part of a broader package of reform policies introduced during Jerry
Brown’s governorship. As a former trustee to the Los Angeles Community College District, the
largest district in the country, Governor Brown during his tenure introduced an influx of policy
initiatives (e.g., SB 1456, AB 19, AB 1809; summarized in Appendix A) that were aimed at
7

increasing efficiency and productivity in the community colleges. These initiatives improve
transfer programs, support services, and funding allocations, among others, and contribute to the
Chancellor’s Office’s ambitious goals outlined in the Vision for Success (Fried et al., 2017). The
Vision is a strategic plan by the Board of Governors that lays out five bold goals in the next ten
years for the California Community Colleges. AB 705 supports four of the Vision’s goals:
increase the number of students earning credentials, increase the number of students who
transfer, reduce the accumulation of credits by students who complete degrees, and close equity
gaps.
AB 705 aims to reform assessment and placement processes to increase the likelihood of
students entering and completing transfer-level English and math courses within one year. To
accomplish this, AB 705 requires colleges to enact changes in three areas: assessment and
placement, curriculum, and co-curricular course design (AB 705 is outlined in detail in
Appendix B). AB 705 requires California Community Colleges to use multiple measures,
including high school coursework, grades, GPA, noncognitive factors, and students’ self-
assessment to place students into English and math courses. Under AB 705, most students should
now be placed directly into transfer-level classes. Consequently, colleges should offer more
transfer-level courses since many students will no longer enroll in developmental courses. The
policy also bans the sole use of cognitive assessment tests for placement matters. It prohibits
colleges from enrolling students in developmental courses unless they can prove that students
have better chances of completing transferable courses by enrolling in developmental courses.
Hence, AB 705 challenges procedures that for decades have essentially warehoused racially
minoritized students in classes that, for the most part, led nowhere.
8

Also expected under AB 705 are changes to pedagogy and curriculum because students
who were previously placed into developmental education will now enroll alongside students
placed directly into college-level courses. Colleges were in full compliance with the policy by
fall 2019. In the literature review, I outline in closer detail the historical context of AB 705 and
how its framing – mainly one that centers on developmental education as an equity issue – is key
for implementation.
Policy Implementation and Developmental Education Reforms
Education policy implementation is an increasingly complex process that depends heavily
on the actions of local practitioners (Honig, 2006). Prior research has also shown that how a
policy is implemented has much to do with how policy implementers perceive policy
beneficiaries (Chase, 2016). The extent to which practitioners enact a policy like AB 705 with
fidelity to its racial equity potential (Heck, 2004) also depends on how practitioners interpret it
and how they go about its implementation (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1989; Yanow, 2007). For
example, AB 705’s equity potential requires that implementers be aware of its origins and
intents. If the policy is viewed purely as a mandate from Sacramento that demands proof of
compliance, its emancipatory potential may be sidelined.
Limited studies examining developmental education reforms have focused on how they
are implemented (Brower et al., 2017; Daugherty et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2015; Kalamkarian et al.,
2015). In policy implementation studies, there is a shortage of sensemaking studies in higher
education research in general, but particularly on the role of race and power in sensemaking
(Chase, 2013; 2016). The limited theoretical and empirical attention to the role of race and power
in the sensemaking of policy is harmful because it overlooks how policy codifies the interests of
those in power, and how implementation is a power-laden process (Datnow, 2000; Levinson et
9

al., 2009). To contribute to this literature, I examine the implementation of AB 705, an equity
policy that I argue can serve as an instrument of equity for policymakers (Chase, 2013), a tool to
alleviate educational disparities that currently exist in developmental education.
Purpose and Research Questions
Parker (1998) and Tate (1997) urge policy scholars to study not whether racism exists
within education systems but to examine how racial meanings provide the basis for action, which
can impact minoritized students (Evans, 2007). In this dissertation study, I examine how racial
meanings, whether articulated or not, are evident in actors’ sensemaking and actions to
implement AB 705. This policy’s potential as a catalyst for equity-focused reform depends on
whether institutional actors make sense of the policy’s intended purpose, beneficiaries, and
motivation as undergirded by a conception of AB 705 as a means to achieve racial equity. The
potential for AB 705 as an equity policy faces many threats that could derail it, such as resistance
from faculty and counselors. While AB 705 can rectify the harms caused by developmental
education, it also poses the specter of job loss for the large workforce dedicated to developmental
education (Daugherty et al., 2018).
I answer my research questions (outlined below) using 38 interviews with institutional
actors tasked with implementing AB 705 at two community colleges in Southern California. I
center race and power in the analysis of my research questions. To do this, theoretically, my
study builds on sensemaking and organizational theories in race to propose Critical Race
Sensemaking. This framework situates race and power as central to sensemaking processes
within racialized organizations. It emphasizes that sensemaking processes at multiple levels are
mediated through organizations and their resources to maintain racial hierarchies within higher
education (Ray, 2019).
10

I examine how implementers of AB 705 made sense of its goals and aspired outcomes
and whether achieving racial equity was seen as a priority to support the large numbers of
minoritized students affected by developmental education. Hence, my first research question is:
1. In what ways do institutional actors understand the goals and desired outcomes of
AB 705?
This study is informed by sensemaking theories as well as a blend of theories in the study
of race and organizations. Drawing on Ray (2019), I argue that community colleges are
racialized organizations that systematically allocate resources and enforce rules that uphold
dominant racial hierarchies in developmental education, as exemplified for example, in having
adjuncts who receive the least support teach developmental courses made up almost exclusively
of minoritized students (Gerstein, 2009). The extent to which institutional actors recognize that
developmental education has patterns of racialization and that efforts to maintain it perpetuate
racial inequity in success outcomes may influence their approach to developmental education
reform. Thus, my second question asks:
2. How does awareness of developmental education as a racialized practice shape how
institutional actors make sense of AB 705?
As Dumas and Anyon (2006) remind us, not all actors have the same influence on the
policy implementation process. Some individuals have more power over others. Power is a force
primarily about the exercise of control, and it explains the cause and effect between relationships
and sets of phenomena (Foucault, 1979). Questions of power are often concerned with how
organizations empower or limit individuals from exercising their agency (Ray, 2019). Agency in
critical theory refers to “human action to transform social conditions that create or perpetuate
injustice based on gender, race, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or other characteristics
11

that are markers of “otherness” (Chase et al., 2013, p. 174; Freire, 1970; Seo & Creed, 2002).
Similar to Chase and colleagues’ (2013), the term agency in this study refers to the actions of
individuals who channel resources and opportunities to historically minoritized students who
have not benefited from comparable resources and services available to white and wealthy
students. Power imbalances enable agency to be enhanced or taken away (Dumas & Anyon,
2006), influencing actors’ sensemaking of policies like AB 705. Thus, I ask:
3. In what ways do leaders exercise their agency and power to influence the
implementation of AB 705?
Study significance
This study contributes to gaps in research, policy, and practice. First, it contributes to the
limited research on how institutional actors interpret and implement developmental education
reforms across the country. Research on developmental education has treated race as a
demographic variable and has not addressed racialization as a characteristic of the practices and
processes that comprise developmental education or as a feature of its outcomes. AB 705
presented an opportunity to spotlight this understudied aspect of developmental education
reforms, including how practitioners make sense of their equity aspirations. Relatedly, this study
adds to sensemaking studies in higher education on the role of race and power in policy
implementation (Chase, 2013; 2016).
For policy advocates of AB 705, this study is valuable to scholars and advocates of
progressive policies. Specifically, it defines some challenges and considerations that should be
taken to ensure that implementers embody a policy's vision. It also helps policymakers identify
some taken-for-granted assumptions about implementing equity policies and inform future
policies via recommendations. Some of these considerations focus specifically on issues of
12

governance, leadership, and faculty engagement with policy reforms. Finally, the study’s
findings offer practical insights into how community college actors can overcome
implementation challenges as they understand, negotiate, and enact AB 705. Results are
beneficial to implementers at other colleges in the 116-community college system.
Organization of Dissertation
In this dissertation, I begin by offering the theoretical and empirical motivation for this
study. In Chapter 2, I review in detail: the use of developmental education as a racially
stratifying feature of the community colleges; the rise of developmental education reforms,
highlighting various approaches and studies on their implementation; and studies on the
sensemaking and implementation of higher education policies. The role of race is emphasized
throughout the literature review. In Chapter 3, Critical Race Sensemaking is conceptualized as a
theoretical framework to explain how race and power influence sensemaking during policy
implementation. After describing its main features, I argue why it is appropriate in the study of
AB 705. Next, in Chapter 4, the research design chapter covers data collection considerations
like sampling and site selection, analysis process, and trustworthiness. Chapter 5 offers the
necessary background into historical and institutional contexts that set the stage for
implementation at two community colleges studied. This includes describing departmental
cultures, department leadership, and prior attempts at developmental education reform.
Chapter 6 answers my first research question by explaining how institutional actors made
sense of AB 705 and how they came to have their beliefs. To organize the spectrum of
interpretations, I categorized respondents as “advocates” and “opponents” of AB 705 while
showing key differences. Chapter 7 presents how awareness of developmental education as a
racialized practice influenced whether advocates and opponents sought to dismantle or maintain
13

the status quo of developmental education under AB 705. In doing so, I answer my second
research question highlighting how previous awareness of racialization influenced sensemaking.
In chapter 8, I address my final research question by showing the importance of race-conscious
leadership in affirming the aspirations of equity policies. I offer the cases of four departments
showing differences in the positions of leaders and faculty that hinged on forces of power and
race. Chapter 9 summarizes major findings and draws connections to existing literature while
offering implications for policy and practice.

14

CHAPTER 2: Literature Review
Defining Developmental Education and Placement Strategies
A significant proportion of postsecondary education students are considered
underprepared for college-level coursework (Sparks & Malkus, 2013). Colleges and universities
across the country use various developmental and developmental education courses and practices
in English, writing, and math to bring students’ skills up to par and close the ‘preparedness gap’
in college coursework (Boatman & Long, 2018). The rationale for developmental education
courses is that they will prepare students for college-level coursework (Bettinger & Long, 2005;
Boylan et al., 1994; Boylan et al., 1997; Boylan et al., 2000; Boylan & Bonham, 2007; Lazarick,
1997; Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2015). Historically, over 90 percent of colleges have relied on
placement tests to determine students’ readiness for college-level English and math courses
(Fields & Parsad, 2012). Placement exams primarily include two tests: the ACCUPLACER and
ACT Inc’s COMPASS (Conley, 2010). These are computer-administered exams that are
multiple-choice and adaptive to students’ progress (Federick et al., 2018). Based on exam cutoff
scores, which are arbitrary and independently chosen (Melguizo et al., 2014; Scott-Clayton,
Crosta, & Belfield, 2014), colleges may assign students to developmental course sequences of up
to four classes (Bailey, 2009).
One of the criticisms of placement tests is that they are inaccurate measures of enrolling
in college-level courses (Belfield & Crosta, 2012; Grubb & Gabriner, 2013). Conley (2007,
2012) suggests that these tests only measure two of four key college readiness factors: content
knowledge and cognitive strength. Other non-cognitive and psychosocial factors, like
motivation, self-efficacy, and essential knowledge about transitioning to college, are not
measured but are key factors that shape academic performance (Farrington et al., 2012).
15

Although considered cost-effective and efficient (Hughes & Scott-Clayton, 2011), these high-
stakes placement exams are a weak diagnostic tool and lack predictive validity (Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board, 2009).
Many students taking a placement test perform worse on these exams than their levels of
preparation (e.g., GPA, courses) might suggest (Paulsen, 2014). Some students do not know
about the importance of these exams for several reasons. Some faculty believe students can
“game” the exam and therefore prefer students not to prepare for it; students sometimes take the
exam the same day they enroll and register for courses; community colleges downplay the
importance of these exams due to historically driven funding by enrollments. Students may rush
through the exams without realizing that these assessments will determine their academic
trajectory and likelihood of success (Fay, 2017; Fay et al., 2013; Hodara, 2012; Venezia et al.,
2010). Despite the allure that community colleges offer minoritized students who are not
admissible to a 4-year college a “second chance” to enter higher education (Schudde & Goldrick-
Rab, 2015), developmental education along with methods of assessment and placement have
instead stifled opportunity for these students (Bahr, 2012).
Historical Context of Developmental Education
Since the 19
th
century, developmental education limited educational opportunity to its
enrollees and perpetuated community college students' exclusion from 4-year colleges. As more
students (primarily white students; see Herbold, 1994; Turner & Bound, 2003) entered higher
education after World War II with the passing of the G.I. Bill, the influx of students prompted 4-
year colleges to begin testing applicants for ‘underprepared students.’ Those students who were
rejected from 4-year institutions enrolled in technical and community colleges. Following the
Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) (Gilbert & Heller, 2013), racially minoritized students
16

gained access to higher education, mainly in community colleges. Once there, minoritized
students had limited opportunity to transfer into 4-year colleges after enrolling in redundant
developmental courses (Bailey et al., 2010). Since the 1970s, it has grown increasingly harder to
gain admission to 4-year colleges in general, but especially for minoritized students placed into
developmental education who accumulate unnecessary basic skills course credits (Belfield &
Crosta, 2012). Appendix C summarizes the historical context of developmental education in the
United States.
There is a history of challenges to developmental education in California by non-profit
organizations that advance anti-developmental education advocacy and action. For instance,
during the 1980s in California, the Mexican American Legal and Defense Fund (MALDEF) filed
a lawsuit against the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) and argued
that students Christopher Romero-Frias and Martin R. Valdez were subjected to racial
discrimination by requiring them to take placement exams (Cage, 1991; Maldonado, 2019;
Reyes, 1988). MALDEF won the case, and although the CCCCO denied intentional racial
discrimination, the office established the Matriculation Advisory Committee in 1991 to ensure
fair placement practices (Reyes, 1988). The lawsuit prohibited California’s community colleges
from relying solely on standardized exams to determine placement in developmental education
courses and directed them to base placement decisions on multiple measures and safeguard
against misplacement. However, very few colleges have complied with these mandates (Perry et
al., 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2016). This has been problematic for minoritized students' success
outcomes, evidenced by a decade of studies summarized below, which have found that
traditional practices in delivering developmental education are largely ineffective.

17

Developmental Education as a Major Barrier to Student Success
National estimates suggest that over 60 percent of new entering college students place at
least one level below college-level coursework (Adelman, 2004; Attewell et al., 2006; Bailey,
2009; Bailey et al., 2010; Baker et al., 2009). These estimates are even higher for Black and
Latinx community college students in California, with over 87 percent enrolling into at least one
developmental course (Mejia et al., 2016). Scholars studying developmental education have
examined its effectiveness and outcomes, with most studies suggesting it serves as a significant
barrier for minoritized students.
Quantitative Evidence on Lacking Academic Outcomes in Developmental Education for
Racially Minoritized Students
A large quantity of quasi-experimental quantitative studies have examined the causal
effects of developmental education, finding consistently that enrollment in remediation fails to
produce positive results for students’ academic outcomes (Bettinger & Long, 2005; Boatman &
Long, 2018; Calcagno & Long, 2009; Dadgar, 2012; Hodara, 2012; Lesik, 2007; Martorell &
McFarlin Jr., 2011; Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2015). In California, research shows that Black,
Latinx, and low-income students place at higher rates into lower developmental course
sequences than some Asian American subgroups and white students who are deemed college-
ready at higher rates (Mejia et al., 2016). For instance, Latinx and white students enroll four
levels below DE sequences at 45 and 22 percent, respectively. This enrollment is inconsistent
with 24 percent of Latinx and 38 percent of white students deemed college-ready (Mejia et al.,
2016). Enrollment into lower levels of developmental courses presents an equity problem
because longer course sequences create more opportunities for students to drop out.
18

Additional opportunities to drop out are an apparent problem when examining outcomes
in developmental education. For instance, after six years, 39 percent of some Asian American
subgroups and 30 percent of white students in developmental math passed a college-level math
course, while only 24 percent of Latinx and 14 percent of Black students did so. In
developmental English, the same holds for Black (28%) and Latinx (42%) students completing at
lower rates than some Asian American subgroups (59%) and white (49%) students (Mejia et al.,
2016). A 2010 study found that over half of Black and Latinx students considered
‘underprepared’ using traditional assessment tests began math in the lowest levels of the
sequence, meaning they would take three or more developmental math courses before enrolling
in transfer-level courses (Perry et al., 2010). This is a significant racial equity problem because
less than six percent of students who start at the lowest developmental math levels go on and
complete a transferable math course within three years (Arce et al., 2019).
Not all students who place into developmental education enroll in these courses. Some
students never take a developmental education course because they ignore placement guidelines
and go directly into college-level classes, or they feel discouraged at the prospect of having to
take developmental courses and drop out before starting (Bailey et al., 2010; Scott-Clayton &
Rodriguez, 2015; Valentine et al., 2017). Of those students who enroll, their grades in
developmental courses do not improve (Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2015), remediation extends
the time to degree attainment (Fong et al., 2015), and many students do not complete the course
sequences in which they are placed (Bailey, 2009; Bailey et al., 2010), especially if placed into
the lowest levels of remediation (Melguizo et al., 2014). Many delay their enrollment into
developmental math courses (Bailey, 2009; Fong et al., 2015), which further delays the
19

completion of their educational goals (Melguizo et al., 2008). Overall, only the most tenacious
students go on to complete developmental sequences and pass entry-level college-level courses.
Qualitative Accounts of Students’ Racialized Experiences in Developmental Education
Qualitative studies have examined Black and Latinx students’ experiences with
traditional assessment and placement practices. In terms of teaching, Acevedo-Gil, Santos,
Alonso, and Solorzano (2015) find that Latinx students who feel invalidated through pedagogical
practices often question their ability to complete developmental education. Unsurprisingly,
research in the teaching of developmental education finds that instructors lack resources to
develop and teach curriculum using different pedagogical techniques (Gerstein, 2009; Grubb,
2002).
Relatedly, studies have highlighted instructors’ negative perceptions of students in the
classroom. Faculty perceive developmental students through a deficit perspective, arguing that
students do not value their courses and, therefore, faculty have low expectations of them
(Contreras & Contreras, 2015). These low expectations can be detrimental to minoritized
students’ collegiate identity and academic performance (Howard, 2003; Steele & Aronson,
1995). An example of students' negative perceptions is Maldonado’s (2019) study, which found
that counselors implicitly hold racial hierarchies that regard white students as more intelligent
and, thus, more deserving of higher course placements than Latinx students. White students in
Maldonado’s study were regarded as the “standard” based on the “common sense” belief that
white students lived in better neighborhoods with more rigorous curricula, and therefore,
deserved to be in college-level courses of equal rigor (2019, p. 7). Latinx students were seen by
counselors as hampered by a “series of issues” such as “bad culture” and bilingualism which
warranted developmental course placement (Maldonado, 2019, p. 8).
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Not only do counselors racialize justifications for student’s placement along racial lines,
but so do faculty and peer expectations about students’ performance in class. A 2020 study by
Roberts has highlighted that minoritized students, particularly Black students, have racialized
experiences in developmental education math courses. This study examined how faculty and
peers held negative stereotypes about Black students' ability to succeed and students’ responses
and strategies to navigate these offenses. The author argues that students’ experiences in
developmental mathematics are racialized, “where race and the meanings attached to race are
highly visible” (Roberts, 2020, p. 4). This was evident in how Black students were explicitly
discriminated against, had their abilities questioned, and were made to feel either hyper- or in-
visible, given their Black identity. Some students in the study worked harder in response, others
confronted their aggressors, while some taught themselves course material instead of receiving
support from faculty or peers. This study emphasizes the highly racialized experiences of
students in developmental education.
How Did Developmental Education Become So Racist?
The fact that developmental education creates barriers for racially minoritized students
did not occur by chance. Scholars have long debated the stratifying function of community
colleges and their impact on minoritized student populations. Below are three reasons that
explain how developmental education has become an instrument that reproduces and maintains
dominant inequities primarily for Black and Brown community college students.
First, a key feature of U.S. postsecondary education is that anyone, regardless of their
background, has access to higher education, and the various sectors of this system (e.g., 2-year
and 4-year, public or private, for-profit institutions) ensure a veneer that students have multiple
chances and entry points to complete their educational goals. The boundaries between these
21

sectors through transferable course credits make bridging these systems appear probable (Brint &
Karabel, 1989). However, developmental education – which through policy has primarily been
relegated as a responsibility of the community colleges (Dowd, 2007; Parsad & Lewis, 2003) –
limits the chances of minoritized students to enroll at 4-year colleges that provide the most
economical returns (Attewell et al., 2006). With the recent proliferation of credentialism and
seeming openness of American education systems (Karabel, 1972), one might assume that access
to college guarantees equality in opportunity and success outcomes.
However, access to a community college does not translate into equitable success
outcomes. It is undeniable that community colleges increase enrollment to college among
students who may not have otherwise taken part in postsecondary education, who have a diverse
range of skillsets, and indeed, who receive a “second chance” to complete higher education
(Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015). However, just as standardized tests (Fleming, 2000) and
access to advanced placement courses are discriminatory against students of color (Solorzano &
Ornelas, 2014), developmental education discriminates (as illustrated earlier, in placement,
teaching, outcomes, etc.) and up until recently served as a gatekeeper for students to transfer to
4-year colleges and universities (Dowd, 2007).
Second, this gatekeeping function protects the privilege and status of more selective 4-
year institutions (Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015). Not all colleges are created the same. In
2017, although 67% percent of recent college graduates enrolled in college (23% of them in
community colleges; McFarland et al., 2019), access to the most selective universities which
offer the most benefits to students is still profoundly segregated by race and ethnicity (Bowen &
Bok, 1998). For instance, more Black and Latinx students attend 2-year public and private for-
profit colleges than white and some Asian subgroups, who enroll at higher rates in 4-year public
22

and private non-profit colleges (McFarland et al., 2019). This creates, as Labaree (2013)
describes, a condition in which “institutions that are most accessible provide the least social
benefit, and those that are least accessible open the most doors” (p. 48). Restricting access of
selective institutions to a select few (Lucas, 2001), often to those from white and wealthy
backgrounds (Alon, 2009), protects the prestige and reputation of 4-year colleges while
simultaneously disadvantaging community colleges that have multiple missions and
responsibilities with limited resources.
Developmental education policies exercised locally by individual colleges and state
university systems ensure that students are restricted from progressing along with their
educational goals. For instance, the chancellor of the CSU system – the most extensive 4-year
public university system in the nation – in response to the growing awareness about
developmental education's ineffectiveness, issued an executive order that no longer requires CSU
first-year students take developmental courses. The number of students who succeeded in
college-level math courses increased substantially from 950 in Fall 2017 to 7,787 in Fall 2018
(Watanabe, 2019). Despite the increase in success of admitted Cal State students, in 2019, the
CSU has proposed a new rule requiring new entering students to have an additional year of math
(four years total) to receive admission (CSU Weighs Additional College Math Requirement,
Raising Disparity Questions - Los Angeles Times, n.d.). If passed, this exemplifies how 4-year
universities relegate developmental education to other education systems (i.e., community
colleges) while protecting their privilege by limiting access via admission requirements.
Third, the allure of access to postsecondary education with the simultaneous protection
of privilege of 4-year colleges has resulted in what many sociologists describe as the
stratification of education systems. Scholars have long debated the stratifying role of community
23

colleges. A prominent theory by Burton Clark in the 1960s argued that community colleges serve
a necessary function of “cooling-out” high-aspiring low-ability students while simultaneously
offering them alternatives to 4-year degrees like vocational education. Critics such as
sociologists Brint and Karabel (1989) argue that community colleges reproduce inequality and
divert students who would have otherwise obtained a postsecondary baccalaureate degree into
vocational tracks. Thus, these students receive less educational opportunity, less economic
attainment after graduation, and subsequently, hinder their chances of social mobility (Brint &
Karabel, 1989).
Later, Dougherty (1994) argued that both scholars deemphasize the role of government in
shaping community colleges' goals and missions. For instance, he argued that states promote
community colleges to support interest group efforts such as training business employees and
protecting elite colleges. With different interests putting pressure on the community colleges,
“goal diffusion combined with inadequate means to meet concurrent goals translates to
ineffectiveness” (Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015, p. 34). More recent literature on community
colleges has called for more structural and institutional perspectives to explain why these
colleges create inequities for minoritized students. For instance, Bensimon (2007) calls attention
to the role of practitioners on students’ success outcomes, rejects student development theories as
explaining achievement gaps (2005), and stresses the role of institutional agents in students’
college experiences (Bensimon & Dowd, 2009).
The fact that developmental education disproportionately enrolls Black and Latinx
students into developmental coursework (Attewell et al., 2006), which most of these students
never finish (Bailey et al., 2010), reiterates the stratifying role and function of community
colleges. The gatekeeping feature of developmental education has excluded minoritized students
24

from the opportunities community colleges purport to offer, including social mobility and
promises of educational attainment. Not only is developmental education exclusionary to
minoritized populations, but it is also very costly both to students and state systems of education.
High Cost of Placement into Developmental Education to Students and Colleges
Enrolling in developmental education comes at a significant financial cost to both
students and state systems of community colleges (Melguizo et al., 2008) by adding time to meet
students’ educational plans (Fong et al., 2015). Estimates suggest that each developmental course
costs students, on average, $3,000 out of pocket and $1,000 in student debt (Barry &
Dannenberg, 2016). These added costs cut into students’ financial aid packages creating more
barriers to accomplish their educational goals (Burdman, 2012). Students also lose forgone
earnings due to delayed completion (Bailey & Cho, 2010; Hughes & Scott-Clayton, 2012; Levin
& Calcagno, 2008). Estimates suggest that developmental education's total national cost is
between $2 to 5.6 billion dollars (Amos, 2011; Schneider & Yin, 2011).
Since funding in the community colleges up to 2018 relied solely on enrollments
(Chancellor’s Office Overview of the Student Centered Funding Formula, 2018), colleges have
had little incentive to mitigate the additional costs levied onto minoritized students despite calls
by researchers to change funding allocations to prioritize success outcomes (Shulock & Moore,
2007). However, with the passing of a new student-centered funding formula in 2018, colleges
now receive supplemental funding based on the counts of low-income students and outcomes
related to the Vision for Success, including completing transfer-level courses and completing
degrees, and transfer. With outcomes now tied to funding, the implementation of AB 705
became more pressing than before it passed in 2017.
25

The California Context
5

In California, whose community college system is the largest, serving over 2.1 million
students, a high proportion of students enroll in at least one developmental course in math or
English (Mejia et al., 2016), but most of these students do not complete a college-level course
(Bahr, 2012). Accounting for one-fifth of all community college students in the United States
and with over 70 percent minoritized students (California Community College Chancellor’s
Office, 2017), California has a severe equity problem with Latinx and Black students
disproportionately affected by developmental education (Fong et al., 2015; Solorzano et al.,
2013). About 86 percent of Latinx and Black students enroll in developmental education,
compared to 70 percent for some Asian American subgroups and 74 percent for white students,
respectively (Mejia et al., 2016).
Figures 1 and 2 show that in the last seven years in California, Black and Latinx students
continually lag behind some Asian American subgroups and white students in completing
college-level courses in English and math when placed into developmental education. Although
completion rates have increased overall for all students, gaps persist among Black, Latinx,
Pacific Islander, and American Indian students. Latinx students are also five times more likely to
enroll in noncredit developmental courses than are white students (California Community
Colleges Chancellor’s Office, 2012).

5
The California community colleges, given their scale and policy initiatives, have large influence on other states.
California is often regarded as the future of the country (Blackwell et al., 2010).
26

Source: Data extracted from California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO)
Datamart: 2018 Statewide Student Success Scorecard for developmental English. The progress
rate is defined as the percentage of credit students who attempted for the first time a course
designated as “levels below transfer” in developmental English and completed a college-level
course within six years.

Figure 1 Percentage of first-time California community college students who attempted a
developmental English course and completed a college-level course in English within six years

25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
55%
60%
65%
2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012
Asian
Filipino
White
Latinx
Pacific Islander
American
Indian/Alaska
Native
Black
27

Source: Data extracted from California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO)
Datamart: 2018 Statewide Student Success Scorecard for developmental math. The progress
rate is defined as the percentage of credit students who attempted for the first time a course
designated as “levels below transfer” in developmental math and completed a college-level
course within six years.

Figure 2 Percentage of first-time California Community College students who attempted a
developmental math course and completed a college-level course in math within six years

AB 705 – Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012
Introduction of AB 705 – Evidence Against Developmental Education Supported by
Organizations
AB 705 is the culmination of a series of initiatives to improve basic skills education,
some developed by the Chancellor’s Office and others from non-profits and faculty-led network
organizations who started experimenting with alternative methods to developmental education.
This policy also follows the national trend of over 30 other states in reforming developmental
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012
Asian
Filipino
White
Latinx
Pacific Islander
American
Indian/Alaska
Native
Black
28

education. Early discussions brought on by the Basic Skills Initiative in 2006, and the California
Acceleration Project (CAP) in 2010 focused on improving the outcomes of students placed into
developmental education, such as by using accelerated courses as an alternative. Accelerated
courses compress the content of two or more developmental courses into one class and intend to
progress students through developmental sequences faster.
The discussion narrowed when CAP leaders met with researchers, philanthropic
institutions, and non-profit organizations; together, they realized the problem was basic skills
altogether. A CAP leader shared, “the reason acceleration works so well is because placement is
so broken. They (students) should never have been placed into remediation in the first place.
Why fix placement if it’s broken?” (CAP leader, personal communication). This shift in thinking
resulted in conversations on how multiple measures and removing developmental education
could transform how students’ progress through community college. Several initiatives were
later established, including AB 743 in 2011, which required the Board of Governors to create a
standard assessment system for placement across all community colleges in California’s system,
and the Basic Skills Students Outcomes Transformation Program in 2015, which allocated $60
million to improve basic skills instruction and innovate in matters of assessment and placement
(Fletcher, 2017; Irwin, 2017).
Several non-profit and research organizations provided data in support of AB 705.
During Senate debates for AB 705, organizations provided evidence that direct placement into
transfer-level courses and using multiple measures resulted in better success outcomes. These
organizations included The Campaign for College Opportunity, Public Policy Institute of
California (PPIC), Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), and the Multiple Measures Assessment
Project (MMAP) from the RP Group. The data provided by these organizations showed how
29

assessment exams are ineffective predictors of success, how multiple measures relying on high
school performance are more predictive of college success, and how existing inequities will
persist if traditional assessment and placement strategies persist in use (Irwin, 2017).
Writing of AB 705 – Written with Faculty in Mind
AB 705 was co-drafted by California Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, who is trained as
an engineer, and faculty leaders within the California Acceleration Project (CAP). As a CAP
leader who developed a data analysis tool of basic skills courses for California shared, "Faculty
leaders co-wrote the bill with legislators because they knew how faculty are, so it was written
with intentionality because of who faculty are, because they would try to get around it” (CAP
leader, personal communication, 2019). The rationale provided is that older tenured faculty
“ha[ve] a lot of power among them” and “they oppos[e] this type of reform” because they
believe “the [assessment] tests are effective.” The disagreement between “understanding that
developmental education coursework is not effective by some while others believed it was
necessary” dominated early conversations when AB 705 passed as a policy.
Many faculty “were very pissed off about having external people really involved much in
their curriculum, which is their domain, like if it was almost being taken away by somebody
else” (CAP leader, personal communication, 2019). As a co-written bill between legislators and
faculty, AB 705’s framers ensured the policy had legitimacy and intentionality that could
safeguard against the similar fate of prior efforts to mandate multiple measures, as should have
been the case after the MALDEF lawsuit against California (Rodriguez et al., 2016). Similarly, a
senior administrator at a college that enrolls large proportions of Latinx students shared that this
“grand experiment (i.e., AB 705)” had to be “top-heavy” and “the only way it could have
happened” (personal communication, 2019).
30

Support of AB 705 – Overwhelming Support to Eliminate Developmental Education
The passing of AB 705 is the result of a decade of dialogues, initiatives, and policies by
faculty leaders and non-profits who understood that basic skills education was ineffective and a
substantial deterrent to completion. When introduced in 2017, AB 705 received overwhelming
support. Twenty-five non-profit organizations, political, student, and parent advocacy groups,
coalitions, community colleges, consortiums, and public benefit corporations expressed their
support in public testimony at hearings held by Senate and Assembly committees. Advocacy
organizations that seek to reform higher education to be more equitable (e.g., California’s
Campaign for College Opportunity), to be more efficient (e.g., Complete College America), and
to be more responsive to the economy and labor market demands (e.g., Jobs for the Future) are
major proponents for the elimination of developmental education. In California, the passage of
AB 705 owes much to lobbying efforts by the Campaign for College Opportunity and their co-
sponsorship of the bill (Assembly Bill 705 (Irwin): Fact Sheet, 2017).
The policy passed Higher Education, Appropriations, Assembly, and Senate committees
with zero opposition, representing a victory to longtime advocates of developmental education
reform. Only two groups opposed AB 705: The California Teachers Association, which
represents the largest community college faculty association, opposed the measure six months
before Governor Brown signed AB 705 into law. The Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges also opposed the bill early on through a letter (Bruno, 2017), arguing: 1)
the policy’s emphasis on “transfer-level” is troublesome for students whose goal is not to transfer
and 2) the use of multiple measures limits college’s ability to serve diverse groups of students
like older adults. AB 705 solves both concerns by requiring colleges to follow mandates based
on students’ educational goals and individual contexts. The requirements of completion of
31

transfer-level English and math course sequences within one year only apply for students whose
goal is to transfer. Also, colleges must develop self-assessment tools that consider various
measures among older students who have been out of school for longer than ten years.
The text of AB 705 signaled concern with racial equity in various ways. First, in its
opening remarks, the policy text makes clear that developmental education policies and practices
have “serious implications for equity, since students of color are more likely to be placed into
remedial courses” and that an “overwhelming majority of students” are referred to
developmental education (Irwin, 2017, p. 2). The policy cites studies by PPIC finding that over
86% of Latinx, Black students, and low-income students enroll in developmental coursework
(Rodriguez et al., 2016). Bill analysis provided during committee deliberations also describes
how students of color attend community colleges with fewer transfer-level course offerings than
colleges with higher proportions of white students (Rodriguez et al., 2016). AB 705 can achieve
racial equity if its implementation is carried out in a way that creates opportunities for
minoritized students (Chase, 2013; 2016). AB 705 is, as college actors have described to me, a
“game-changer” and “shock to the system” and a “paradigm shift.”
This bill was the culmination of the hard work of civil rights activists, non-profit
organizations, coalitions, and supporters of reform that saw developmental education as an
infringement to the democratic principles of 2-year public institutions. For instance, Christopher
Edley, former dean of Berkeley School of Law, has called developmental education a significant
violation of the Equal Protection Clause of California’s Constitution, citing that college algebra
is not necessary for many majors besides STEM and that the processes upholding developmental
education are largely arbitrary (2017). Under the guise of objective and essential criteria for
college-level coursework, developmental education has long thwarted the possibility that
32

community colleges are the second chance opportunity they were promised to be for students
(Dowd, 2007).
Mandates of AB 705 – Required Changes by Fall 2019
AB 705 is a historical shift and departure of developmental education because it: 1) bans
assessment tests for placement into English and math courses; 2) essentially requires colleges to
place most students into transfer-level courses; and 3) requires colleges to amend their number of
transfer-level course offerings since the majority of students now enroll directly into transfer-
level courses and not developmental courses. The policy requires California community colleges
to use multiple measures, and colleges can now enroll students into corequisite courses (to be
explained later) to receive additional support alongside transfer-level courses. (Appendix B
provides further details about AB 705). If colleges do not comply with the mandates of AB 705,
colleges risk losing funding eligibility for AB 19 (i.e., college promise or formerly BOG waiver)
and the guided pathways initiative. In other words, colleges risk losing significant funding
sources if they are not compliant (Hornik, 2017). The chancellor’s office tracks the “throughput”
rate to evaluate compliance, which is the percentage of students completing a gateway transfer-
level English and math course in a given time frame for students enrolled in a given
developmental course. After AB 705 passed, a related and connected policy was signed that
safeguards the directives of AB 705. The passing of AB 1805 further directs that community
colleges provide students with easily understandable information about placement policies, and it
requires colleges to report the percentage of students placed into transfer-level courses (AB-1805
Community Colleges: Student Equity and Achievement Program., 2018; VanZuylen, 2018).
Current studies on AB 705 – Substantial changes to course offerings in California
33

Limited studies have explored the implementation and impact of AB 705. A PPIC report
by Rodriguez, Mejia, and Johnson (2018) provides a baseline for comparison pre-AB 705 that
offers a look at early implementers of multiple measures and corequisite courses, as well as the
availability of transfer-level course offerings. The authors find that minoritized students saw
noticeable gains in the enrollment and completion of transfer-level courses when taking classes
at colleges identified as ‘early implementers’ of AB 705 compared to statewide averages. In a
2019 report, PPIC found significant increases in the percentage of first-time students who
enrolled directly into transfer-level English (38% in 2015 compared to 68% in 2018) and math
(26% in 2015 compared to 43% in 2018) courses. Success outcomes have increased, with
students completing college English (30 percentage point increase) and math (18 percentage
point increase) in one term at higher rates than before AB 705. However, equity gaps remain.
Some Asian-American subgroups and white students have improved success rates under AB 705
at higher rates than Latinx, Black, and American Indian students (Mejia et al., 2019).
Similarly, a 2019 report published by the Campaign for College Opportunity finds that
under AB 705, colleges overall have made substantial improvements in their offerings of
transfer-level English and math courses as well as corequisite supports. For instance, across 47
out of California’s 116 community colleges, the availability of transfer-level English courses
increased from 45 percent to 88 percent, while access to transfer-level math courses increased
from 33 percent to 71 percent (Arce et al., 2019). Despite this growth, the report finds that ‘weak
implementer’ colleges may still offer a substantial share of developmental course offerings in
their course catalogs and, even worse, may encourage students to enroll in developmental
courses through website materials that deceive them. A case in point is the following passage
from the report:
34

None of the colleges examined here provided enough information for students to make an
informed decision. At one college, freshman composition is described as “advanced,”
while remedial courses are framed as a less threatening alternative— “slower paced,” for
“students who want more time and support” or who “want to establish a stronger
foundation in academic reading and writing” before taking college composition for a
letter grade. The college informs students that, if they have a high school GPA below 1.9,
their chance of succeeding in college English is only 43 percent, but it neglects to share
that starting in a remedial course means their chances drop from 43 percent to 12 percent.
(p. 21)
This passage shows a contradiction in policy implementation. Although AB 705 “has the
potential for being a transformative policy” (Arce et al., 2019, p. 24), its implementation can run
counter to the goals of policymakers (Honig, 2006). And while colleges may be technically
compliant, compliance may not achieve the full goals of AB 705, which are to give students “the
best chance of completing a transfer-level course within a year” (Arce et al., 2019, p. 5).
State Policy Approaches to Developmental Education Reforms
In the following sections, I outline the various approaches to developmental education
reforms and preliminary research findings on their effectiveness. Appendix D summarizes state
policy approaches to developmental education reforms.
Multiple measures. Instead of placement exams to assess college readiness, multiple
measures use self-assessments, high school transcripts, high school grades, courses taken, and
GPA, along with other non-cognitive measures like time management and perceptions of math
ability, to make placement decisions (Ngo et al., 2018). One of the main features of AB 705 is
the use of multiple measures. Although relatively uncommon due to uncertainty about how to
collect and combine this information for placement purposes (Scott-Clayton, 2012), multiple
measures are said to improve placement decisions (Burdman, 2012; Smith, 2016) by using
stronger predictors of successful college course completion, such as high school GPA
(Armstrong, 2000). Ngo and Kwon (2015) found that those community college students placed
using measures like prior math courses taken and GPA in addition to test scores performed the
35

same as peers who had only earned higher test scores. Using survey data analysis, Federick, Chi,
and Park (2018) recently found that as many as 25 percent of students may be misassigned in
their course sequences by status quo practices compared to using multiple measures like high
school background information and non-cognitive indicators.
California, Indiana, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington have adopted multiple
measures to make placement decisions rather than placement exams (Daugherty et al., 2018;
Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2016; Kalamkarian et al., 2015). Prominent
researchers of developmental education and federal agencies (Bailey et al., 2016; King,
Mcintosh, & Bell-ellwanger, 2017) recommend multiple measures due to evidence finding that
high stakes exams are unreliable (Hughes & Scott-Clayton, 2011) compared to multiple
measures (Federick et al., 2018; Ngo & Kwon, 2015).
Corequisite coursework. Another popular approach to improve developmental
education is corequisite coursework. The most common model enrolls students into college-level
courses while simultaneously adding academic support classes or services (Cho et al., 2012;
Bailey et al., 2013). AB 705 follows this model by allowing colleges to enroll students in
corequisite courses alongside transfer-level courses. These courses' purpose is for colleges to
provide additional support to students who would have previously enrolled in developmental
courses but under AB 705 are now be placed into transfer-level classes. Other corequisite models
include extended instruction times, accelerated coursework, technology-mediated support, and
paired-course models (Daugherty et al., 2018). Some models include just “in-time” remediation,
where faculty provide refreshers of developmental content as students experience challenges.
Corequisite models are argued to increase the number of students passing college-level courses
36

(Denley, 2016; Hayward et al., 2014), increased persistence to subsequent semesters, and
increased attempts and completion of more college-level courses (Cho et al., 2012).
Connecticut, Colorado, Indiana, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia have
enacted some corequisite models across community colleges (Park et al., 2018). Through a case
study of one community college, Royer and Baker (2018) find that a corequisite model improved
the percentage of students completing courses and moving on to complete college-level courses,
due in part to overall shortened sequences. A challenge to implement corequisite courses is the
logistics of redesigning courses and the faculty and academic support staff who support the
students placed directly into college-level (Daugherty et al., 2018).
Other reform approaches. States have also attempted paired courses, modularized
instruction, compressed or accelerated courses, contextualized instruction, self-placement, and
making developmental education optional. Paired courses combine two sequential developmental
courses into one semester to shorten the time to complete requirements (Avni & Finn, 2019).
Modularized instruction breaks the content down into small units so that students can learn skills
in sections broken down by modules (Brower et al., 2017). Compressed courses reduce the
number of credit hours required to fulfill remediation requirements and shorten developmental
education sequences (Park et al., 2018). Contextualized approaches and instruction involve
linking abstract concepts like those in math with practical applications relevant to students’
programs of study (Wang et al., 2019). Self-placement allows students to self-place and enroll in
courses (Kosiewicz, 2015). Colleges have also experimented by making developmental
education optional regardless of prior academic preparation meaning many students enroll
directly into college-level classes (Park et al., 2018; Woods et al., 2019).

37

Implementation of Developmental Education Reforms
Studies of developmental education reform have documented several barriers to
implementation; these include changing roles, fear of job loss, increased workloads,
disagreement over the efficacy of developmental education, and embeddedness of efforts to
create institutional change, among others. A study based in Virginia and North Carolina by
Kalamkarian, Ruafman, and Edgecombe (2015) found that faculty must comfortably readjust
their pedagogies because redesigned classes include learning objectives from previously two
sequence courses to now one course, all with the same number of credit hours. In Texas, a 2016
RAND study found that faculty feared a corequisite model accelerated students too fast through
required course sequences, leaving them unprepared and vulnerable to drop out (Daugherty et al.,
2018). Similar to Kalamkarian, Raufman, and Edgecombe (2015), the RAND study found
faculty also feared job instability and elimination of developmental education, preferred to work
with college-ready students, and resisted new instructional approaches called for by
developmental education reforms, specifically corequisites (Daugherty et al., 2018).
During 2013 in Florida, developmental education became optional within their 28-college
system, and courses were streamlined to include accelerated, contextualized, modularized, and
corequisite courses. Florida’s new law required many changes in staffing and budgeting,
curricula design, administrative processes, admissions structures, financial aid, student advising,
orientation, and data reporting (Hu et al., 2015), which increased workloads for implementers.
Faculty redesigned curriculum and instruction practices. Advisors and academic support staff
worked longer and more flexible hours. Administrative and classified staff instituted new
procedures for admissions and intake processes; institutional researchers collected new variables
38

in data sets; IT officers installed new technology platforms; and administrators spent substantial
time planning how to sort students into exempt and nonexempt courses (Hu et al., 2015).
Further, studies of implementation reveal various ways in which institutional actors may
resist developmental education reforms. Brower and colleagues (2017) created an
implementation typology of four types: oppositional, circumventing, satisficing, and facilitative.
Oppositional implementation behaviors included faculty members appealing to outside interests
like political leaders or faculty unions in opposition to Florida’s policy or faculty urging students
to stay in DE despite students’ right to opt-out. The circumventing implementation type resisted
policy mandates through inaction or actions that derail the requirements of the policy. For
instance, advisors at one college created an internal system to deny students exemption from DE
courses only unless students already knew the requirement was no longer needed. The satisficing
implementation behaviors included those who passively cooperated with policy mandates with
only minimal compliance. Faculty described their work after the policy as “business as usual,”
with many ‘playing dumb’ and not adjusting their instruction in gateway courses despite now
having more ‘underprepared students’ (Brower et al., 2017, p. 823). A facilitative
implementation type actively complied with policy directives through proactive action and
maximum effort. An example was the reassignment of DE faculty from teaching to tutoring
services in academic support labs. The authors’ typology highlights the many responses that may
hinder or support developmental education reforms.
Researchers at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College have studied
developmental education reforms at community colleges across the country (Edgecombe et al.,
2013). They offer three reasons why these developmental education reforms do not create
substantial change as intended: 1) resource challenges and institutional norms limit the ability of
39

outcomes to be transformative; 2) small-scale pilots and reforms of developmental education
with minimal disruption to the practices of faculty prevent the improvement of institutional
outcomes; and 3) reforms provide short-term impact on students’ trajectory usually at the
beginning stages of college. The extent of challenges hinges on the severity of changes,
availability of resources, and effectiveness of planning activities, among other factors
(Kalamkarian et al., 2015). The authors recommend reforms are implemented not in isolation but
with broader institutional change to limit these concerns. Colleges must develop their capacity
and build opportunities that expand on the benefits of these reforms (Edgecombe et al., 2013).
Although the studies highlighted above offer some insight into implementation
challenges, none address how institutional actors understand and implement these reforms from
the standpoint of racial equity. Brower and colleagues' (2017) study raises related concerns about
the motivation of actors during implementation. They find differing implementation approaches
where some practitioners resisted while others actively complied with policy directives. A
question for this dissertation is how institutional actors make sense of the AB 705 to take on a
particular ‘stance’ or approach to implementation, be it, for example, one of color evasiveness
(Annamma et al., 2017) or equity-mindedness (Bensimon, 2007), and how that sensemaking
shapes implementation.
Policy Implementation Research and Racial Equity
A growing concern in higher education is how colleges respond to policies with equity
implications. In recent decades, state and federal agencies have pushed programs tailored to
increase equity for racially minoritized on college campuses. These efforts have previously
centered on funding historically Black colleges and universities (Harper et al., 2009) and
Hispanic Serving Institutions (Nuñez et al., 2015). Recently, policies with equity orientations
40

have moved beyond affirmative action strategies in admissions and access, including degree
completion and transfer (Bragg & Durham, 2012; Dowd, 2007). For instance, studies have
examined how equity policies support or hinder racial equity overall (Ching et al., 2018),
especially for Latinx students (Felix et al., 2018). As suggested earlier, AB 705 can be thought of
as an equity policy given its framing and the minoritized students it may impact; yet, for the
policy to be antiracist (Kendi, 2019b), institutional actors must first create opportunities for the
success of racially minoritized students (Chase, 2013). This process begins with sensemaking,
influencing whether institutional actors' goals and implementation efforts align with the
policymaker's intent (Hill, 2001).
While policies can shape practitioners’ actions and change (Bensimon et al., 2007), a key
consideration for AB 705 is how institutional actors interpret the demands and goals of policy.
Stone (2012) argues that policy ambiguity allows implementers to reach multiple meanings given
their specific contexts. In reality, interpreting policy messages is usually not transparent and,
instead, often an ambiguous process as individuals construct meanings and interpretations over
time (Chase, 2013). A growing misunderstanding is that policy implementers have the required
information, fidelity to policy goals, and resources to enact the prescribed changes (Heck, 2004).
Research on policy implementation in the higher education sector is limited (Chase, 2013; 2016).
Current research in K-12 has explored how policy is interpreted individually (Cohen & Ball,
1990) and collectively in professional and broader institutional contexts (Coburn, 2001). Many
factors influence the interpretation of policy, including prior knowledge, beliefs, experiences
(Cohen & Ball, 1990; Spillane, 1998), institutional culture (Coburn, 2001), practitioner roles
(Spillane et al., 2006), and institutional leadership (Coburn, 2005), among others.
41

An important aspect of policy studies in general and policy implementation, in
particular, is a focus on race and power because, as scholars have noted, policy codifies and
serves the interests of those in power (Levinson et al., 2009). Bhola (2000) defines policy as “the
manifest intentions of power elites for the distribution of social goods” (Levinson et al., 2009, p.
772). From its priorities and beneficiaries to outcomes, education policy often reinforces the
interests of whites, which scholars have argued reinforces white supremacy and perpetuates
racial inequity in opportunity (Gillborn, 2005). Recent empirical studies suggest that power
indeed shapes how practitioners implement policies depending on power dynamics and their
understanding of race (Chase, 2013; 2016). Given this, Chase (2013; 2016) urges policy scholars
to explore the role of race and power in how actors interpret and implement policy.
As I described in earlier sections, AB 705 is a historic departure from current assessment
and placement practices, and it has substantial implications for racial equity. It has been
described as a “game-changer” and “paradigm shift” that fundamentally “shocks the system.”
How policy actors interpret and implement AB 705 will impact whether the policy can de-
racialize the outcomes currently in developmental education. To study this phenomenon,
particularly concerning power and race issues, I use a conceptual approach that attends to
multiple levels of sensemaking. Below, I describe this framework, its tenets, and how it supports
my analysis of AB 705.

42

CHAPTER 3: Theoretical Framework
Policy implementation is described as “what happens between policy expectations and
policy results” (DeLeon & DeLeon, 2002, p. 474; Ferman, 1990). As institutional actors are
introduced to new policies, they assign meaning to the policy’s intended goals before acting on
that understanding. The process of sensemaking by which actors give meaning to policies as
influenced by factors in their environments is what Coburn (2001) and Spillane (2000) argue
shapes how policies are implemented. This suggests and what other research has documented
(Yanow, 1996) that policy interpretation can have substantial implications for implementation.
How actors understand what a policy means, how it is relevant for their everyday
responsibilities, and how they will change, if at all, what they do, is one of the central concerns
of sensemaking scholars (Spillane, 2000).
Studies in the K-12 literature have examined the in- “between” processes of how
educators, particularly teachers, make sense of and exert influence over policy implementation in
their local contexts (Coburn, 2001; Spillane, 2004; Weatherly & Lipsky, 1977). Despite the
importance of sensemaking theory in organizational change (Kezar & Eckel, 2002), higher
education researchers rarely explore policy implementation in general and even less so the ways
implementers make sense of policy (Chase, 2016). The traditional view of policy implementation
is that policy is “more or less, self-implementing” if supported by the appropriate resources and
regulations (McLaughlin, 2006, p. 209). This view follows a rational scientific approach, in
which actors are said to logically and rationally implement policy through a series of steps
(Bacchi, 1999). However, policy implementation is not straightforward; it is a highly arbitrary,
contested, and fluid social process (Koyama, 2015) that increasingly scholars have examined
43

through more critical (Dumas & Anyon, 2006) and cultural perspectives (Spillane et al., 2002;
Stein, 2004).
For this study, I draw on the literature on sensemaking and organizational theory to
examine how institutional actors interpret and implement AB 705. Minimal studies consider the
role of race in sensemaking in general (Evans, 2007; Irby, 2018; Philip, 2011; Washington &
Humphries, 2011), but particularly in the higher education literature (Chase, 2016). An
organizational perspective holds that policies are implemented through various organizational
mechanisms, such as the legitimation of some individuals (e.g., those with positions of authority)
who can exert influence over how policy is implemented. In particular, this perspective adds that
organizations provide the resources that legitimize some ideas over others, often in racialized
ways (Ray, 2019). The combination of sensemaking perspectives and organizational theory
provides an appropriate framework for studying how actors make sense of AB 705 and
specifically the role of race and power in the formation of meaning.
In what follows, I conceptualize my theoretical framework: Critical Race Sensemaking
(CRS), which can help explain how race and power influence the formation of meaning and
implementation of policy goals. CRS draws on sensemaking (Spillane, 1998), critical
sensemaking (Mills et al., 2010), and racialized organizations (Ray, 2019) to examine
sensemaking processes across multiple levels (i.e., micro, meso, macro). To clarify how CRS
looks when compared to sensemaking and critical sensemaking when applied to AB 705, I
present Table 1. I apply these approaches to my first research question as an example, “In what
ways do institutional actors understand the goals and desired outcomes of AB 705?” I also
summarize basic tenets, how race is conceptualized, and the strengths and weaknesses of these
approaches, recognizing that each theory spotlights some things over others.

44

Table 1 - Sensemaking Approaches
Applied to AB 705
Sensemaking
Approaches
Basic tenets How race is
treated
Applying sensemaking approaches to AB 705
Research question: In what ways do institutional actors understand the
goals and desired outcomes of AB 705?”
Strengths Weaknesses
Sensemaking
(Coburn,
2001; Coburn
& Talbert,
2006; Coburn,
2016; Lin,
2000;
Spillane,
1998;
Spillane,
Reiser, &
Reimer, 2002)
• Individual’s
world views
• Social and
collective
• Professional
communities
• Thought
communities/
institutional
context
• Historical context
• Identity is
treated as a
factor shaping
sensemaking
• Discussion of
race is absent
• Epistemology: Social construction (interpretation)
• Unit of analysis: Individuals, cognitive (micro)
• Area of focus: Individuals’ identity, beliefs, past
experiences, social interactions, “best fit” explanations
• Interviewees of interest: All AB 705 implementers,
regardless of their positioning within the college
• Interview questions: How did you learn about AB 705?
What does AB 705 mean to you? What are its goals?
• Data highlights: Individual sensemaking, focus on cognitive
processes, socially constructed meaning, theory is context-
dependent
• Foundational
assumptions of
sensemaking emphasize
both interpretation and
action rather than simply
evaluation
• Situated discursive
language
• Highlights individual
level sensemaking
processes
• Absent discussion of
race in sensemaking
• Identity is an add-on
phenomenon that
individuals bring onto
the sensemaking arena
• Agency is treated as an
individual disposition
rather than an
organizationally
mediated action
Critical
Sensemaking
(Mills et al.,
2010)
• Sensemaking
Processes (micro)
• Formative
Contexts (macro)
• Organizational
rules (meso)
• Discourse
• Institutions
signal to
sensemaker
which
identities are
valued and
privileged
• Discussion of
race is absent
• Epistemology: Critical Paradigm (critique)
• Unit of analysis: Individual, organizations, institutions
(micro, meso, macro)
• Area of focus: “imagined possibilities” based on socially
accepted norms, rules, some identities as privileged,
emphasis on discourse
• Interviewees of interest: AB 705 implementers with
influence over sensemaking (e.g., college leadership, faculty
chairs)
• Interview questions: Who is responsible for implementing
AB 705? What influence do they have over how the policy is
understood? Why?
• Data highlights: Sensemaking in context, power
differentials, theory critiques reality
• Acknowledges contextual
factors of structure and
discourse
• Recognizes some
identities are privileged
over others through
organizations
• Highlights macro, meso,
and micro-level processes
• Identity is treated as a
variable that people of
color bring onto
institutions
• Agency is treated as an
explicit outcome of
organizational rules
• Absent discussion of
race and its foundational
role in shaping
inequality
Critical Race
Sensemaking
(Mills et al.,
2010; Ray,
2019).
• Critical
sensemaking
filtered through
racialized
organizations
• Race is
centered as a
mechanism of
organizational
inequality
• Organizations
perpetuate
dominate
racial systems
and order
• Epistemology: Critical Paradigm (emancipate)
• Unit of analysis: Organizations (meso)
• Area of focus: Racialized organizations shaping
sensemaking (e.g., interpretation, action, agency)
• Interviewees of interest: AB 705 implementers with
influence over organizational processes (e.g., resources,
hiring, time allocations)
• Interview questions: How does this college support or
hinder your agency to implement your vision for AB 705?
Who gets to break the rules of implementation? Why?
• Data highlights: Sensemaking nested within racialized
organizations, racial order, racial hierarchies; emphasizes
maintenance of white norms, interests, and values in policy
implementation, theory emancipates racialization of policy
implementation
• Centralizes race as a
mechanism of
organizational inequality
and maintenance of racial
order
• Operationalizes race as
enacted/supported
through organizations
• Agency in sensemaking
treated enabled or
constrained through
organizations
• Deemphasizes
individual level
sensemaking
• Disregards broader
macro-level policy
changes in the analysis

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Below, I first summarize sensemaking and critical sensemaking, tracing the conceptual
lineage of both while arguing they are alone insufficient to examine pervasive issues of race and
power in sensemaking, which scholars have argued is essential in policy implementation studies
(Chase, 2013, 2016). After describing how the tenets of CRS speak to one another to explain my
study, I proceed with my research design.
Sensemaking
What is sensemaking?
Rooted in social construction epistemology (Berger & Luckmann, 1991), sensemaking
builds from social psychology and organizational theory and recognizes that organizations are
not static entities and that no single reality exists (Weick, 1995). Instead, individuals are active
interpreters of their socially constructed worlds, which are built out of meanings that are social in
origin and social in persistence (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Sensemaking rejects positivist
views of knowledge as being fixed and having the ability to “quantify what is seen, heard, or
felt” (Sykes et al., 2012, p. 228). The sensemaking process activates through disruption of
everyday life, a shift from what is normal, or what Weick et al., 2005) describe as "when the
current state of the world is perceived to be different from the expected state of the world, or
when there is no obvious way to engage the world” (p. 409).
Sensemaking in organizational theory is about questioning how something becomes an
event for executive members. It is about asking, “What does an event mean?” and “What’s the
story here?” When people are forced to answer, “What should I do next?” sensemaking is
activated, and meaning is brought into existence (Weick et al., 2005, p. 410). Often mistaken
merely as a synonym for interpretation (Weick, 1995), sensemaking is both about interpretation
and action rather than evaluation alone (Weick et al., 2005). From an organizational perspective,

46

Sensemaking scholars are interested in how sensemaking is a building block to change within
organizations (Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005). It is a process by which actors negotiate
identity, cues, beliefs, and interactions, among others, and through this process, organizations are
argued to develop new frames that guide action. Policy implementation scholars (Coburn, 2005;
Datnow, 2000; Spillane et al., 2002) are more interested in how these new frames diverge from
policy goals and design. That is, in what ways do sensemaking processes support or hinder
fidelity to policy, and how does this process shape policy implementation (Heck, 2004)? Policy
scholars have answered this question through an emphasis on the social-psychological factors of
sensemaking. Nevertheless, as I will suggest, limited studies have considered the role of race and
power in sensemaking, to which my study contributes.
A large mass of policy studies on sensemaking emphasizes people's individual
worldviews, specifically the social-psychological aspects of sensemaking. This literature,
drawing mainly from K-12 research on how implementers react to policy, focuses on how
practitioners’ prior knowledge, beliefs, expectations, and experiences influence their
interpretation and policy implementation (Coburn, 2001; Spillane et al., 2002; Spillane, 1998).
Much of this research highlights the rigidity of an individual’s cognition, given that their lens of
the world shapes what they notice about the environment and how stimuli are processed,
organized, and interpreted (Spillane et al., 2002). A vital aspect of these social-psychological
features related to this study is the idea of schemas. Schemas are knowledge structures that
connect related concepts to predict and make sense of the world (Mandler, 2014). These schemas
are the understandings of everyday events and objects and provide theories about how the world
operates (Keil, 1989). Institutional actors’ schemas are essential because these schemas shape
expectations about people and their behavior (e.g., students; Spillane et al., 2002), and these

47

schemas can be biased. An essential aspect of schemas and one not considered in the
sensemaking literature is that schemas can be racialized (Ray, 2019). I expand on this idea in my
framework.
Besides individual worldviews, sensemaking is inherently social and collective.
Individuals come to a “shared understanding” and form meaning about policy through their
interactions and conversations with peers (Coburn, 2001, p. 147; Hill, 2001; Spillane, 1999),
often within professional, social, and organizational contexts (Spillane, 1998; Yanow, 1996). As
actors receive new information about policy, they construct and reconstruct meaning through a
shared understanding with peers (Coburn & Talbert, 2006). Therefore, it is unsurprising that
implementers reached different conclusions about the meaning and purpose of AB 705, given
that groups of individuals can often have different interpretations of policy within the same
institution (Spillane et al., 2006). For AB 705, whom actors talk to and how they deconstruct
policy signals is instrumental for implementation.
In this study, professional communities are essential in the sensemaking of AB 705. In
professional communities, individuals have shared knowledge, experiences, and norms that
inform their belief systems and everyday practices (Spillane et al., 2006). Academic departments
have different disciplinary orientations that inform how they operate and what they deem as
valuable, for instance, in the criteria for doctoral admissions (Posselt, 2015). Established norms
among English and math faculty were evident in differing interpretations of AB 705. They were
based on professional or disciplinary expectations (Spillane et al., 2006) of how a “transfer-
level” student is expected to perform.
Individuals are part of “thought communities” and a broader institutional context that
helps define phenomena and the meaning we ascribe to them (Coburn, 2001; Vaughan, 1996).

48

Thought communities acknowledge that people “by virtue of national and ethnic identity,
religious affiliation, social class membership, professional identity, and political leanings,” are
socialized early on, and this can influence how we define things and the meanings we give to
them (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 405). Institutional context emphasizes that institutions provide the
rules, norms, and definitions of the environment that enable or constrain action (DiMaggio &
Powell, 1991). Together, a focus on people’s thought communities and broader institutional
contexts shed light on how sensemaking processes are bounded in power-laden environments
that rarely receive attention in sensemaking literature (Brown et al., 2015).
A final and relevant factor for this study is that sensemaking is influenced by historical
context. When institutional actors are immersed as community members, they acquire tacit
knowledge – principally obtained from participating within an organization’s culture – that
shapes ways of acting and understanding for individuals (Spillane et al., 2002). Lin (2000) found
that policy implementation failure can be the result of groups of organizations (in this case,
prisons) reaching a different understanding of policy (i.e., rehabilitation programs) based on their
unique historical contexts. Historical context has implications for AB 705, given that community
colleges have differing missions, values, and priorities that are historically and geographically
rooted (Dougherty, 2002). That my sites were strong “transfer colleges” was historical context
that held considerable influence for sensemaking.
Sensemaking approaches have been used to study equity (Allbright & Marsh, 2019;
Bertrand & Marsh, 2015; Ching, 2017), policy implementation (Chase, 2014; Coburn, 2001;
Spillane et al., 2002; Yanow, 1996), and race (Evans, 2007; Irby, 2018; Philip, 2011;
Washington & Humphries, 2011). Limited studies explore the role of race and power in
sensemaking in higher education generally (Chase, 2013), but particularly in higher education

49

policies around equity. Studies by Irby (2018), Evans (2007), Washington and Humphries
(2011), and Philip (2011) have explored sensemaking on issues of race, racism, and racial justice
within K-12 literature. A strand of sociological work has examined how teachers, especially
white teachers, make sense of race and racism in the classroom (Haviland, 2008; Leonardo,
2004; Levine-rasky, 2010; Marx & Marx, 2010; Mazzei, 2008; McIntyre, 1997; Milner, 2006;
Picower & Picower, 2009; Rivière, 2008).
Most relevant to this dissertation are studies by Chase (2013; 2016) that examine policy
implementation in higher education from a critical perspective. Chase (2013) studied how
practitioners at a 2-year technical college interpreted and implemented a transfer policy using
case study research and sensemaking theory. She finds that implementation was primarily shaped
by practitioners’ perception of the policy's beneficiaries and how the policy impacted
practitioners. They framed the majority of students of color as low-income and unprepared, and
therefore 2-year vocational education was appropriate for them rather than increased transfer
pathways as espoused by the transfer policy. The transfer policy was seen as a “wasted effort.”
The author highlights how policy can act as a tool of equity if implemented in a way that creates
opportunities for racially minoritized students' success. Chase (2013; 2016) calls for critical
researchers to study further the role of race and power in how practitioners interpret and
implement policy. Disregarding these integral aspects of social context can overlook why policy
can be resisted, ignored, and ultimately not implemented (Dumas & Anyon, 2006).
Scholars have critiqued sensemaking theory because it does not adequately focus on
neither structural and discursive factors (Helms-Mills, 2003) or power issues (Aromaa et al.,
2018; Mills et al., 2010; Mills & Mills, 2017). Pioneering work on sensemaking theory argues
that sensemaking processes take place in context with an individual’s environment (Coburn,

50

2001, 2005; Spillane et al., 2006; Spillane et al., 2002); yet, these studies frame sensemaking as
absent from racialized contexts and overall do not discuss race. In fact, the word “race” does not
appear in any of the most widely cited studies on sensemaking in policy studies except in tables
for a site’s demographic information. As suggested earlier, policy codifies and serves the
interests of those in power (Levinson et al., 2009). Hence, the neutrality of sensemaking and the
invisibility of issues like power (Mills & Mills, 2017) prompted the emergence of critical
sensemaking theory.
Critical Sensemaking
Critical sensemaking (CSM) combines ideas in sensemaking and organizational theory to
argue that sensemaking processes need to be “explored through, and in relationship to, the
contextual factors of structure and discourse in which individual sensemaking occurs” (Thurlow,
2009, p. 3). Developed mainly by Jean Helms Mills, Amy Thurlow, and Albert J. Mills, critical
sensemaking draws attention to “why some language, social practices, and experiences become
meaningful for individuals, and others do not” (Mills et al., 2010, p. 188). A focus of critical
sensemaking is its attention to identity formation and its relationship with agency in
organizations' study. During organizational shocks, identity construction becomes essential in
sensemaking when individuals learn what aspects of their identity are meaningful. People project
their identities onto an organization, and they see them reflected back, often in ways that show
which are valued and which are not (Mills et al., 2010).
Critical sensemaking incorporates the social psychological processes of sensemaking and
focuses on “how individuals make sense of their environments at a local level while
acknowledging power relations in the broader societal context” (Mills et al., 2010, p. 190).
Critical sensemaking adds the concepts of formative contexts (Unger, 1987), organizational rules

51

(Mills & Murgatroyd, 1991), and discourse (Foucault, 1979) to understand the interplay between
individual actions and broader societal issues like power and privilege.
Formative contexts. At the macro level, formative contexts are institutional and social practices
that shape society’s routines and limit what can be imagined and done within society (Unger,
1987). These formative contexts “provide an implicit model of how social life should be led”
(Unger, 1987, as quoted in Blackler, 1992, p. 283) and are the link between dominant social
values and individual action (Mills et al., 2010). Blackler maintains formative contexts as the
“imaginative schemas of participants,” of what is possible as governed by how people engage
with socially negotiated groups (1992, p. 279).
Unger (1987) emphasizes that some groups and traditions uphold standards and norms
that significantly influence society’s expectations and ideals. An example of formative contexts
is the unmarked whiteness of higher education institutions, where the norms, values, interests,
and expectations are centered on whiteness (Ray, 2019). Whiteness is historically rooted in “the
dominance of European culture [that] produced an Anglo-Saxon core society rooted in and
identified with English language and customs” (Gusa, 2015, p. 467). Whiteness is a socially
informed ontological and epistemological orientation of what one does rather than what one has
(Leonardo, 2002; Swartz, 2009). The unspoken nature of whiteness in developmental education
shapes who is considered legitimate and deserving of high placement. For instance, Maldonado
(2019) found that college counselors perceived white students as more intelligent and worthy of
higher placement than students of color.
Organizational rules. Applied at the meso level, rules control, constrain, guide, and define
social action, and they may be legalistic, normative, and moralistic; written or unwritten; and
formal or informal (Mills & Mills, 2017). Organizational rules capture “meso-structural

52

influences on micro-senses and enactment of sensemaking” to situate organizational power and
individual sensemaking in a broader frame of privilege (Aromaa et al., 2018, p. 4). These rules
and social practices govern how “individuals organize” and “how things get done” (Thurlow,
2009, p. 3). They impose limitations on how people make sense of organizations and their
subsequent actions and how to retain unity and cohesiveness (Mills & Murgatroyd, 1991;
Thurlow, 2009).
A feature of CSM is the insight into the power of individuals enacting rules and how
rules are introduced within organizations (Mills et al., 2010). Those in a position to make rules
are legitimized through organizational processes and perpetuate the status quo. For AB 705
implementers, rules depend on where they fall in the dominant hierarchies within a college.
Rule-creators and rule-followers may have a different understanding based on their position of
why such rules exist in the first place. Both formative contexts and organizational rules are
products and produced through discourse.
Discourse. Drawing on Foucault (1979), discourse is “a historically evolved set of interlocking
and mutually supporting statements, which are used to define and describe a subject matter”
(Butler, 2002, p. 44). Discourse is not only language but also related practices that create a
“socially sanctioned body of rules that govern one’s manner of perceiving, judging, imagining
and acting” (Flynn, 1994, p. 30). Discursive practices normalize specific ideas to the point that
they are no longer ideas but ways of thinking and believing (Mills & Mills, 2017). The key here
is that some narratives and discourses are privileged over others. Through discourse, power as a
force is exerted, put into action, and shaped to construct knowledge systems (Dumas & Anyon,
2006).

53

Critical sensemaking has been used to study identity (Bishop, 2014; Hartt et al., 2012;
Hartt, 2014; Helms-Mills, 2003; Helms Mills, 2005; Mercer et al., 2015; Paludi & Helms Mills,
2015; Prasad, 2014; Ruel et al., 2018; Thurlow, 2009; Thurlow & Mills, 2014), language and
organizational change (Thurlow, 2007), power and resistance (Carroll et al., 2008), history
(Hartt, 2013), agency (Hilde & Mills, 2015, 2017; Thurlow & Helms Mills, 2009; Tomkins &
Eatough, 2014), gender (Mills & Mills, 2010; Helms Mills & Mills, 2017; Ruel, 2018),
immigrant’s professional experiences (Hilde, 2013), and microaggressions (Shenoy-Packer,
2015). The majority of these studies have emphasized agency and power (Aromaa et al., 2018) in
shaping sensemaking processes. No studies to my knowledge use CSM theory to explore issues
of race in policy analysis, though this area has been explored extensively by critical policy
scholars (Aleman, 2006; Chase et al., 2014; Dumas et al., 2016; Gillborn, 2005; Iverson, 2007;
Leonardo, 2009; Mansfield & Thachik, 2016; Tabron & Ramlackhan, 2019). The majority of this
research by critical policy scholars has explored theoretical and empirical studies on race and
policy within the K-12 literature and less so in higher education.
The sensemaking perspective focuses on how social psychological factors in the
environment that inform how individuals form meaning. The CSM perspective emphasizes how
structural contexts and discourse influence individual sensemaking, particularly over issues of
power. Although CSM is helpful to capture multiple levels of sensemaking, as a theory, CSM
underplays the role of race in general and specifically race within organizations. In the analysis
of race, both sensemaking and critical sensemaking approaches frame identity as a variable and
fail to consider race and racism's embeddedness as societal forces that influence what people
think and do. Below, I combine sensemaking and critical sensemaking theories with a racialized
organizations perspective (Ray, 2019) to propose Critical Race Sensemaking, a framework that

54

situates race as central to sensemaking processes within racialized organizations. I describe the
theoretical underpinnings of this framework and explain how its tenets and levels of analysis
were used to study AB 705.
Critical Race Sensemaking
Critical Race Sensemaking (CRS) builds on critical sensemaking’s analysis of contextual
factors and discourse by conceptualizing sensemaking processes as occurring among contexts
filtered through and by racialized organizations. To do this, I draw on Ray’s (2019) theory of
racialized organizations to argue that community colleges are racialized organizations that
support the institution of developmental education to reproduce racialized outcomes (e.g.,
inequitable assessment and placement). A structural emphasis of race and organizations argues
that sensemaking processes at the macro (e.g., state-enforced segregation) and micro (e.g.,
personal prejudice) levels are mediated through organizations (e.g., meso-level) and their
resources to maintain the dominant [white] racial order. While critical sensemaking stresses
identity formation and captures human agency in context, critical race sensemaking considers
race not as a variable but as a mechanism that reproduces racial inequality through organizations'
resources. In line with Ray (2019), CRS frames human agency as enabled or constrained via
racial mechanisms that maintain the durability of organizational inequality.
Connecting racialized organizations with critical sensemaking, as shown in Figure 3,
showcases the multidimensionality of racialized sensemaking. CRS begins with a disruption in
whiteness and the dominant racial order; in this study, it is AB 705. AB 705 challenges the belief
that students, principally minoritized students, cannot complete college-level coursework. Next,
within racialized organizations, individuals learn about their legitimacy via organizational
resources. When combining these resources with individuals’ racial schemas, individuals

55

develop the necessary agency to change or sustain the status quo. The components of critical
sensemaking (e.g., sensemaking, organizational rules, formative contexts) operate within this
space of racialized organizations. Through discourse, organizations shape individual’s
understanding, action, and agency of processes such as policy implementation.

Figure 3 Critical Race Sensemaking

Below, I outline Ray’s (2019) contribution to structural theories of race and organizations
by sharing four central tenets of racialized organizations: 1) racialized organizations improve or
limit the agency of racial groups; (2) racialized organizations legitimate the unequal distribution
of resources; (3) whiteness is a credential; and (4) the decoupling of formal rules from
organizational practice is often racialized. In the proceeding sections, I do three things: 1) I
explain the tenets that support Critical Race Sensemaking as an analytic frame, 2) I describe how

56

these tenets connect, and 3) I explain how the tenets of CRS explain phenomena across multiple
levels.
Race and Organizations
Race is a classification system and sociopolitical construction created to establish racial
hierarchies, white dominance, and economic engine for Europeans from the western hemisphere
(Baker, 1998; Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Omi & Winant, 2015). Race is not a thing but “a relationship
between persons mediated through things” whereby “race is constructed relationally via the
distribution of social, psychological, and material resources” (Ray, 2019, p.4). Racialization is
the process of extending racial meaning to relationships, social practices, or groups (Omi &
Winant, 2015), and as Ray (2019) makes clear, organizations. Prominent scholars of race have
described racism as institutionalized mechanisms beyond explicit racial epithets, violence, and
government-sponsored segregation (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Delgado, 1983). Racism is individual
actions that oppress minoritized people’s; structures that maintain and reframe racial inequality;
and “institutional norms that sustain [w]hite privilege and permit the ongoing subordination of
minoritized persons” (Harper, 2012, p. 10).
An organizational and structural perspective of race emphasizes the role of organizations
in the production, maintenance, and institutionalization of racial ideologies between the racial
state and individual biases. This perspective conceptualizes race not as a demographic variable or
identity but as a mechanism that reproduces racial inequality through organizations' resources
(Ray, 2019). It also highlights the relationship between racialized structures and individual
agency. That is, personal agency is enabled or constrained depending on the positioning of
people within dominant racial hierarchies.

57

Ray begins his model of racialized organizations with Sewell’s (1992) notion of “dual
structures,” which argues for structures as composed from “cultural schemas and the
mobilization of resources” (2019, p. 6). Schemas are often defined as conscious, generalizable,
and cognitive “default assumptions” that predict and make sense of the world (DiMaggio, 1997,
p. 269; Mandler, 2014; Ray, 2019). Racial schemas provide the expected cognitive maps about
race and are supported by dominant racial ideologies made possible by the unequal distribution
of resources along racial lines. Resources may include raw materials (e.g., capital, commodities)
but also “intangible human resources” (e.g., knowledge, rules of social interaction; Ray, 2019, p.
6; Sewell, 1992). Ray argues, “all organizations are racialized and “inhabited” by racialized
bodies” (2019, p. 11). By connecting racialized schemas (e.g., counselor prejudice) to
organizational resources (e.g., biased assessment practices), organizations can create racial
hierarchies and justify ideologies about race in education (e.g., students of color as undeserving
of high course placement).
Tenets of Racialized Organizations
The first tenet of racialized organizations is that they “limit the personal agency and
collective efficacy of subordinate racial groups while magnifying the agency of the dominant
[white] racial group” (Ray, 2019, p. 11). Minoritized people are often concentrated at the bottom
of organizational hierarchies, resulting in various outcomes (e.g., health, education, law).
Organizations' racial hierarchies mean that minoritized people at lower tiers have less influence
over organizational procedures and the broader institutional environment (Ray, 2019). One way
that organizations shape agency is through the control of time. Organizations control how
members use their free time, plan for the future, and exert influence within organizations.
Organizations also steal time from non-whites by disproportionately allocating time along racial

58

lines (Kwate, 2017). The pattern of over placing Black and Brown students into developmental
education is a form of time theft because these students spend additional years in developmental
courses that do not benefit them (Boatman & Long, 2018).
Organizations shape “identity agency” or the capacity to perform within socially
prohibited roles (Ray, 2019). They also limit people of color’s agency in emotional expressions
(Wingfield & Alston, 2014). That is, white’s emotional expectations are favored making whites
the primary beneficiaries of the racial system (Ray, 2019). This is reflected in many professional
development opportunities where practitioners are reluctant and lack the tools to engage in
discussions of race (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015). Finally, the old assessment and placement
system steals agency away from students, especially students of color, who enroll in classes that
research has proven do not benefit them. Now, in contrast, AB 705 attempts to give agency back
to students by mandating colleges to inform students of their right to place directly into transfer-
level courses.
When organizations constrain implementers' agency, it can influence how individuals
make sense of policies like AB 705. Recall that sensemaking processes involve not only
interpretation but also action (Weick et al., 2005). If institutional actors understand AB 705 as a
tool for racial equity, whether their actions create opportunities for minoritized students (Chase,
2013) may depend on individuals' agency to enact changes. For example, this agency may be in
the form of time or resources. Faculty who do not receive enough time to adjust their pedagogy
in the classroom may not teach courses any differently than before AB 705, even if they are avid
supporters of the policy. Lack of access to professional development resources and opportunities
may prevent supporters of AB 705 from implementing it with fidelity to the goals of
policymakers (Heck, 2004).

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The second tenet of racialized organizations is that they legitimize the unequal
distribution of resources. White organizations are perceived as more legitimate, whereas non-
white organizations are stigmatized and seen as deviations from the norm (Ray, 2019). The low
prestige and recognition of community colleges are relevant here. Community colleges are not
afforded the same prestige and legitimacy as 4-year colleges; they are not perceived as “real”
colleges given their offering of developmental courses and multiple missions. These colleges
operate on the “edge of higher education’s mainstream mission, resulting in a feeling of isolation
and even inferiority” (Vaughan, 1992, p. 24). Additionally, organizations with a large
concentration of people of color are often under-resourced (i.e., community colleges) relative to
predominately white institutions (e.g., 4-year, highly selective institutions; Ray, 2019). A case in
point is the truncated nature of funding in California public higher education: the UC system
receives the most funding per student ($33,936) compared to the CSU ($14,433) and community
college system ($8,645) (Fast Facts 2018, 2018). Unequal distribution of resources is also made
possible through occupational hierarchies within organizations. An example is the limited
number of people of color represented in leadership positions in colleges and universities
(Gasman et al., 2015), which can provide access to and influence over opportunities that shape
how policies are implemented (Coburn, 2005).
Similarly, an example of unequal distribution of resources within developmental
education is that Black and Brown students placed into developmental education are taught
principally by faculty adjuncts who have the least legitimacy and resources in terms of the
faculty, and who can be quickly hired, dismissed, and reemployed as needed by colleges (Cohen
& Brawer, 1996). Many developmental education instructors are part-time adjuncts and do not
receive professional development opportunities, as do some tenured faculty (Gerstein, 2009).

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Similar to community colleges receiving the least funding compared to 4-year colleges,
developmental students who in theory need more support are saddled with the least resourced
members of the faculty.
When organizations legitimize the unequal distribution of resources, it shows how
institutional actors' attitudes can be reinforced by resources and shape sensemaking. For those
implementing AB 705, their potentially racialized schemas about assessment and placement can
be influenced by the resources they receive, which can act as signals about their legitimacy and
agency within their organization. For example, the authority vested in some individuals (e.g.,
vice presidents, deans, department chairs) to carry out policy implementation provides them
resources that may legitimize certain ideas over others.
The third tenet of racialized organizations is whiteness as a credential in “providing
access to organizational resources, legitimizing work hierarchies, and expanding [w]hite agency”
(Ray, 2019, p. 16). An example is hiring discrimination, where whites are afforded preference
regardless of work ethic, qualifications (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004; Pager et al., 2009), and
even criminal record (Pager, 2008). In line with Harris’s (1995) conceptualization of whiteness
as a form of property, this tenet emphasizes that organizations establish whiteness as the norm
and as a credential, often and preferably in ways that appear unintentional (Ray, 2019). In this
way, organizations legitimize racial inequality through passive participation in organizations that
afford privileges to whites, primarily by processes seen as objective and race-neutral.
Maldonado’s (2019) article captures whiteness as a credential in counselors’ perceptions
of students' ideal placement. He empirically argued that whiteness manifested in where students
went to high school, what neighborhoods they came from, and the courses they had access to
were signals about their readiness to enroll in college-level courses and, indeed, the expectation

61

of placement decisions. Those students that came from majority white and affluent
neighborhoods were expected to place in the highest-level courses. On the contrary, Latinx
students were seen as suffering from a “bad culture,” bilingualism, and “no support at home.” In
addition, counselors questioned the legitimacy of Latinx students' good grades because of
“questionable grading practices in schools with majority students of color” (2019, p. 8). This
reinforces the second tenet, whereby white organizations are seen as more legitimate and receive
more resources than organizations with larger concentrations of people of color. Maldonado’s
(2019) article shows the creation of “race categories and racial hierarchy” that are used by
counselor’s to “begin institutionalizing racial sorting immediately as first-time students begin to
enroll” (p. 10). Counselors held these beliefs regardless of their racial identity, suggesting “an
already institutionalized placement script (p. 11)” or whiteness as a credential.
As a credential, whiteness highlights how AB 705 implementers may form meaning
through a credentialing process centered on white norms, interests, and expectations. Even more,
actors may internalize bureaucratic processes seen as “objective,” yet these processes may have
racialized outcomes. In a conversation with a white female vice president of a rural California
community college, when I asked what race has to do with AB 705, she shared, "We don’t see it
as a race thing. That’s not the point for me. The point of the policy is for it to benefit all students;
our service area just happens to be very diverse (personal communication)." The interpretation of
AB 705 as a policy that will benefit all students by a highly ranked white administrator
exemplifies one of how individuals with power can weaken the potential of policies that can
address racial inequity. When leaders and institutional actors interpret AB 705 as a race-neutral
initiative, they may disregard how practices associated with developmental education perpetuate
injustice in academic opportunities for racially minoritized students.

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The fourth and final tenet of racialized organizations is the decoupling of policies and
rules, which highlights how “‘objective’ rules and practices may be enforced in ways that
disadvantage non-[w]hites, or rules aimed at diversifying or ending discrimination may be
ignored” (Ray, 2019, p. 19). By decoupling policies and rules, organizations can express
commitment to racial justice but never materialize them through action. These rules and
hierarchies shape who gets to break the rules and why (Martin et al., 2013). Many anti-
discrimination policies and practices, when violated, are rarely enforced, leaving whistleblowers
of discrimination vulnerable to exclusion or job termination (Roscigno, 2007). Decoupling, as a
racialized phenomenon, emphasizes the racialized and power-laden reality of organizational
formation. The resources allotted to those higher on hierarchies make it possible to bend the rules
and shape actor agency within organizations. This tenet reiterates whiteness as a credential since
those with this credential gain access, legitimacy, and eventually, the opportunity to have rules
broken given their position within organizational arrangements (Ray, 2019).
Racialized decoupling is a possible outcome of AB 705. Colleges may make
performative changes to comply with the policy’s mandates, but behind these changes, they may
reify racial hierarchies both among students and the implementers of AB 705. In a conversation
with a dean at an urban community college, I learned that faculty adjusted course offerings based
on what maintains the status quo for faculty compensation. At this college, the teaching of
corequisite courses is not paid since these are non-credit courses. To get around this the number
of credits for the core classes was increased (from 3 units to 5 units) so that faculty can be
compensated for teaching corequisites. To avoid reductions in pay or layoff adjunct faculty who
teach developmental courses, colleges around the state can decouple rules and practices that
could run counter to the goals of AB 705.

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Critical Race Sensemaking Within Racialized Organizations
Critical Race Sensemaking (CRS) considers how racialized organizations shape
sensemaking, actor agency, and action. Sensemaking processes cannot occur independently of
organizations that are racialized. Individuals form meaning and shape their actions within
contexts laden with resource imbalances made possible by organizations. These imbalances drive
the extent to which people carry out their roles with fidelity to policymakers' goals (Heck, 2004).
Unlike critical sensemaking, which is driven by power relations and identity
6
, CRS is activated
when there is a disruption in whiteness and the racial order. Rooted in racialized organizations
prompts sensemaking to begin when explicit and implicit racial norms are questioned,
challenged, and resisted. When whiteness is contested and dominant schemas are examined, it
prompts sense makers to redefine their interpretation of phenomena concerning the agency and
resources offered by organizations.
A Critical Race Sensemaking framework incorporates sensemaking processes, formative
contexts, and organizational rules, all through a lens of racialized organizations. This framework
considers how meaning is constructed and used to inform the racial order through discursive
language and practices. The dominant racial order is centered on white’s property interests,
where the expectations, emotions, behavior, and the very fabric of social institutions are white
(Harris, 1995). Sensemaking within a racialized organization framework argues that changes to
dominant racial frames and actor agency are only possible via limited external and internal
sources of change. External sources may include resources that challenge dominant schemas,

6
Critical sensemaking frames identity and power relations as external forces enacted onto individuals. Yet, as Ray
(2019) makes clear, organizations contribute to racial ideologies through resources and individuals’ passive
participation within organizations. Critical Race Sensemaking frames race as a mechanism of racial inequality,
rather than as a demographic variable.

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state policy changes, organizations pushing for state policy changes, or social movements that
drive macro-level policy changes. Internal sources of change may include changes in hiring
practices, diversity programs, actors that challenge the status quo, naming whiteness within
organizations, and challenging white property interests (Ray, 2019).
AB 705 represents an external change (e.g., state policy change, non-profits like The
Campaign for College Opportunity lobbying for reform) and “shock to the system” that can
redefine community college success outcomes and, subsequently, dominant racial frames about
success in English and math courses. These dominant frames are the racialized attitudes and
stigma associated with being a person of color, which act as a form of negative currency and
results in faculty and counselors’ outward bias toward these students (Maldonado, 2019; Roberts,
2019). Internal change is also possible and can lead to substantial change, and indeed, AB 705
serving as a tool for racial equity (Chase, 2013). This may look like college leadership that
pushes practitioners to innovate or faculty department chairs that encourage their colleagues to
innovate and transform how students navigate English and math courses.
Connecting tenets of CRS
Critical Race Sensemaking is a theoretical framework that operates at three levels of
analysis (i.e., micro, meso, macro) to explain the role of race and power in sensemaking. Each
tenet of CRS speaks to and draws on one another to explain the phenomena of sensemaking in
greater totality. For example, with organizational rules, individual sensemaking tells us that how
institutional actors interpret an organizational rule matters for implementation. Critical
sensemaking tells us that power is embedded in the formation of organizational rules. A
racialized organization frame tells us that whiteness is core to organizational rules in
predominately white institutions. Combining this with Ray’s (2019) tenet of decoupling rules

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from implementation, Critical Race Sensemaking tells us that racialization happens in forming
organizational rules, understanding those rules, and their deployment.
An example related to AB 705 is the use of multiple measures for placement. Under AB
705, colleges are required to use multiple measures like high school coursework, grades, GPA,
noncognitive factors, and students’ self-assessment for placement decisions. At the micro-level,
individual sensemaking can highlight that institutional actors have a cognitive understanding of
placement practices based on prior experiences formed over a long time. Critical sensemaking
showcases how placement decisions are based on arbitrary faculty norms rooted in power-laden
disciplinary customs (Boatman & Long, 2018), not the systematic use of data (Edley, 2017). At
the meso level, a racialized organizations perspective emphasizes that students' agency is enabled
or constrained using placement exams that disproportionately misplace students of color (Mejia
et al., 2016). Combined with Ray’s (2019) tenet of whiteness as a credential, Critical Race
Sensemaking tells us that racialization in placement practices happens when whites are afforded
privileges based on the neighborhoods they come from, the schools they attend, and the courses
they had access to (Maldonado, 2019). Together, CRS shed light on multiple levels (i.e., micro,
meso, macro) of sensemaking processes focusing on race.
Chapter Closing
AB 705 is a policy that can be argued to be an instrument of equity, a tool for closing
longstanding equity gaps in developmental education. However, how institutional actors interpret
and implement the policy has implications for whether developmental education is reformed in
such a way that it creates equity in outcomes for minoritized students. A Critical Race
Sensemaking perspective helps interrogate whether power and race issues shape how
sensemaking processes impact the implementation of policies with equity implications. For

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instance, sensemaking occurs in different scenarios as individuals or in social settings like a
policy implementation committee, and how individuals enact policy depends on how they
understand it. Someone might individually understand AB 705 as an antiracist policy or policy
about racial equity. However, they may not have the power or agency in a social setting to enact
the policy as they understand it, especially if their organization affords privileges and resources
to specific individuals who do not espouse values of racial equity.
Earlier, I synthesized the literature on developmental education reforms and highlighted
the research conducted to date on how institutional actors implement these reforms. Limited
research exists on how institutional actors interpret these reforms and how they shape their
actions during implementation. There is also a shortage of sensemaking studies in higher
education research on policy implementation that focus on the role of race and power (Chase,
2013; 2016). To contribute to this gap in the literature, I turn to Critical Race Sensemaking,
which can inform data collection and analysis to elucidate my research questions. Below, I
discuss the methodology used to study AB 705 and answer my research questions.

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CHAPTER 4: Research Design
The research design shapes what, how, and why a research topic is studied, including the
questions asked, the data collected, and the analysis and interpretation of data (Yin, 2014).
Qualitative research methods and techniques highlight how people interpret their experiences,
their lived worlds, and the meaning they attribute to those experiences (Merriam, 2009). The
goal for qualitative researchers is not generalization; instead, they serve as an instrument and
interpretive role in describing people’s lived experiences (Maxwell, 2013). The goal is to capture
meaning and specifics, not the general, when all uniqueness becomes lost (Eisner, 1991). That
uniqueness is the rich and detailed description of people’s experiences, which often are very
complex and nearly impossible to explain through quantifiable analysis. Qualitative research
designs are especially suited for exploring race issues given the complexity and depth required to
study racialized phenomena (Laurence & Marvin, 2002).
This study relied on qualitative semi-structured interviews to gather descriptions of
actors' sensemaking processes in implementing AB 705. An “inter-view” is “an interchange of
views between two persons, conversing about a subject of mutual interest” (Brinkmann, 2013, p.
13). It is a useful tool to understand the “hows of human action and experience” (Brinkmann &
Kvale, 2008, p. 49). The act of interviewing is “as old as the human race” (Bogardus, 1924, p.
456) and is concerned with how something is done (e.g., sensemaking and implementation of AB
705) and why (e.g., race, power, agency). Interviews in my study provide insight into how
institutional actors frame the problem that AB 705 attempts to solve and their understanding and
actions during the policy’s implementation.
This study focuses on understanding a complex human process about making sense and
implementing a policy with implications for racial equity (i.e., AB 705) within organizational

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contexts that have historically been resistant to such approaches. Only a few studies have
examined the implementation of developmental education reforms generally (Daugherty et al.,
2018; Kalamkarian et al., 2015; Woods et al., 2019), but especially how actors understand and
enact these reforms based on racialized organizational contexts. Within the limited
implementation studies available, race and power are constructs that are also rarely examined.
My dissertation study examines whether the implementers of AB 705 form meaning
about the policy in ways that advance racial equity for the large quantities of minoritized
students affected by developmental education. Therefore, to reiterate, my research questions are:
1. In what ways do institutional actors understand the goals and desired outcomes of AB
705?
2. How does awareness of developmental education as a racialized practice shape how
institutional actors make sense of AB 705?
3. In what ways do leaders exercise their agency and power to influence the implementation
of AB 705?
I pursued these research questions through an interview study with 38 institutional actors tasked
with implementing AB 705 at two community colleges. In what follows, I describe the study
sites, participants, data collection, analytic process, and timeline of this dissertation.
Site Selection
I selected two sites described below based on the following criteria: 1) variation in the
racial composition and outcomes of students in developmental education 2) whether they were
identified as “strong implementers” of AB 705 by the Campaign for College Opportunity 3) their
strong transfer identity and 4) their differing organizational governance structures.

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Criteria #1: Variation in the Racial Composition and Outcomes of Students in
Developmental Education
Sunnyville College
The first community college, Sunnyville College, is in a wealthy neighborhood that is
predominately white (76.6 percent; see Appendix E.). The median property value of homes in the
area is over $1.1 million, with an average yearly household income of $86,084. The majority of
residents over the age of 25 in the surrounding neighborhood have a college degree (over 70%).
Despite the majority-white service area, Sunnyville’s student body in 2017 (pre-AB 705) was
37.4 percent Latinx, 15.1 percent Asian, 27.2 percent white, 7.8 percent Black, and 1.6 percent
Filipino (see summary Table 2). Of all students enrolled in basic skills courses at Sunnyville, a
larger proportion of them – relative to their overall college enrollment – are Latinx (49.3%) and
Black students (10.3%). There are several equity gaps in the completion of developmental
courses with Latinx, Filipino, and Black students completing at lower rates in both English and
math developmental courses (see summary Table 2). For instance, only 15.6 percent of Black
and 29.9 percent of Latinx students complete college-level courses within six years after
attempting a developmental course for the first time.

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Table 2 - Percent of full-time enrollments and percent of students enrolled into basic skills
courses for the 2017-2018 academic year disaggregated by race and ethnicity

Percent of full-time
student enrollments for
the 2017-2018 year
Percent of students who
enrolled into basic skills
courses (credit and non-
credit) for the 2017-2018
year
Race Sunnyville Village Sunnyville Village
Black 7.8% 3.4% 10.3% 3.4%
American Indian /Alaskan Native 0.2% 0.1% 0.2% 0.1%
Asian 15.1% 24.5% 14.4% 37.4%
Filipino 1.6% 3.5% 0.8% 1.1%
Latinx 37.4% 46.7% 49.3% 46.5%
Multi-Ethnicity 4.3% 3.3% 2.5% 1.4%
Pacific Islander 0.3% 0.1% 0.2% 0.1%
Unknown 6.2% 4.7% 5.9% 2.7%
White 27.2% 13.7% 16.4% 7.4%
Total enrollment counts ~25,000 ~26,000 ~1,600 ~2,000
Data is from the Full-Time Equivalent Student (FTES) report tool of the California
Community College Chancellor's Office Data Mart system. Annual term for 2017-2018.

A Bright Community. Sunnyville College is in a city suburb with a modern, bright ambiance.
The streets in the surrounding neighborhood are narrow but not small. Palm trees are scattered
throughout, thin trees that line perfectly paved roads, making the sun appear to wrap around
houses. Sunnyville College is hidden within this chill suburb. A main street with pass-by traffic
runs adjacent to the college, while quiet residential housing spans the rest of Sunnyville, making
most of the outside campus look subdued. Once entering the college, it is clear the college is
well-resourced. The central student services structure, housing counseling, administration,
financial aid, and various support services is a newly constructed, glass-walled building with
contemporary décor. The interior is expansive, brightly lit, with vibrant colors amongst new
furniture. A mixture of green, blue, gray, and white tones line this modern building.
The modern aesthetic carries over throughout campus. Numerous water foundations
are spread across the campuses’ freshly trimmed landscaping. The seating adjacent to these water

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fountains is accompanied by palm trees that partially cover the southern California sun. Students
are seen scrolling on their cellphones, reading a book, chatting with friends, and writing, all
between classes. Patio seating areas with umbrellas are scattered across campus and students
often mingled on them. Across campus are banners showing the college’s transfer success
prowess, highlighting Sunnyville alumni that transferred to elite private and public highly
selective 4-year universities. A banner prominently displays, “We support DREAMERS.”
Sunnyville’s library continues the modern design of the campus. The walls are gray
concrete with a mix of industrial and contemporary lighting spanning several levels of open
seating and ceiling windows that attract natural light. Standing in a single location, one can see
multiple floors of seating with some students chatting with their classmates, some taking naps on
tables, reading a book, or working on computers. A mix of ample table seating, single table
seating with privacy covers, and couches with coffee tables are lined across each floor. In the
library, each table has chairs from a famous manufacturer of modern office furniture that
routinely sells office chairs for over $1,000. A popular lounge chair from this company sells for
well over $5,000. Not all buildings at Sunnyville are modern. Most interviews conducted were in
bungalows or older, flat buildings. For instance, outside faculty offices included dated single-
person wooden tables and chairs where students often took naps or waited to meet with faculty.
Village College
The second site, Village College, is in a middle class to a wealthy suburban neighborhood
that is historically white but increasingly racially and ethnically diverse (Fulton, 2001). Whites
(53.9%) and Latinx (34.4%) people make up most of the resident population relative to Asian
American (16.3%) and Black (10.2%) residents. With property values of $689,700 and median
household incomes of $76,264, the service area is middle class and over 50 percent of the

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residents over age 25 possess bachelor and graduate degrees. Village’s student body is 46.7
percent Latinx, 24.5 percent Asian, 13.7 white, and 3.4 percent Black. Enrollment into
developmental courses at this college is comprised of mostly Latinx (46.5%), with some Asian
American subgroups overrepresented in developmental courses (37.4%). Only about half of
developmental students at Village complete college-level courses within six years (see Table 3).
Table 3 - Completion rates of each subgroup who attempted for the first time a developmental
course and successfully passed a college-level English or math class within six years
English completion
Mathematics
completion
Race Sunnyville Village Sunnyville Village
College average 48.4% 53.2% 30.6% 48.0%
Black 33.3% 32.2% 15.6% 33.6%
American Indian /Alaskan Native 16.7% 50.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Asian 60.0% 71.8% 45.4% 55.6%
Filipino 61.5% 62.0% 36.4% 52.8%
Latinx 49.4% 48.8% 29.9% 46.2%
Pacific Islander 33.3% 42.9% 50.0% 20.0%
White 58.8% 60.9% 42.0% 56.3%
Data is from the Student Success Scorecard Metrics tool of the California Community
College Chancellor's Office Data Mart system. The table includes the percentage of credit
students who have attempted for the first time a course designated as any "levels below
transfer" in math or English developmental courses and have completed college-level math
or English course within six years. Cohort Year 2011-2012 (Outcomes by 2016-2017).

A Quiet Suburban College. Village College is a quiet campus laid in a way that makes its
suburbia feeling intentional. Parking structures, spanning buildings, and green spaces, surround
the edges of campus, with pine trees and green shrubs home to chirping birds. On any given day,
students park their cars or exit buses and head to the center of this suburbia, where nearby main
street traffic, food restaurants, markets, and service shops, are rendered unnoticeable. Students
are surrounded by multilevel departments that house liberal arts and STEM classes, student and
instructional services, multicultural centers, a campus bookstore, and administrative services
offices readily accessible in this center.

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The use of space at Village appears deliberate. For instance, the center of the campus
has limited seating. Only a few areas have designated seating areas, including cold concrete
benches, ridges, and tables, intended almost for students to pass by rather than work on. Hence,
students usually found chatting with friends in between classes or doing light reading in this area.
Most of the studying happens in the college’s vast library. Open seating and tables with power
outlets surround this library with large natural light thanks to open-walled windows. Many
students are seen here working in groups or individually writing an essay. Library staff were
friendly and rarely interacted with students at all, in this quiet working space.
One side of the college community consists of a well-known street housing high-end
shopping districts, popular bars, and community events. An adjacent nearby freeway and bus
stops make commuting to Village easier. Nearby are green public parks, including a private
estate turned nonprofit with vast gardens and distinguished art collections. Opposite to this side
of campus is a sprawling open community with polished greenery. Homes in close distance to
the college sell for $750,000, while two blocks down, other homes sell for over $2,500,000. The
surrounding neighborhood of Village College includes open streets lined with large homes with
expansive lawns. Some homes are open with no front gate, no visible cars parked in the street,
and lofty trees that often span both sides of the street, allowing in speckles of sunlight. Other
streets contain homes with large front gates covered in privacy foliage or white picket fences.
A private, highly prestigious university is nearby Village College, and vicinity to this
highly selective university and what historically and continually remains an exclusively white
surrounding community may have transcended into the hearts and minds of some implementers
of AB 705 at Village. Village College is regarded very highly by many at the college. Described
as the “Harvard of community colleges,” Village holds a distinguished reputation in the eyes of

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some faculty and practitioners as being the “crown jewel of community college” because its
“students are the best” and the college’s curriculum is rigorous.
Variation in Student Racial Composition
Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw (1995) write that researchers “should look for a setting where
gender, ethnic, or class diversity not only seems clearly highlighted but also where these issues
concern the members” (p. 159). One of my study's purposes was to learn whether racial equity is
a concern for the actors responsible for enacting AB 705. An assumption was made that concern
over the success of their students – particularly as Hispanic-Serving Institutions where Latinx
students are the majority – might encourage each college to take intentional steps to serve Latinx
students, as well as Black, southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous students who
complete at lower rates than some Asian American subgroups and white students. I assumed that
variability in the student body might raise contrasting attitudes about delivering developmental
education that can have racialized consequences in AB 705.
Criteria #2: “Strong implementers” of AB 705 by The Campaign for College Opportunity
In a 2019 report, The Campaign for College Opportunity examined changes to Fall 2019
course schedules in 47 out of 115 community colleges in California, focusing on whether they
increased their transferable college-level courses over traditional developmental courses (Arce et
al., 2019). Arce and colleagues (2019) suggest, “[the] surest way to maximize student
completion is to eliminate these [developmental] classes and offer 100 percent transfer-level
courses” (p. 10). Additionally, the Campaign’s report considers colleges “strong implementers”
of AB 705 if they offer at least 90 percent introductory English and math offerings at the transfer
level and fewer than 10 percent pre-transfer (i.e., developmental, Arce et al., 2019).

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Sunnyville College has been identified by the Campaign for College Opportunity as a
“strong implementer” of AB 705 in English courses, meaning that 94 percent of introductory
sections offered at this college are transfer-level English courses. The Campaign also recognized
Village College as a “strong implementer” of AB 705 in English and math courses, with 100
percent of introductory sections offered in English and math being transfer-level courses. Such a
high percentage was uncommon among the colleges included in the Campaign’s study (Arce et
al., 2019).
I selected two colleges identified as strong implementers to learn what made this possible
and whether their implementation efforts stand for the merits of racial equity. How did these
colleges eliminate most of their developmental courses in place for the majority of transfer-level
courses? Did racial equity values drive them? Were their understanding of AB 705 and racial
equity the inspiration that led to these results? Are these colleges a model for early
implementation? Technically, these colleges would appear to be “done” in terms of increased
access to transfer-level courses under AB 705; however, this study considers the forces that
made this possible and what others can learn from their story.
Criteria #3: Strong Transfer Identity
Both sites are Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and have campus cultures that
prioritize transfer to 4-year institutions. Under the Chancellor’s Office’s Vision for Success,
whose one of several goals is to increase transfer and close equity gaps, colleges that are strong
implementers of AB 705 can help actualize both goals by eliminating an important barrier along
students’ educational journey: completion of transfer-level English and math courses. AB 705
explicitly frames developmental education as a barrier for students of color to transfer,
specifically on colleges achieving increased “degree, certificate, and transfer” outcomes within

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six years. The legislation highlights that only 40 percent of students enrolled in developmental
courses meet these benchmark outcomes, “compared to 70 percent for students allowed to enroll
directly in college-level courses” (Irwin, 2017, p. 2). Therefore, the accelerated completion of
transfer-level requirements under AB 705 can directly help achieve transfer goals.
As a single college district, Sunnyville College has a reputation for sending its students to
prestigious research universities. The college has “transferred more students to the University of
California campuses than any other college in the country” (college website, 2019). Also, a
single college district, Village College, prides itself on having an “elite transfer identity,” low
attendance costs, and overall higher success rates than surrounding colleges. As a “widely
recognized as a transfer leader” (college website, 2019), Village College sends a large proportion
of its students to elite research universities within and outside of California. Since developmental
courses serve as an early barrier to complete critical gateway transfer requirements, I assumed
that implementers at these transfer-oriented colleges took a transformative stance towards
implementation.
Criteria #4: Differing Organizational Governance Structures
The fourth and final criteria are that each college is located within its own district with
unique rules and approaches to mandates from the state despite being geographically close to
another (e.g., within a 25 square mile radius). Sunnyville and Village College are in a single
college district. Thus, each college had differing organizational governance systems that
impacted AB 705’s implementation. Since I wanted to understand how organizations shape
sensemaking processes, differences in governance by district proved relevant in this study.
Sampling

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This study used stratified purposeful and snowball sampling methods to identify
interviewees (Patton, 2002). Stratified purposeful sampling is when respondents are chosen
based on subgroup membership, while snowball sampling involves relying on participants to
identify additional information-rich informants (Patton, 2002). I used stratified sampling to
identify those responsible for planning, implementing, and evaluating AB 705, while also
recruiting individuals with different organizational roles. To begin contacting participants, I
spoke with college leadership to identify individuals they believe I should interview. Relying on
leaders to establish a connection with additional interviewees created a level of rapport and trust
that may not have been feasible through a blind call or email (Kvale & Brinkman, 2009). Based
on my initial conversations with participants and to gather a range of attitudes towards AB 705, I
also asked interviewees to identify strong “supporters” or “opponents” of the policy to interview.
Data Collection
Interviews
Interviews served as the primary source of data for this study for several reasons. First,
interviewees can retrospectively reflect on the ongoing implementation process of AB 705.
Given that my data collection occurred in spring 2020 and the implementation deadline for AB
705 was fall 2019, interviews are an ideal data collection strategy to elicit sensemaking
processes. This timeline was between being ‘too close’ and ‘too far removed’ from the
implementation stage of the policy and draws on actors’ interpretations and experiences while
they are fresh in their memory. A second reason is that most of the implementation decisions
were already made when interviews began in the spring 2020 semester. For my study's goals –
specifically how actors interpret, understand, and describe the purposes of AB 705 – there was
limited value to conduct observations of implementation committee meetings. I was primarily

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interested in implementing actors’ meaning-making processes as well as how they perceive their
campus contexts (e.g., racialization in developmental education), not the “accuracy” or
“truthfulness” of their perceptions. The third reason for interviews is that sensemaking processes
are best captured through in-person conversations (Weick, 1995). Since my goal is to understand
how institutional actors make sense of and implement AB 705, interviews were a proper data
collection strategy.
Conducting Interviews. All interviews were guided by a semi-structured interview
protocol (see Appendix F), which offered a structure across interviews and provided flexibility
when the conversation went in an unexpected but valuable direction (Rubin & Rubin, 2012). The
interviews covered three areas of inquiry: (1) roles and responsibilities, (2) understanding of AB
705, and (3) the role of organizations in sensemaking. These areas of inquiry were developed and
guided by my research questions and theoretical framework. Before each interview, I reviewed
the questions and, when necessary, modified them to be relevant to the role and responsibilities
of the interviewee. Later in the interviews, I found myself relying less on the protocol and more
on clarifying the specific events and situations that unfolded at both colleges.
During interviews, observing and writing down non-verbal behaviors was important
(Mason, 2002). For example, I wrote down notes when I noticed white interviewees struggle to
answer questions about race or appeared vulnerable in discussing their white identity concerning
their colleagues of color. This was expected given that whites are typically reluctant when
talking about issues of race (Leonardo, 2009). Yin (2014) argues that researchers should never
ask leading questions that direct how interviewees think. On the contrary, Luker (2008) rejects
this notion and argues for “leading questions, provocative questions” that are “anathema in the
canonical tradition” (p. 177). The nature of this study is provocative because developmental

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education is rarely discussed as a racialized curricular and pedagogical practice. Therefore,
during interviews, I captured the meaningful reactions to my questions.
Number of Interviews. The data for this study consisted of 38 semi-structured
interviews with individuals across both campuses. These interviews ranged in length between 40
minutes to 90 minutes, with an average interview time of 63 minutes (or 39.8 hours of interview
audio). Most of these interviews were conducted in person; however, due to the COVID-19
global pandemic in 2020, eight interviews were conducted over the phone and via zoom video
conference call. Before each interview, I noted interviewees' racial and ethnic composition by
asking them to identify themselves. These interviews resulted in an average total transcript
length of 19.5 pages (~10,000 words) with 741 pages worth of transcripts. Kvale and Brinkman
suggest, “Interview as many subjects as necessary to find out what you need to know” (2009, p.
113). Consistent with Wolcott’s suggestion to “do less, more thoroughly” (2009, p. 95), I
conducted interviews to have multiple answers for my research questions (Luker, 2008) and
stopped when additional interviews yielded no new insights. As a gesture of appreciation, I
provided each interviewee a $5 gift card from Starbucks after the interview.
Interviewing Faculty. Through snowball sampling, I identified strong “supporters” or
“resistors” of AB 705 in both English and math departments. In total, I interviewed 26 faculty
across both college’s math and English departments. I quickly learned that faculty played a
significant role in shaping the success or stalled implementation of AB 705. Thus, faculty
interviews were essential to understanding the debate surrounding who has the authority,
legitimacy, and power to implement AB 705. In particular, conversations with department chairs
and deans were critical to capture how implementation shaped out and obtain the “lay of the
land” for how the department reacted to the policy. Since AB 705 primarily impacts much of the

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faculty's purview and responsibility, most respondents were math and English faculty at both
campuses.
Interviewing Administrators, Counselors and Staff. Among interviewees were
counselors and staff members directly involved with AB 705 and who are often the “street-level
bureaucrats” tasked with implementing policy (Weatherly & Lipsky, 1977). For instance, this
included assessment center directors or counseling department chairs overseeing new advising
processes under AB 705. In total, I interviewed three staff members and counselors. I also
interviewed nine administrators across both colleges, including vice presidents, deans, and
directors. These administrators were critical to understanding the colleges' institutional and
historical contexts from an administrative perspective. As I share later, the relationship between
faculty and administrators was a highly contentious topic regarding AB 705’s implementation.
Documents. Although interviews served as my primary source of data, I collected,
reviewed, and analyzed relevant policy documents that guided the implementation of AB 705.
This includes legislative texts, chapter bills, implementation memos, training guidelines, various
versions of AB 705, bill analysis by legislative committees, and arguments made in favor or
opposition to the policy. To understand AB 705 in policy context, I also reviewed documents of
initiatives such as Student Equity Policy and Integrated Planning to elucidate how developmental
education is reformed under AB 705. Whenever possible, I collected documents from
interviewees, including, for instance, overviews of course sequences, photos of student
marketing around AB 705, and various newsletters. During data collection, I also documented
various signage present in English and math departments.

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Data Analysis
Data analysis included interview notes, post-interview memos, reflective journaling,
multiple rounds of coding, and interview summaries, many of which I did concurrently. When
analyzing data, a simultaneous collection and analysis strategy allows researchers to develop
emerging themes applicable to the research questions (Merriam, 1998) while also being flexible
enough to refine who gets interviewed and the questions being asked (Glesne, 2016).
Preparation and Notetaking
I prepared for analysis of interviews through deliberate handling of transcripts, memos,
and summaries. First, during interviews, I wrote down notes alongside my interview protocol
while being careful to differentiate what interviewees say verbatim versus my interpretations of
what they say (Rubin & Rubin, 2012). Notes included any notable body language such as shrugs,
pauses, hesitation, puzzlement, or relevant gestures that could help influence transcripts'
interpretations later. Interviews were sent off to be professionally transcribed soon after they are
conducted.
While waiting for interviews to be transcribed, I wrote up memos based on my notes
describing the interview, details of the context, initial impressions, emerging themes, and
potential bias immediately after conversing with participants (Rubin & Rubin, 2012). After
finishing the interviews, I had written over 220 pages of memos (~1,500 words each) based on
the interviews. All memos were written within a few hours of conducting the interviews. These
post-interview memos proved essential for the final analysis and write-up (McCormack, 2000).
These memos included the following: a “general notes” description of the interviews, and
the questions, “Are there any interactions that stand out?” “Are there emerging patterns or
themes?” “How does this interview help me understand my research questions?” “Based on the

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interview today, are there issues to follow up with or need for more information to contextualize
my understanding? If so, who should I reach out to?” By answering these questions soon after
the interview, I identified important themes and directions of future interviews while the
conversations were fresh in my memory (Rubin & Rubin, 2012).
Next, I reviewed the transcriptions of each interview as well as memos and notes from
each interview as I conducted them. This achieved what Rubin and Rubin (2012) describe as “a
working idea of what important concepts, themes, and events are present” (p. 206) and how to
adjust the interview questions to answer my research questions fully. In addition to these memos,
I kept a reflective journal to jot down and keep track of decisions made throughout data
collection that could impact the final write-up of results. These jottings later served as reflective
codes about my role as a researcher and my interpretations of the data (Brinkmann, 2013).
Coding Scheme
As I conducted interviews and had them professionally transcribed, I uploaded word files
into Nvivo 12 Pro data management software to store, organize, and help categorize data broken
down into codes (referred to as “nodes” in Nvivo 12) for analysis. Codes “symbolically assig[n]
a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion” of the data and
provide the “critical link” among “data collection and their explanation of meaning” (Charmaz,
2006; Saldaña, 2013; p. 3). In this study, coding unfolded inductively and deductively.
Inductively, I used “data-driven coding,” meaning that I developed codes as I read interview
transcripts, allowing unexpected patterns to emerge (Brinkmann, 2013). Deductively, I also
scanned interviews with the model of my theory (figure 3) on a second monitor screen to
concurrently identify codes based on both the theory and research questions. For instance, codes
included different interpretations of AB 705 (e.g., AB 705 - Interpretation, purpose &

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requirements) and the policy’s equity goals (e.g., AB 705 – Equity policy). For data that did not
“fit neatly,” I revisited the literature for guidance on how to make sense of this data. Coding
began after I collected a significant amount of data (about 10-15 interviews).
I conducted multiple rounds of coding and scanned interview transcripts and audio
recordings line-by-line fashion. The purpose of the first coding round was to organize my
thoughts around what I saw, potential patterns in the data, and what this story is about. The first
round of data also helped me reduce the data into manageable chunks to be revisited and adjusted
later as the codes were refined (Maxwell, 2013). Whenever one quote did not fit with existing
codes, I created a new one. Although some codes clearly did not work for many interviews, I
kept all codes I added during the first round. A resulting 84 codes were developed during this
first, expansive round of coding. During the 2
nd
round of codes, I collapsed some codes into one
another, totaling 60 codes by considering which codes were repetitive or were not representative
of many interview transcripts. During the 3
rd
round of analysis, I went through the 60 codes
adding annotations about how they connect to my research questions. These annotations proved
valuable in quickly and succinctly making queries to write the findings.
Positionality
Research in the critical paradigm seeks to liberate and rectify societal problems
(Kincheloe & McLaren, 2011). In this study, I explicitly spotlight the role of race and power in
policy implementation and their potential impact on policy outcomes. Critical scholars frame
knowledge as socially constructed, subjective, and dependent on the researcher. As Rubin and
Rubin (2012) suggest, “knowledge is subjective, what you see depends on whose perspective
you take, whose eyes view it” (p. 25). In this light, this study, which is informed by critical
theory, similarly recognizes the data collected and its analysis are dependent on the researcher.

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As a Latino who: 1) attended community college in an intensely segregated institution
(e.g., majority Black and Latinx students) and 2) enrolled in a developmental English course, I
realize my positioning presents both opportunities and challenges. I enrolled in developmental
English when I first signed up for community college. The class was not challenging – many
students seemed to feel that way – and the purpose of taking it was never quite clear. As a
student, I did not know that the assessment test could be retaken or that enrolling would force me
to continue along a developmental education track. Thankfully, I only enrolled in one
developmental course, but that was not the experience of many friends.
If AB 705 was enacted during my community college experience, I probably would not
have been placed in a developmental English course. Consequently, I would have transferred
sooner (a full academic year) than I did. Therefore, my interest in studying developmental
education reform began from personal and researcher recognition that AB 705 can pose fewer
barriers for students like me. Second, following traditions in critical race theory scholarship, this
work aims to “advance policy that supports liberation from racial dominance” (Dumas & Anyon,
2006, p. 155). The system of developmental education has in effect, marginalized and excluded
racially minoritized students from achieving their educational dreams, which is why AB 705 is
timely and critically important.
As Emerson (2001) tells us, “no description is independent of the describer (p. 30).” As a
community college basic skills student, this experience allows me to have a form of “insider
status” (Creswell, 2007) into the mechanisms of developmental education. It does not make me
an insider to the labor of developmental education, but to how students may experience it. My
positioning shaped what questions were asked, what was observed during interviews, and which
stories proved relevant to this study. However, this experience may also limit my outsider

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perspective; that is, my ability to “make the familiar unfamiliar” (Flavell, 1963, p. 50). To avoid
this, I journaled and asked myself, “what is something new that I learned today?” By priming
myself, I sought out what is new and explains my research questions in different ways.
Chapter Closing
In March 2019, the Center for Urban Education held an institute to help practitioners
develop strategies to implement an equity policy that serves the needs of racially minoritized
students in California community colleges. During a session, a participant shared that an
implementation challenge is the “sophistication of racism” that masks speech and practices to
appear well-intended but will instead “maintain the status quo that upholds white supremacy.”
Upon hearing this, it made me realize that an inherent tension may exist between actors who
espouse equitable change in the community colleges and actors that perpetuate the status quo.
Even more critical, who influences implementation through, for example, their agency and
authority, undoubtedly shaped the outcome of AB 705 at the two sites described. The potential of
AB 705 as a racial equity initiative can be vast if implemented in a manner that advances racial
equity for over 2.1 million students in California.
Up to this point, I have outlined the theoretical and empirical basis for this study as well
as the methods and analytic procedures that I employed to examine the sensemaking of AB 705
across two community colleges. First, I argued that developmental education is racialized and
that it excludes students of color and those deemed ‘underprepared’ from 4-year institutions. I
outlined the transformative potential of AB 705 and situated it as a policy with racial equity
aspirations. Second, I introduced a theoretical framework that explores how racialized
organizations like community colleges shape actors’ sensemaking of policy. I did this by
blending critical and organizational theories to emphasize the substantial role of race and power

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in shaping how we understand phenomena and exercise agency. Finally, I presented the research
design that uses interviews to understand the implementation of the policy at two community
colleges. In the next chapter, I begin to describe the findings of this dissertation.

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CHAPTER 5: The Delivery of Developmental Education at Two Colleges

To understand the sensemaking of AB 705, I first describe the history of developmental
education and institutional context at both sites when the policy was introduced. As argued in
chapter 3, sensemaking is activated “when there is no obvious way to engage the world” (Weick
et al., 2005, p. 409) and when a shock forces organizational actors to learn and unlearn aspects of
their identity that are meaningful (Mills et al., 2010). An organizational shock such as AB 705
challenged institutional actors’ assumptions that minoritized students are not ready for college-
level coursework. It placed center stage conversations about race, implementors’ racial biases,
racialized beliefs about student capacity, and highlighted power differentials in leadership that
shaped whether the policy was understood and enacted as a racial equity imperative. During data
collection, it became apparent that were it not for a core group of equity-oriented leaders in each
department, the Campaign for College Opportunity may not have identified these colleges as
“strong implementers” of AB 705 (Arce et al., 2019).
In this chapter, I describe the implementation context of both institutions captured
empirically via interviews, data, and documents that served as longstanding “routines” and
“scripts” (Weick, 1995) for how to deliver the system of developmental education many years
before AB 705. I describe the developmental education system at Village and Sunnyville
College, prior attempts to reform the system of developmental education courses, and describe
departmental cultures and leadership at both colleges leading up to the passage of AB 705. These
contexts were important in setting the change for implementation.

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Developmental Education at Village College
English Developmental Sequences at Village
At Village, the developmental education sequence for a nearly 50 full-time faculty
member English department consisted of two classes below transfer level. Through traditional
placement procedures, 1,621 students began one of these two developmental English courses in
fall 2017. Of these students, 69.7 percent of them were Latinx (1,130), which means they were
nearly 20 percentage points overrepresented relative to their college representation (51%). As
described earlier, a “throughput rate” refers to the percentage of students who having enrolled in
developmental English or math successfully complete a gateway transfer-level English or math
within a specific time frame. The 1,621 students who began in Village’s developmental English
sequence saw an overall throughput rate of 46 percent within two years, with Black (23%, N=17)
and Latinx (39%, 443) students experiencing lower rates in completion of gateway courses. A
summary of enrollment and 2-year throughput rates is included below in Table 4.

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Table 4 - Village 2-year throughput rates of transferable English for students placed in a
developmental English course (Traditional track)
Race / Ethnicity
Number of
students who
enrolled in a
course below
transfer-level
Proportion of
enrollments in
developmental
education
Counts of
students who
passed a
subsequent
transfer-level
English course
2-year
throughput
rate
African American / Black 74 4.6% 17 23%
American Indian / Alaskan
Native
1
0.1%
1
100%
Asian 253 15.6% 177 70%
Latinx 1130 69.7% 443 39%
Multi-Ethnicity 34 2.1% 18 53%
Pacific Islander 1 0.1% 0 0%
Unknown 29 1.8% 25 86%
White 99 6.1% 64 65%
Total 1621 100.0% 749 46%
*Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2017 through Spring 2019 using the California
Community College Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

There were mixed feelings about the utility of developmental coursework. Some faculty
who taught these courses took pride in being “basic skills specialists” and described
developmental education as their favorite courses to teach. Dr. Malee Trubbaya, an Asian female
and interim dean of English, enjoyed developmental English because “this is really giving
[students] an idea of how to write... I really enjoyed that.” Other faculty members always
wondered whether these courses were appropriate in an institution of higher education. Dave
Wilson, a white male tenured professor, explained the content of a class two levels below
transfer:
It was basic sentence structure. Very rudimentary paragraph writing. Things that my
daughter is learning in seventh grade right now in school. It just felt weird and almost
inappropriate that it would be at a university, that we’d be teaching that. And can you
imagine what it would feel like if you were a graduate of high school and you get put in a
class like that. It would feel horrifying. Horrible.

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In addition to these two basic skills classes, the English division maintained a reading program
where students could take a supplemental one-unit course alongside transfer-level ones. These
courses included basic grammar, punctuation, reading and writing, spelling, vocabulary building,
and skills-based essay writing courses, to support students. A counselor or faculty member could
recommend one of these courses, and students could choose one that best fits their schedules.
A small group of English faculty members believed that accelerated courses would
improve students’ completion of gateway transfer-level courses. Accelerated courses shorten the
time students spend in developmental courses and the number of credits they accumulate. The
acceleration movement was spearheaded by the California Acceleration Project (CAP), a small
grassroots organization created by Katie Hern, at the time an English instructor at Chabot
College, and Myra Snell, a math instructor at Los Medanos Community College. Hern and Snell
organized summer institutes to teach other instructors how to accelerate developmental courses,
and a small group of Village faculty began attending and were converted into fervent supporters,
particularly after seeing data showing high levels of student success rates.
Acceleration in Village’s English Department. With the leadership of two women English
faculty members, one white and one Latina, Village College began piloting their version of
Accelerated Courses in English (ACE)
7
in 2012. ACE stretched a transfer-level English class
over two semesters allowing students to finish transfer-level English within one year. The
accelerated courses were taught primarily by early and mid-career faculty who disliked the
existing developmental system.

7
Pseudonym used. The origin of surnames and respondents self-identified racial, ethnic, and gender identity were
used to select names.

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ACE as a cohort-based program meant that the same students enroll in a two-course
sequence, which encourages greater cohesion and a sense of community among students. One of
the benefits was tailored curricula, where students conducted research projects and learned about
the history of their local communities through local authors. An explicit goal of the ACE
program was to empower students as writers and scholars, to celebrate and honor students’
cultural experiences and backgrounds, and to engage students “unapologetically” in critical
analysis of social justice issues related to “race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other
differences” (College website, 2020).
This curricular innovation that preceded the passage of AB 705 by several years
was not met kindly at Village. The originators and innovators of ACE received significant
backlash. Opponents defended the traditional model of developmental courses. Sofía Chávez, as
one of ACE’s co-founders, describes the size of the opposition:
It was extraordinarily taxing on the individuals trying to make it happen because of the
collegial -- our colleagues were just so against it...Yeah. The majority were against it. It
[ACE] was definitely a minority initiative. So that was really hard.

ACE opponents feared that it was a political move to get rid of basic skills courses, which
could threaten their jobs. Historically, relationships between faculty and administrators at Village
were tumultuous and fraught with mistrust. There was also a lot of turnover in the presidency
and between 2010 and 2019, there were three different presidents, and no-confidence votes taken
by the faculty pushed out two. To neutralize the ACE proponents, its opponents accused them of
being allies of the administration and conspiring to cut costs by reducing the number of
development education courses and the number of faculty needed. Depicting ACE innovators as
collaborators with the administration exacerbated campus-wide rancor toward the college’s

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formal leaders. Co-founder of ACE, Sofía Chávez, denied these accusations and called them
unwarranted.
The work environment was just intolerable because it was seen as us trying to take these
courses away from our colleagues. Us undermining their work. Us disrespecting their
expertise. And the irony being, of course, that those of us doing this work [ACE], we
were basic skills teachers.

Political backlash from other faculty was so bad that Professor Chávez decided to leave, “I took
a sabbatical to basically get the hell out of there (laughs).” The political pressure behind ACE
made running it unsustainable. At the time, the thought of removing just one developmental
course was impossible for some faculty. Existing routines of some faculty limited what was
considered possible (“imaginative schemas,” Blackler, 1992, p. 279) and foreshadowed tension
that was to come when AB 705 passed several years later.
Departmental culture at Village English. The conditions that allowed ACE founders to
encounter resistance included a departmental culture that empowered tenured senior faculty
members to voice their opinions and concerns without reservation. In contrast, those who were
pre-tenure or recently tenured faculty were expected to remain silent. Hiring practices that
historically favored white candidates and in the English department produced an academic
culture that enabled white senior faculty to exercise their will and inhibit the participation of
more recently hired early career faculty of color. The power of the senior white faculty to rule
the English department contributed to the silence of faculty without tenure who “didn’t want to
get yelled at (Randy Sherman).” Nancy Rivera, a recently tenured Latina faculty member,
describes the culture of silencing early career faculty:
I think part of the trouble is too a lot of people who are very devoted to this work and
willing to do it tend to be the newer faculty in terms of tenure, not necessarily experience
or anything like that. So that makes it a little tougher too because, unfortunately, they’re
constantly told, ‘be careful.’

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Fear of not getting tenure made early career faculty, many of them of color, remain careful and
avoid disagreeing with senior faculty, so they became silent. This proved to be a significant
barrier for early career faculty to speak up and later impaired AB 705’s implementation.
Prior leadership at Village English. At Village, deans overseeing academic disciplines are
responsible for, among many things, selecting which courses are offered (i.e., right of
assignment), scheduling faculty to teach courses, evaluating faculty, making recommendations
for hiring new faculty, and facilitating the implementation of any policy changes. Therefore,
deans have substantial agency in influencing departmental cultures by whom they hire, who gets
promoted, who gets to speak, and who feels empowered during faculty meetings.
Before AB 705, Village’s English department was led by a dean for over 17 years who
was also a faculty member for many years prior. Dean Bethy Cooper, a white woman, was
described as a “status quo” dean who contributed to longstanding hierarchies within the division
through protocols and processes in place for decades. There were mixed feelings about Dean
Cooper. “Even people who really did not like her and had a hard time with her said that they
respected that she followed the protocol,” shared Nia Hill, an English instructor. Others felt
positive about this dean. Dean Cooper uplifted values that were made clear to new faculty. As
Professor Randy Sherman shares, “When I was hired, she wanted to make sure I was willing to
fail people because of run-ons and comma splices and things like that.”
Cooper’s leadership style was repeatedly described as undisruptive to faculty beliefs
around issues of race. One consequence of this departmental culture was that faculty rarely
engaged in race talk and avoided conversations regarding changing policies and practices that
harmed minoritized students. Latinx Professor Chávez shared the following regarding Dean
Cooper:

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That same school of liberalism that she would say she cared about equity and all of this,
but she was unwilling to cause tension or discomfort for the majority of our faculty,
which is what AB 705 has caused. There’s tension and discomfort when you have to
change something or when your beliefs are challenged. And she was very avoidant of that
for those people.

Dean Cooper valued traits like “professionalism,” which were made explicit to new and existing
faculty. A senior administrator at Village described Dean Bethy Cooper in the following way:
Interviewee: The previous Dean [Cooper] was white and had the indicators of a manager
in the most traditional sense from like a predominately white institution lens – always
dressed meticulously, put together just so well… and was the first person to meet all
deadlines from all the academic deans. So technically very competent. And then her
observations and recommendations to teachers on how to improve was also based on
their appearance, what they wore, --

Adrián: What the person was wearing –

Interviewee: Yes. There are so many English faculty who said [Bethy] talked to me about
how I was dressing and would say, “oh, you’ve not lost that baby weight yet, I see. You
should change your – increase your clothing size because that’s fitting a little tight.” You
know, just jabs about appearance because it was so valuable to her.

Adrián: Carrying the sort of professionalism identity or –

Interviewee: Yes. Uh-huh. So, you know, not addressing what truly needed to change in
the department. How do we treat students? How are we making our curriculum culturally
relevant? You know, let’s talk about teaching and learning, hello?

The manipulation of employees to dress “professionally” has a long-documented history
of whiteness (Brown & Reed, 2017).
The conditions created in the English department (i.e., resistance to acceleration, the
hierarchy of speech, “status quo” leadership, and corresponding departmental cultures) set the
stage for the tensions that erupted with the implementation of AB 705. After a long tenure in the
English department, Dean Cooper retired before AB 705 took effect. A leadership replacement at
a time of a massive organizational change posed many opportunities and many challenges that
will be discussed later in chapter 8.

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Math Developmental Sequences at Village
The math division historically followed a traditional four-course developmental math
sequence of which a minimal number of students would go on and complete transfer-level
college algebra. In the fall of 2016, 2,203 students enrolled in one of the four levels below
transfer. Within three years, only two percent of these students completed a gateway transfer-
level math course. This means that only 82 of 2,203 students who intended to complete a
transfer-level gateway course did so. Moreover, Black (0%), Latinx (2.9%), and some Asian
subgroups (5.9%) experienced the worst outcomes. A summary of enrollment and 3-year
throughput rates is included below in Table 5.
Table 5 - Village 3-year throughput rates of transferable math for students enrolled in a
developmental math course* (traditional STEM track)
Race / Ethnicity
Number of
students who
enrolled in a
course below
transfer-level
Proportion of
enrollments in
developmental
education
Counts of
students who
passed a
subsequent
transfer-level
math course
3-year
throughput
rate
African American /
Black
70 3.2% 0 0.0%
American Indian /
Alaskan Native
4 0.2% 0 0.0%
Asian 426 19.3% 25 5.9%
Latinx 1324 60.1% 38 2.9%
Multi-Ethnicity 55 2.5% 4 7.3%
Unknown 74 3.4% 2 2.7%
White 250 11.3% 13 5.2%
Total 2203 100.0% 82 2.0%
*Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2016 through Spring 2019 using the California Community
College Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

The height of these bleak outcomes began back in 2012. At the time, the basic skills
coordinator, Deborah Ridge, led the introduction of an additional developmental course below
the transfer level. Professor Ridge believed this course was essential. She shared, “when I started

96

20 years ago, we didn’t have an arithmetic class, but according to Accuplacer [placement test],
we had a large population of students who needed that, and so we created one.” All course
materials, including textbooks, course outlines, syllabus, and activities, were developed in-house,
and at the time, Ridge was proud to have developed this course.
The adding of an extra non-credit developmental education course was vehemently
opposed by Dr. Selina Rodriguez, a Latinx senior administrator who identifies as a social justice
activist. Dr. Rodriguez rallied like-minded colleagues during a curriculum development
committee meeting and voted against approving the course. Unbeknownst to her, as a nonfaculty,
she had no voting power:
I was new. Apparently, there were never ‘no’ votes for curriculum, especially if you’re
not from that discipline. So, I remember a senior faculty saying [Selina], “you’re not a
mathematician, let the mathematicians do what is right for students.” And I said, “no,
excuse me, we’re educators. I don’t know what math is correct, but I know this is not the
solution. Adding another layer of remedial math is not the answer.

Regardless, Dr. Rodriguez symbolically voted against increasing an additional developmental
course. At the time, with the “best of intentions,” Ridge and math colleagues believed the
Accuplacer test results. However, with time and exposure to professional development, some
faculty attitudes towards developmental education changed once they saw the data.
In the years leading up to AB 705, Ridge and her colleagues started supporting
acceleration by attending CAP conferences and seeing MMAP data presented by the RP Group.
When faced with the MMAP data, Professor Ridge, together with colleagues, began to consider,
“how Accuplacer was a randomizer and that how it placed students of color much lower than
White males, [then] you started to realize all the beliefs that we used to build our system were
not correct.” Jenna Blackwood, dean of the math division at Village, shares:
The students that were making it through – were the predominately white and Asian
students that would make it through the sequence. And those that were being negatively

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affected and being held back in the sequence, were being placed starting lower were our
African American and Latino students.

Blackwood, Ridge, and their colleagues began working on acceleration by removing basic skill
levels and adjusting the curriculum based on students’ interests, which led to the establishment
of “tracks.” The traditional track for STEM included the entire four-course sequence described
above. The accelerated pathway included intermediate algebra and an accompanying corequisite
that allowed students to skip three developmental education levels. The final pathway was
designed for liberal arts students, including three levels below transfer leading to college algebra
for liberal arts or elementary statistics (transfer level).
While success rates improved, the math sequence at Village still sustained very low
success outcomes despite acceleration. Students in the accelerated pathway, including
intermediate algebra and an accompanying corequisite, saw an overall throughput rate of 12.9
percent (N=129) within one year. Compared to a two-percent throughput rate of the traditional
four-course track, 12.9 percent is better. However, this still means 874 students out of 1003 did
not complete a gateway transfer-level math course. Even within three years, the overall
throughput rate remained low at 36.9 percent (N=370). A summary of enrollment and 1-year
throughput rates is included below in Table 6.

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Table 6 - Village 1-year throughput rates of transferable math for students placed in accelerated
course * (accelerated + corequisite)
Race / Ethnicity
Number of
students who
enrolled one
level below
transfer
Proportion of
enrollments in
developmental
education
Counts of
students
who passed
a subsequent
transfer-
level math
course
1-year
throughput
rate
African American / Black 24 2.4% 1 4.2%
American Indian / Alaskan
Native
1 0.1% 0 0.0%
Asian 289 28.8% 35 12.1%
Latinx 483 48.2% 56 11.6%
Multi-Ethnicity 33 3.3% 5 15.2%
Unknown 57 5.7% 13 22.8%
White 116 11.6% 19 16.4%
Total 1003 100.0% 129 12.9%
*Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2016 through Spring 2019 using the California
Community College Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

Village was among few colleges across the state attempting to reform their
developmental sequences by removing unnecessary courses. Removal of most developmental
courses was made possible in part by leadership within the math department.
Leadership at Village Math. For the past five years, the math division was led by a white
woman, Jenna Blackwood, a math instructor for 11 years at Village before becoming dean.
Blackwood’s many responsibilities as dean include hiring and evaluating faculty, scheduling
courses, and following contractual obligations of all division employees. She was part of a
seven-member informal task force organized by the vice president of instruction. Deborah Ridge
also served on this committee as the only faculty member. The committee’s role was to help the
college interpret and implement AB 705 with a shared institutional vision.
Dean Blackwood is highly admired and respected for her work ethic and willingness to
listen to her colleagues’ concerns. All interviewees at Village who mentioned Blackwood spoke

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highly of her, and it was clear people respected her leadership. Blackwood’s strong work ethic
was repeatedly mentioned. “I do think that she works incredibly hard. I see her all the time. You
know, you'll get an email at midnight, and you're just like, oh my god, I was asleep for hours
when you sent that,” shares Ashlee Roberts, a math faculty member. Similarly, Sam Moore, a
tenure track math professor, admires her dean, “She's probably one of the hardest working
people I've ever met.” When seeing Blackwood put in so much effort as an administrator, it
made Professor Moore “not question the leadership.”
Colleagues also commended Dean Blackwood’s ability to bring the department together
for conversations. In a department with an average of 50 full-time tenured or tenure-track
faculty, getting consensus is essential. Blackwood is good at trying to get consensus and was
respected for it, because as Dr. Jacob Omar, a tenured math professor, shares, “she takes input
from everybody, and she considers what everybody says and what everybody’s issues are.”
Omar expands on how building consensus is also easier because she was “a very well-respected
faculty member” before becoming dean. Dr. Karen Park, a tenured math professor, believed that
Blackwood, as former faculty, understands faculty concerns, “it's much easier to give someone
the benefit of the doubt if you disagree with them when you know they at least are coming from
a similar background and experiences as you.”
Blackwood’s credentials as a former faculty member whom her colleagues trusted gave
her considerable power and authority. However, Blackwood is described as someone who
carefully manages faculty. Dr. Angélica López, dean of English, explains how Blackwood “has a
good sense of push-pull, when to put some pressure on, when to lay back. She knows when to set
her foot down.” Dr. Naomi Crest, counseling chair at Village, emphasizes how “sometimes the

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faculty will move into an administrative role and like, their personality changes a little bit. I don't
think hers did. I think she was still that instructor inside.”
Dr. Selina Rodriguez, vice president of student services, attributes Blackwood’s
leadership style as fostered by intentional professional development provided by Village, “her
awareness and knowledge have been intentionally built over time through our professional
development at this college.” Indeed, Blackwood and faculty leads in the math department
reported attending most conferences related to acceleration that they attributed to their
willingness to reform developmental sequences. Blackwood’s reputation as a highly respected
leader who works hard, develops consensus within the department, and does not overstep her
authority meant she had considerable influence in the math department.
Developmental Education at Sunnyville
English Developmental Sequences at Sunnyville
Sunnyville’s sequence for English before AB 705 was complicated. Students navigated
an unclear and long pathway to reach transfer-level English. Depending on which of the three
“tracks” students were assessed into, students could theoretically take six developmental courses
before getting to transfer level. A student who enrolls in the lowest developmental level would
take at least three years of developmental coursework in community college, nearly an entire
year of their financial aid to reach transfer-level English (21 units, $966 in fees).
The English faculty developed exam assessments embedded within each track to allow
students to skip courses in the sequence and get into the transfer-level course without going
through the entire developmental sequence. These exams in the form of essays were delivered in
class to all students. Cassie Walker, a tenured English faculty, explains how these sessions
worked, “So [three] instructors would swap exams. We’d have a norming session. We’d talk

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about what consists of five, four, three, two, one, in the grading.” A score of four or five would
offer students eligibility to be waived into transfer-level, while those who scored three and below
remained on the developmental track. This faculty peer review system – intended to help
students waive into transfer-level courses – was designed to stimulate a sense of collaboration
amongst the faculty and fair treatment for students. Professor Kevin Cook, who served as chair
over the English department during AB 705’s implementation, described how it felt “good to
collaborate” and feel as though the faculty were “carefully assessing student writing.” He
expands:
At the time, it seemed like, wow, we’ve done this kind of student a favor… It was a
system that seemed like it was responsive, that it was doing its job and that we had built
some exceptions into it as well made it flexible… it just seemed like it was something of
a fine-tuned machine.

This assessment process intended to protect against unfair placement later turned out to be
discriminatory towards Black and Latinx students (described in chapter 8).
Enrollment and throughput data confirm a local pattern of racialized outcomes in English
course sequences at Sunnyville. Of the 2,227 students placed in a developmental English course
in Fall 2015, Black (12.7%) and Latinx (64.3%) students were overrepresented in developmental
English courses relative to their overall enrollment in the college in the same year (10.9 and 41.3
percent, respectively). Moreover, an overall 3-year throughput rate of 42.7 percent means that
1,276 out of 2,227 students, the majority of which are minoritized students, do not complete
gateway English courses within three years. A summary of enrollment and 3-year throughput
rates is included below in Table 7.

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Table 7 - Sunnyville 3-year throughput rates of transferable English for students placed in a
developmental English course* (traditional track)
Race / Ethnicity
Number of
students who
enrolled in a
course below
transfer-level
Proportion of
enrollments in
developmental
education
Counts of
students
who passed
a subsequent
transfer-
level math
course
3-year
throughput
rate
African American / Black 283 12.7% 69 24.4%
American Indian / Alaskan
Native
1 0.0% 1 100.0%
Asian 136 6.1% 76 55.9%
Latinx 1433 64.3% 603 42.1%
Multi-Ethnicity 66 3.0% 30 45.5%
Pacific Islander 4 0.2% 1 25.0%
Unknown 8 0.4% 5 62.5%
White
296 13.3% 166 56.1%
Total 2227 100.0% 951 42.7%
*Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2015 through Spring 2018 using the California
Community College Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

Gradually, gaining exposure to statewide data and local-level inequities prompted the
Sunnyville English department to develop curricular solutions based on acceleration. In the
2011-2012 academic year, the faculty introduced two accelerated tracks combining two separate
courses that saved students two semesters from the lowest developmental courses. Through these
5-unit courses, a student could potentially reach transfer-level English after only a year.
However, accelerated options and existing developmental options made the map for completing
college-level courses hard to understand. This accelerated two-semester sequence existed
through the 2017-2018 academic year, a year before the AB 705 formally took effect.
Leadership and Governance at Sunnyville English. In contrast to Village College, Sunnyville
department chairs, rather than division deans, possess the department's scheduling authority. The
faculty lead for the English division during most of AB 705’s implementation was Kevin Cook, a
white male tenured faculty who began as a part-time instructor in 2007. With institutional

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knowledge and four years as a tenure-track faculty, Cook was elected as chair of the English
department in 2014. Considered the spokesperson for AB 705, he was described as someone
well-respected and student-centered.
As an equity advocate, Cook assembled a team of like-minded faculty that wanted to
reform developmental courses. When describing both the English and math chairs at Sunnyville,
Vice President Vanessa Nelson shared:
Both are very strong leaders. They had the ability to really kind of pull their departments
together… They also knew who amongst their faculty was already excited about this
endeavor [AB 705] and passionate and able to bring more colleagues along – to handpick
faculty that they knew would lead the effort and be well received by their colleagues.

Cook pulled together a committee of about ten faculty members representing instructors who
taught both basic skills and transfer-level courses. This committee was responsible for
developing the curriculum for an AB 705 compliant transfer-level course. That these faculty
would be “well-received” by their colleagues also suggests a level of political forethought on
Cook's part. Collaboration between instructors across levels meant additional buy-in for the
redesigned course. The new course was planned to center on authors of color. Though as I
describe later in chapter 8, that plan fell short.
Cook held this chair position through the fall of 2019 when he began his role as dean of
instruction, at which point Kathy Petersen, a white female English faculty member since 2006,
took over as chair. Her goal as chair was to make the division more student-centered and equity-
minded. Professor Petersen’s equity stance comes from having, as she says, “pivotal moments”
that forced her perspective to change. For instance, Petersen describes experiences living in
racially diverse neighborhoods where she was “decentered” as a white person. Before this, she
lived in a wealthier suburban neighborhood where her white neighbors and their “elitist
behavior” started to annoy her. The neighborhood she described, according to Zillow.com, sees

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average property values of over $4 million and is over 75 percent white. According to Petersen,
decentering experiences as a white person helped her along the “equity journey.”
Math Developmental Sequences at Sunnyville
Before AB 705, Sunnyville students could place in up to four levels below transfer-level
math. Overall, few students would finish the math department’s sequence of courses. In the fall
of 2015, 1,994 students enrolled in one of the four levels of developmental courses. After three
years, a throughput rate of 13.6 percent (N=271) of students shows that 1,723 did not complete a
gateway transfer-level math course. Many of the students enrolled in these developmental
courses were Latinx (54.3%, N=1082), making up a large portion of those who did not complete
a gateway math course (87.7%, N=949). A summary of enrollment and 3-year throughput rates is
included below in Table 8.

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Table 8 - Sunnyville 3-year throughput rates of transferable math for students placed in a
developmental math course * (traditional track)
Race / Ethnicity
Number of
students who
enrolled in a
course below
transfer-level
Proportion of
enrollments in
developmental
education
Counts of
students who
passed a
subsequent
transfer-level
math course
Throughput
rate
African American / Black 213 10.7% 20 9.4%
American Indian / Alaskan
Native
3 0.2% 2 66.7%
Asian 181 9.1% 32 17.7%
Latinx 1082 54.3% 133 12.3%
Multi-Ethnicity 77 3.9% 12 15.6%
Pacific Islander 4 0.2% 0 0.0%
Unknown 47 2.4% 5 10.6%
White 387 19.4% 67 17.3%
Total 1994 100.0% 271 13.6%
*Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2015 through Spring 2018 using the California Community
College Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

The math department realized most students do not need algebra-intensive math
sequences since most students do not pursue STEM majors. While ideal for STEM students, this
sequence was less relevant to most students whose highest math course in college would be
statistics. Jessica Amiri, math department chair, shares how many students would get lost
“because we are putting them on the same path that we expect of the STEM students to pass.”
A solution posed by Amiri and her colleagues was to create an accelerated course in 2016
that allowed students to complete a transferable statistics or finite math course tailored for liberal
arts majors. This accelerated pre-statistics course allowed liberal arts students to enter and
complete transfer-level statistics within one year. For the 190 students enrolled in this
accelerated sequence starting in the fall of 2017, throughput rates improved from 13.6 percent to
39.5 percent within three years. A summary of enrollment and 3-year throughput rates is
included below in Table 9.

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Table 9 - Sunnyville 3-year throughput rates of transferable math for students placed one level
below transfer* (accelerated track)
Race / Ethnicity
Counts of
students who
enrolled one
level below
transfer
Proportion of
enrollments
in
development
al education
Counts of
students who
passed a
subsequent
transfer-level
math course
Throughput
rate
African American / Black 21 11.1% 5 23.8%
Asian 7 3.7% 6 85.7%
Latinx 111 58.4% 32 28.8%
Multi-Ethnicity 0 0.0% 2 1.0%
Pacific Islander 1 0.5% 0 100.0%
Unknown 3 1.6% 6 100.0%
White 47 24.7% 24 51.1%
Total 190 100.0% 75 39.5%
*Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2017 through Spring 2018 using the California Community
College Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

For the faculty to get to this point required substantial investment in professional
development opportunities. Similar to the other departments described above, Sunnyville math
faculty attended conferences that helped orient them to acceleration and AB 705.
Leadership at Sunnyville Math. As a faculty member for over 30 years, Jessica Amiri, a white
female, served as an elected chair holding administrative scheduling authority from 2015 to
2019. Amiri’s goal for the implementation of AB 705 was to figure out all logistical challenges
and develop appropriate corequisite support for students.
Respondents described Amiri’s role during implementation as a guide. Tenured faculty
Darrell Little, framed her role in the following way:
[Amiri] – has always been one to follow the policies, the rules that are set out by the
school, our department, the state. If the state says that we have to meet certain criteria
before fall 2019… [Amiri] said, okay, this is what needs to be done. How can we do it?
So, as a department chair, she did an excellent job in guiding us.

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As a guide, Amiri did not impose her vision of AB 705. Instead, she assembled six
committees, including all 30 full-time faculty, to create the revised transfer-level AB 705
compliant courses. All faculty were invited to participate, and each was appointed to a committee
based on their teaching expertise. In each committee, one faculty member was charged with
overseeing “equity,” reviewing success rates of “different demographics,” and “give
suggestions” as to how to support “more disadvantaged people” (Evan Ramirez, math faculty).
These committees formed by Amiri made implementation feel like a department endeavor and
one that respondents like Evan Ramirez appreciated. “She did give suggestions and possible
ideas, but then we were free to do whatever we wanted.”
Chapter Closing
This chapter offers a historical overview of developmental offerings at four departments,
their dismal success outcomes, and departmental attempts at accelerated reform. Arguably,
Village and Sunnyville were “ahead” of other colleges in California to achieve the aims of AB
705. Both colleges made attempts at acceleration that reflected their appetite for change and were
led by enthusiastic early career and mid-career faculty who detested the developmental education
system. However, fear of not receiving tenure coerced many acceleration leaders and early career
faculty to avoid confrontation and disagreement with senior colleagues opposed to reforming
developmental education. The immediate backlash for early acceleration efforts in some
departments foreshadowed reactions to AB 705 – primarily from faculty who viewed the new
policy as an affront to their professional autonomy and discretion over the curriculum. The
mandated nature of AB 705 meant that being out of compliance could risk losing state funding.
In this chapter, I have shown that a combination of factors could undermine the
fulfillment of AB 705 as an instrument of racial equity: awareness of racialization in

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developmental education among leaders and faculty; entrenched faculty who accustomed to
making curricular decisions resisted faculty who were eager to reform developmental education
and bring an end to its harms; and the role of developmental education as a source of revenues
and positions. I have also shown that AB 705’s implementation could be aided by professional
development opportunities that raised leaders’ consciousness and provided them with the
methods to reduce non-credit courses and condense courses to help students move into the
transfer level curriculum more rapidly and efficiently. My findings are consistent with the theory
that formal leaders charged with policy implementation act as an organizational resource (Ray,
2019) to center or subvert racial equity in AB 705. In subsequent chapters, I further expand on
how leadership use of power can be at odds with established faculty routines around curriculum
development and course sequencing.

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CHAPTER 6: How Institutional Actors Made Sense of AB 705

Sensemaking processes can influence organizational change because they occur before
decision-making (Weick et al., 2005). As individuals experience a new scenario, which they
cannot explain with existing knowledge, experiences, and schemas (Spillane et al., 2002), they
undergo sensemaking. AB 705 was a “shock” (Mills et al., 2010) to status quo practices with a
two-year implementation window that served as an opportunity to reexamine practitioners’
existing understanding of developmental education. This chapter describes how institutional
actors at two colleges made sense of AB 705 and why. In doing so, I begin to address my first
research question: in what ways do institutional actors understand the goals and desired
outcomes of AB 705? During interviews, it became evident that implementers had varying
interpretations of AB 705 based on personal, social, and professional experiences. Their
sensemaking translated into implementation decisions that I describe in detail in chapter 8.
In this chapter, I organize the spectrum of interpretations by categorizing respondents as
advocates and opponents of AB 705 while showing key differences. Advocates were: 1)
believers of data identifying prevailing equity gaps, 2) avid consumers and purveyors of
professional development, and 3) previous experimenters of acceleration. This led supporters to
understand AB 705 as a bill that increases access to transferable courses, affirms students as
college-ready, and as a social justice initiative with transformative potential to close equity gaps.
In contrast, opponents guided by many years of teaching experience framed AB 705 as poorly
informed and fallaciously motivated. Whereas supporters understood the bill as empowering
students to succeed, opponents believed that without developmental courses, students would fail
because students have deficiencies like inadequate K-12 schooling or poor study habits that
made transfer level placement unwise.

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Table 10 summarizes the characteristics of advocates and opponents who had varied
beliefs towards AB 705. A full breakdown of all interviewees has been included in appendix G.
Most interviewees were in the “advocate” category (N=27) and less so in the “opponent”
category (N=11). Opponents tended to be at their institution longer (15.7 years) than advocates
(11.3 years), and more of them were white (N=8) than people of color (N=3). Notably, only one
untenured faculty was an opponent compared to seven tenured faculty. Most opponents were
white women faculty. All nine administrators interviewed were advocates
8
. Important in this
chapter is how advocates and opponents came to understand the legislation and the range of
sensemaking devices and experiences that mediated their thinking. In the next chapter, I go
deeper by presenting the dynamics of racialized sensemaking. Generally, advocates tended to be
recent faculty hires, more racially diverse, and more willing to entirely do away with the
developmental system. Opponents tended to be white, longtime faculty and desired improved
assessment processes to increase success outcomes. Opponents feared universal elimination of
remediation and, despite raising concerns of faculty pay or having to enact mandated changes to
the curriculum, opponents cloaked their resistance as altruism toward students.

8
One academic math chair with administrative authority was an opponent.

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Table 10 - Summary Characteristics of Advocates and Opponents at Village and Sunnyville

Stance towards AB 705
Advocates Opponents
Faculty

Math 9 4
English 9 4
Tenured 12 7
Untenured 6 1
Counseling 0 2
Administration 9 0
Staff 0 1
Race

Black 4 1
Latinx 7 2
Asian 2 0
White 13 8
Multiracial 1 0
Gender

Male 13 2
Female 14 9
Length at institution

Less than 5 years 8 2
Between 5-15 years 10 3
More than 15 years 9 6

Advocates Believed AB 705 Increased Access to Transferable Courses Eliminating “Exit
Points”
Advocates expressed support of AB 705 at different intensities. General advocates
overwhelmingly understood the bill as attempting to increase access to transfer-level courses and
remove “exit points,” which have historically targeted minoritized students. Ten advocates
shared AB 705’s goal to “increase access” to transfer-level classes, sometimes even quoting the
legislative text verbatim. The remaining advocates indirectly described this by sharing that it
“gave,” “allowed,” and “offered” students a chance at “proper” placement. Two opponents

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mentioned “increased access” but followed up these comments sharing students would be
“unsuccessful” in transferable courses if afforded access.
Village English faculty Sofía Chávez understood the “spirit” of the policy as “direct
access to college-level coursework.” Similarly, Nia Hill, Village English faculty, says the bill
“stop[s] denying students access” to transferable courses. To Antony Lewis, a Sunnyville
English faculty, the purpose of AB 705 is “to allow students to get to their dreams a little bit
faster” and “not drop out.” Advocates believed increasing access to transfer-level courses meant
students would encounter fewer “exit points,” or opportunities for students to drop out,
compounded with each additional developmental course in a sequence. The more developmental
courses, the more exit points in the way of students completing transferable courses. When Dave
Wilson, an English professor at Sunnyville, was exposed to exit point data – identifying how few
minoritized students make it through developmental course sequences - he was horrified and felt
responsible. “No matter how good a teacher I am, the math keeps working against me. Good
students start to drop out.”
Similarly, at Sunnyville, English Taylor Scott, referred to exit points when citing existing
research, “it’s a bottleneck and it elongates if they stay – their pathway to completion.” Rather
than open lanes on a freeway, “exit points” can be thought of as closed lanes and premature exits
enticing drivers or students to leave. Over the years, community colleges have closed these lanes;
they have created holes at the narrow end of the bottleneck. According to advocates, AB 705
would increase access to transferable courses removing these “exit points.” These two ideas –
increasing access to transferable courses that consequently eliminate exit points – were central in
advocates describing the bill as a “structural change.” The policy metaphorically opened the

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freeway lanes and removed premature exit points. Support of these changes by advocates served
as a challenge to the longtime status quo that limited access and opportunity.
Advocates View AB 705 as Affirming Student’ College Readiness. Advocates of AB 705
viewed the policy as affirming students’ capacity to succeed at the transfer level. Out of 27
supporters, 12 framed the bill as explicitly affirming students’ college readiness. Whereas
developmental education signaled a lack of confidence in students’ college “readiness,”
advocates believed AB 705 challenged this assumption by allowing students to have agency and
feel less discouraged by receiving direct access to the transfer level. The policy now mandates
colleges to treat students as “college students straight out the gate,” helping increase their
motivation to stay in college, argued English Professor Nia Hill. Students were previously not
given the benefit of the doubt to succeed, explained math faculty, Simon Kho. Low placement of
primarily racially minoritized students into developmental courses “amplified” instructors'
“deficit mindset” that students lack essential knowledge. Professor Kho described how this made
students feel “isolated,” “neglected,” and “less motivated” to overcome structural “obstacles”
and faculty “bias.” In contrast, AB 705 sent a clear message to students, “you can succeed.”
Advocates described how students placed into developmental courses felt “less than”
their peers. “I’m not that smart. Like all my friends are in [transfer-level course]” was familiar
rhetoric among developmental students according to Village’s interim English Dean Malee
Trubbaya. When students already had “great doubts (Dave Wilson)” about their ability to attend
college, that feeling was amplified once they were told they needed to retake high school
courses. Therefore, placement in developmental courses served to discourage students, reducing
their agency to feel like college students. That characteristic was not only racialized but
organizationally mediated in the form of placement tests and the large enterprise of

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developmental courses that depended on them. Advocates consequently viewed AB 705 as
signaling to students that their college believes in their ability to succeed. They saw lengthy
developmental sequences as discouraging and previously harming students' performance.
Additionally, corequisite support (described later) created structures to ensure that students
succeed. In this way, AB 705 was viewed as redistributing resources (i.e., transfer-level
placement) in a manner that would enhance student agency.
Advocates Overwhelmingly saw AB 705 as a Racial Equity Initiative. When asked whether
AB 705 was a policy that focused on racial equity, all 27 advocates agreed. Five opponents
similarly argued various groups endorsed the bill (e.g., researchers, legislators, non-profit) from
the perspective of equity but were skeptical of its true intentions (described later). There were
differences among advocates. General supporters saw the bill as an opportunity to end the pattern
of students of color dropping out of arduous developmental sequences. These supporters were
driven to change after seeing data disaggregated by race and ethnicity presented at conferences
illustrating prevalent equity gaps in completion.
Reactive in nature, general supporters grew to endorse the legislation and reform their
practices after seeing the data. “We’re placing students of color and female students much
lower,” shared Deborah Ridge, a math faculty who previously supported the creation of an
additional developmental level Village’s math department. Post-AB 705, Professor Ridge
became a supporter of reform after a career believing developmental courses worked. As she
describes, AB 705 was a “wakeup call” for her to realize that despite making the previous
developmental system with the “best of intentions,” it’s “not working,” and change was needed.
Most advocates, 18 of them, were like Ridge.

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Nine passionate advocates framed AB 705 through a lens of racial justice and were more
emancipatory in their understanding of the legislation. By this, I mean they condemned
developmental education as racist and saw the bill as an attempt to end the racialized “tracking”
of Black and Brown students. These advocates, who tended to be early-career faculty, were
proactive innovators of developmental education reform efforts like acceleration and attributed
much of their support towards AB 705 to their training in social justice issues.
To English Professor Nancy Rivera, AB 705 attempts to “correct a racist practice” that
had a disproportionately negative impact “based on race more than anything else.” Professor
Rivera felt the policy was attempting “to fix the systemic institutional oppression and racism that
has been under placing students, mostly students of color, basically since its existence.” Village
English faculty Randy Sherman, a white male who is a “self-described” social justice and racial
equity advocate, understood AB 705 through a more emancipatory lens. Professor Sherman
interprets AB 705 as a rethinking of the broader education system:
I really do see it as a restructuring of society. Like previously, we placed students
according to standardized tests. And these standardized tests are standardized to the
majoritarian group, the U.S. born, monolingual, generally white middle- and upper-class
student. And so, really, what we’re doing there is we’re maintaining the unequal
distribution of education within the country. And, since higher education attainment is
correlated with things like higher socioeconomic status and all sorts of other positive
things, AB 705 is really about creating -- and it goes beyond educational equity. It’s
really redistributing power within the United States in an equitable fashion. And it’s
reimagining what we mean by what does an intelligent person look like, what does an
intelligent person sound like.

Through this redistribution of educational opportunity, Sherman imagined mass demographic
changes in every industry and “every aspect of American life,” including, hopefully, “the
makeup of our government.” Professor Sherman’ beliefs about AB 705 were clear, “It’s going to
change the world.” While not all interviewees saw the policy in such expansive light, advocates
generally agreed that its passing would transform community college education.

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Differences were evident between general and passionate advocates. General advocates
tended to be at their institution longer and gradually grew to support AB 705 through intentional
professional development. Some of these advocates had reservations about the policy’s origin
but were onboard. Among the nine passionate advocates, they tended to be new members of their
institutions (hired within five years) or midcareer faculty. These advocates remarked on their
education on social justice issues and described how they had personally experienced various
forms of discrimination. The majority of Latinx faculty were passionate advocates and outspoken
about issues of race and were highly enthusiastic in discussing AB 705.
Why did advocates support AB 705?
In contrast to opponents, advocates overwhelmingly drew upon their experiences with
data, professional development conferences, and prior efforts at acceleration. As I share in later
chapters, advocates were also motivated by trainings on institutional forms of racism.
Advocates Found Data Compelling. AB 705 advocates found data showing racialized
outcomes in developmental courses compelling and convincing. All advocates referenced data
when describing their understanding of the bill’s goals. Since supporters actively believed in
existing racial inequities, new data only affirmed their existing understanding (Spillane, 2000)
that developmental education does not work. For example, these respondents were “horrified”
when exposed to state and local level success outcome data. AB 705 advocates typically began
discussing the policy with data. “Racial equity is the goal of the law. Because again, the statistics
I saw show great inequity in our program,” shared Dave Wilson, a Village English faculty.
Village Vice President Adam Miller was moved by the data, “if you take a student who has a
GPA of 1.9 in high school and you put them directly into [transfer-level] English, 42% of them
will be successful. If you put them two levels below, 12% of them will finish.” He adds, “that

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right there just tells the whole story.” Since lower GPA students tend to be minoritized students,
Miller and other advocates framed the problem AB 705 sought to solve as a racialized one.
In the same light, English faculty Dave Wilson was “shocked” when he saw data
disaggregated by race and ethnicity on developmental courses' success rates. “The vast majority
of students that didn’t make it were African-American and Latinx males.” He pondered, “Am I a
part of this problem? Am I creating this?” Exposure to new data disaggregated by race and
ethnicity helped Professor Wilson realize his efforts were detrimental to the very students he
desired to help, racially minoritized students. Although new evidence does not always lead to a
new point of view (Bauman, 2005), in Wilson’s case, it was transformative and led him to
participate in acceleration reforms at Village.
Hill (2001) found that teachers’ ‘knowledge communities’ impacted their sensemaking of
policy. In AB 705’s case, advocates were part of data knowledge communities that became
evident during department meeting presentations or committee work. Supporters were “data-
hungry” when they realized how many students were dropping out due to developmental
education. Data as an organizational resource was a crucial tool of all four departments studied.
All division leaders used data to varying degrees to introduce, promote, and advise changes
under AB 705. Moreover, advocates who were accustomed to disaggregated data within their
departments were therefore unsurprised by the arrival of AB 705 and the data used to justify it.
Data exposure was often made possible at professional development conferences.
Advocates Frequented Professional Development Opportunities. All advocates referenced
professional development (PD) when sharing their understanding of AB 705. Advocates
routinely referenced organizations offering PD opportunities, such as the California Acceleration
Project (CAP, referenced 24 times) and others like the RP Group (referenced five times), 3CSN

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(referenced five times), and the USC Center for Urban Education (referenced three times), to
make sense of the bill. Professional development exposed interviewees to data of inequitable
outcomes, modeled equity-mindedness, how to elicit buy-in, and presented models of reform
from other colleges. Participation in PD expanded the knowledge base of interviewees and was
attributable to their openness to improve themselves and their practices.
In making sense of AB 705, advocates overwhelmingly referenced CAP, whose goal they
argued was to remove developmental sequences entirely and instead reorient attention to
improved teaching. An average of 10 faculty per department (i.e., English, math, ESL) attended
the yearly CAP conference at both sites, which focuses, according to their website, on helping
individuals “learn how other colleges are responding to the requirements of AB 705 and
fostering the success of all students (Third Annual Acceleration Across California Conference,
2019).” Most interviewees regarded the conference as helpful in learning what other colleges are
doing and the most up-to-date research on developmental reforms. Advocates then brought this
research and data back to their campuses to convince cynics to support AB 705. An example is
Sunnyville English faculty Brooke Foster, who returned to campus “full of all this data” from a
CAP conference. She shared with a resistant colleague all the various ways remediation was
unsuccessful. “I just said his life’s work has failed.” That cynic became “really upset.” Professor
Foster finds these encounters essential to tilt the scale in support of state reforms.
At Village, equity and AB 705 were often synonymous in PD discussions. Vice president
Selina Rodriguez hired the USC Center for Urban Education (CUE) to conduct six PD retreats
with faculty, staff, and administrators, where, as VP Rodriguez shares:
Everyone learned the equity-mindedness framework. They went through understanding
the importance of disaggregating data, adopting an inquiry mindset, reviewing the
syllabus tool for faculty, learning the difference between equity-mindedness and asset-

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based and deficit thinking, and then learning the difference between equity, diversity, and
equality.

This training helped Village’s English department develop a “beginning understanding of
equity” and ways to “address equity within the composition classroom” (Dr. Malee Trubbaya).
Sunnyville similarly hired CUE for equity trainings. An equity institute by CUE prompted
Sunnyville English department chair Kevin Cook to collect course-level data for each faculty
member and “get people to begin to talk about biases.” In addition to equity trainings, both sites
hired outside facilitators for trainings regarding data, culturally relevant pedagogy, and
curriculum design.
The frequency of attendance of these PD opportunities allowed advocates leading up to
AB 705 to build awareness of pertinent research on reforms as well as develop openness to
experimentation. Although PD was available to all, it was neither accessed by all nor were costs
associated with travel fully compensated among those who participated. Therefore, the benefits
of participating in knowledge communities (Hill, 2001) like CAP and other PD opportunities
depended on whether respondents felt personally motivated to attend and could do so. Advocates
overwhelmingly found PD influential in their support of AB 705 because it convinced them that
students are more likely to succeed with direct transfer-level placement. It also motivated them
to experiment with reform long before AB 705. Acceleration was one way advocates put to
practice their newfound knowledge attained at conferences.
Advocates Previously Experimented with Acceleration. Before AB 705, advocates who were
prior innovators of acceleration became convinced of its merits of eliminating developmental
education. Participation in professional PD primed these advocates for changes to come under
AB 705 and made them eager to be part of the reform. These individuals were on the “cutting
edge” as one interviewee shared of voluntarily laying the groundwork for the policy. Out of 27

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advocates, 15 mentioned their efforts at acceleration either in teaching accelerated courses,
developing curriculum, or leading reform efforts. These innovators became exposed to evidence
facilitating their openness to new reforms like AB 705 (Coburn & Talbert, 2006). Below I share
an example of one department effort at acceleration. As described in chapter 5, back in 2012,
Village’s English department created Accelerated Courses in English (ACE) to allow students to
finish transfer-level English within two semesters, a feat that at the time was a substantial
change. AB 705 institutionalized the efforts of ACE leaders and even went further, making
acceleration no longer optional.
Village English faculty Wilson explained how acceleration research has proved “all
students are better off, especially students of color” when placed directly in transfer-level
composition. In turn, when AB 705 passed, Professor Wilson anticipated and welcomed the
changes, “it was just in spirit with what we’d already been doing for most of the decade before it
happened.” Furthermore, as ACE leader Sofía Chávez explained, ACE served a precursory role
to AB 705, the gradual transition into eventually removing all developmental courses. Professor
Chávez breaks this down in the following passage:
[ACE] was the first real attempt of anybody in our division to attempt what AB 705
eventually had to come in and do, which was get rid of basic skills. And at the time, that
was the fear, that we were trying to get rid of basic skills… We couldn’t yet say explicitly,
yes, we want to get rid of all basic skills because that was a nonstarter for anybody, you
know? And so, I think that acceleration was at that middle point where everybody was
trying to make a change but couldn’t just say we’re ripping out all these classes.

In this way, prior efforts at accelerated reforms (Coburn & Talbert, 2006) like ACE
served as a launching pad that, while at the time imagined as impossible to detractors of
developmental reform, prepared the department for changes under the new law. A primer to AB
705, ACE created among Village’s advocates a sense of what Spillane and colleagues (2002)
describe as dissonance, “or dissatisfaction with one’s own behavior,” which is necessary for the

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“reinterpretation of one’s beliefs” (p. 418). ACE helped faculty like Dave Wilson confirm that
students can succeed without remediation and that his prior participation in teaching
developmental courses was exclusionary. He found students could pass transfer-level English in
one year with sufficient support in the classroom and redesigned curriculum paired with
engaging pedagogy. At Village, AB 705 enhanced the timeline to finish from one year to five
months (one semester). While initially worried, in nearly two years of “doing AB 705,” Wilson
grew to accept it is not only possible but likely. “I’ve been convinced that they can [succeed].”
All four departments studied had some version of acceleration like ACE, and its leaders
were primarily supporters of developmental reform who themselves were prior basic skills
instructors. Acceleration served as a departure away from department norms and routines that
limited what was considered possible. Unger (1987) describes these practices as formative
contexts that constrain what can be seen as possible. For those who participated in acceleration
and saw improved outcomes, removal of developmental education was not only conceived as
possible but as a plausible solution to close equity gaps. Those who did not experiment with
acceleration or openly rejected it were more distant in their acceptance of AB 705 later on.
Advocates responsive to data, participation in PD, and prior innovators of acceleration supported
AB 705 because they were already going in that direction. Organizational mechanisms like
hiring processes, tenure, and financial resources like PD were central in “growing the choir,” as
was made clear by respondents. As I share below, opponents who rejected AB 705 were drawn
to different sources of information and experiences in their sensemaking.
Opponents Criticize AB 705 as Fallaciously Motivated
Faculty opponents were suspicious of the motives driving the passage of AB 705. From
its financial motivations, gripes over the legislation's top-down approach, or the lack of faculty

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input, opponents repeatedly shared their distaste over the bill. Opponents positioned their stance
by claiming to know what is in the best interests of students. Their opposition was justified as
necessary to protect students from the failure they would experience if placed directly into
transfer-level courses. Opponents fortified their arguments with anecdotes about teaching
underprepared students. As much as they positioned themselves as protecting students from
failure, they attributed student deficiencies as the source of inequality in educational outcomes.
Based on their teaching experience, students in developmental education courses did not fit the
archetypical college student who knows how to study and has developed the academic habits that
characterize college students. Neither the data nor their colleagues’ enthusiasm persuaded them
to be more open-minded about the possibilities offered by AB 705.
Opponents Skeptical that Financial Interests Motivated AB 705. Opponents believed that
elected officials were motivated to adopt AB 705 because they saw it as eliminating the cost of
courses that did not count toward a degree and therefore were inefficient. From their perspective,
elected officials were primarily motivated by money, and eliminating developmental education
was an easy way to reduce funding. Out of 11 opponents, seven raised financial interests like
these to describe the underlying purpose of AB 705.
Statewide rhetoric on increased degree completion signaled to opponents that California
only prioritized saving money. As English faculty Arturo Gutierrez reasoned, “we’re spending a
lot of money on higher education without getting a lot of results for the amount of money we’re
putting in. We should have more degrees.” Gutierrez reached this interpretation based on
statewide messaging on how community college students in California spent upwards of six
years in college without attaining a worthwhile credential. As a faculty member for over 20
years, he underscored that whenever legislators drive policy change, “it usually comes down to

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money, right?” Beyond getting students to finish faster, faculty opponents believed California
would no longer educate students who are unprepared and likely not succeed within the rigors of
transfer-level coursework. As math faculty Karen Park suggests, AB 705 is “not wasting as much
money on students who aren't ready to make the sacrifices necessary to succeed in college.”
Additionally, the advent of AB 705 parallel to equity funding in California (Felix &
Trinidad, 2020) suggested to interviewees that attention to equity and reform of developmental
education is financially driven. Darrell Little, a Sunnyville math professor, shared, “the reason
why equity is the driving force is that there is money involved in equity.” With statewide funds
to engage in “equity-minded practices and curriculum,” Professor Little grew to believe AB 705
is another way colleges can prioritize equity while obtaining desperately needed funding. As an
instructor for over 20 years, institutional knowledge over past reforms influenced his thinking
that interest in additional state funding fuels Sunnyville’s desire to prioritize equity in AB 705.
As I describe later, while Sunnyville’s executive leadership was concerned about funding given
low enrollments caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020, Professor Little’s concern
that funding is driving a commitment to equity originates much earlier than AB 705. Funding
allocations for student equity in the California community colleges began in the 2014-2015
academic year.
Another illustrative example of skepticism over the financial interests of AB 705 was the
belief that it is motivated by an interrelated initiative, California’s introduction of performance-
based funding (PBF). With the passing of a new student-centered funding formula a year after
AB 705 (in 2018) – where colleges now receive supplemental funding for outcomes like
completion of transfer-level courses – some respondents felt AB 705 and PBF were mutual
efforts of a broader agenda to accelerate students through degrees and transfer at a reduced cost.

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As a result, faculty interviewees expressed fear of decreasing the quality of education in
community colleges or “dumb down” classes when financial concerns motivate AB 705.
Therefore, faculty were reacting not only to AB 705 but to broader concerns of equity funding
and performance-based funding viewed as an attack on faculty prerogatives like curriculum.
English faculty Letty Sanchez – an avid opponent of AB 705 and faculty for over 20
years – exemplifies sentiments that AB 705 is money-driven. Professor Sanchez was suspicious
about the close timing of AB 705 and performance-based funding. In the following passage, she
explains her distrust towards both:
Isn’t it interesting that at the same time that you’re forcing a change in curriculum you’re
also telling the people who run these institutions – the administrators – they’re not going
to get a paycheck unless you get more people through? And by the way, now you can’t
remediate them. (laughs) So just get them through. What the hell does that mean?

Sanchez’s experience as a one-time developmental education student with a 4.0 GPA who
experienced academic success feared that the elimination of developmental courses threatened
educational quality and would deprive students of the opportunity she had. Her skepticism was
paired with anxiety over the preparedness of students for the labor market. In the following
passage, she explains her fear and how developmental education creates “better citizens.”
They’re tired of paying for students who are taking too long to get through. (laughs) I’m
the friggin taxpayer, man. It’s my friggin money! I don’t mind paying because they may
take a little longer to get through, but they come out better people. They come out with
real purpose. They come out understanding what they need, and they come out better
educated, which makes them better citizens. I don’t want a nurse when I’m 80 and lying
in a hospital bed trying to figure out on her fingers how to calculate medication. (laughs)
I don’t want, you know, a lawyer who can’t interpret the law, right? We can push a whole
lot of people through and give them a degree. Sure. But they’re not going to be prepared
for anything.

As an exemplar of the good that can be derived from developmental education, Professor
Sanchez feared that its elimination would result in students of color not being able to “compete”
with wealthier white students and Asian subgroups who have “private tutors” and attend “better

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high schools.” In her words, AB 705 was telling her “to make it less hard for [her] Black and
Brown students and make it harder for [her] White and Asian students.” She describes her
educational journey in K-12 schools as traumatizing and labels community college assessment
tests as “racist.” Being traumatized, developmental courses “saved” her in a way that allowed her
to remediate her “spirit” and recuperate her “dignity.” This experience made developmental
courses appear to Sanchez as a rite of passage for the underprepared and those “who’ve been run
through the ringer.”
Sanchez’s personal experience justified her belief that AB 705 would lessen the
educational opportunities of minoritized students and deprive them of what remediation offered
her. Given her understanding of the policy, her opposition is reasonable and aligned with her
experiences as a former community college student. What is important here is that opposition to
policy initiatives often stems from a lifetime of belief systems informed by deeply personal
experiences and strong social networks. As I share in chapter 8, Sanchez’s opposition occurred
alongside resistance from her like-minded colleagues who held considerable power. The impact
of their influence directly shaped AB 705’s implementation and what became achievable.
Opponents Viewed AB 705 as Led by Misinformed Lawmakers. In addition to fears over its
fallacious motivations, all 11 opponents believed lawmakers should not be involved in academic
matters. Opponents saw their years of daily firsthand contact with students as faculty superseding
lawmakers who they saw as “naïve,” “ill-informed,” and “greedy.” To opponents, years of
experience teaching thousands of students made them especially well-suited to diagnose
students’ poor performance. Developmental courses were seen as the solution to bring students
up to speed for transferable coursework in danger of elimination by misinformed legislators.

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A Village math faculty member shows a commonly shared attitude over how lawmakers
imposed a change in curriculum, “I don’t like the idea of legislators who haven’t been in
classrooms coming in and telling us how we should change our curriculum.” Similarly, Dr.
Karen Park, math faculty, believed legislators and researchers supporting developmental
education reform are unfamiliar with teaching developmental students. Dr. Park explains how
she rejects the top-down approach of AB 705 that was made without faculty consultation.
My first initial impression was: Great, people telling us what to do. I'm very anti-top-
down decisions… people say ‘well, it's teachers who've come together and looked at data
dah dah dah dah.’ Okay, good for those teachers. I wasn't one of them. So, I feel like it's
someone else telling me what is best, and I would like the opportunity to be convinced
that it's best – show me your research, show me your data – which they did at the CAP
conference. It wasn't a hard sell for me to believe that this can be a good thing. I was
never vehemently opposed to it. I just don't like anything top-down. So that was my
initial reaction like, Oh great, it was more like, oh yay, people with Ph.D.’s in education
who haven't actually taught any of these classes are telling us what we should and
shouldn't teach, and I have issues with that.

When policy forces change, Dr. Park suggests faculty’s “initial reaction is one of fear,
doubt, mistrust.” Faculty repeatedly shared their distaste for how misinformed elected officials
became involved in curricular matters and coerced change within a tight timeline.
According to faculty like Letty Sanchez, AB 705 was ill-informed because it was forced
onto faculty too quickly. Sanchez described AB 705 as a “hammer” rather than the “molding
chisel” that would have made it a “good thing.” She explains, “there’s a way to get rid of plaque.
You don’t want to do it with a sledgehammer (laughs). Because you’ll lose your teeth.” In
contrast, advocates believed that without AB 705, its mandates would not have been possible.
Professor Sofía Chávez explains why the law had to impose changes, “there was never going to
be enough political support to make that happen at each locality.”
Opponents Believed AB 705 Limits Faculty Power. In addition to misinformed, fiscally
motivated lawmakers, resistant faculty understood AB 705 as a threat to their jurisdiction over

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academic decisions. Out of 11 opponents, eight interpreted the legislation as limiting faculty
power especially over curriculum (only non-faculty opponents did not raise this point). This
question over who has the authority to dictate curricular changes became a point of debate during
AB 705’s implementation. I offer an example below from Village because resistance to
administrators was especially salient during the bill’s implementation.
Faculty have traditionally held considerable power in California community colleges.
When AB 1725 was signed into law in 1988, the legislation reassigned responsibility for issues
like curriculum from the statewide board of governors to local academic senate boards. The law
conferred authority to local academic senates over various issues, including faculty hiring,
planning, budgetary processes, and other policies in a list of “10+1” decision-making areas
(Livingston, 1998). In the interviews, Village opponents frequently referenced “10+1” to explain
their frustration over how AB 705 stripped away their power as faculty. First, one concern was
who has the authority to determine “if a course stays or not (Dr. Malee Trubbaya)” post-AB 705.
Faculty opponents believed that decisions must be made in consultation with faculty despite it
being administrators' authority. A second concern was intrusion over Assembly Bill 1725, which
“says faculty have purview over curriculum (Dr. Selina Rodriguez).” Both concerns were
believed to be “intruded upon and strong-armed” by “greedy administrators (Letty Sanchez).”
Professor Arturo Gutierrez questioned the manner administrators made decisions without
faculty input. Decisions over offering English courses, reading programs, and metrics for
placement were made without a “conversation across the division,” creating “bitter feelings.”
Those unfavorable sentiments turned into formal resistance during implementation later on. The
perception of misinformed policymakers who desired to eliminate the cost of developmental
courses while attacking faculty power served as a strong personal motive to resist AB 705.

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Opponents Believed AB 705 Limits Student Choice in STEM. All but one math faculty
opponent interviewed shared fears of AB 705 limiting students’ ability to pursue STEM.
Community colleges across California have expanded their offering of statistics courses for
students who do not pursue STEM majors instead of traditional college algebra tracks. For
opponents, this statewide streamlining of two pathways (statistics for liberal arts majors and
college algebra for STEM majors) limited opportunities for students to pursue STEM. “Are we
discouraging [students] from being a STEM major?” pondered Jessica Amiri, math department
chair at Sunnyville. To her, the answer was yes, “we have made that [STEM] path to be
impossible for them.” As a math chair, she believed AB 705 “works against equity” and made
STEM fields less attainable for “the minorities, the Black students, Hispanic students.”
For Amiri, the removal of below transfer-level courses served as an access barrier to
STEM fields that demand a strong math foundation. Professor Amiri had little confidence that
“unprepared students” could succeed in a pre-calculus course because the option to take a
developmental course to acquire the essential math competencies would no longer be available.
The outcome was inevitable, “they're going to fail. They take it again. They're not gonna pass
because they don't have what they need to pass that course.” As a math instructor for 30 years,
she firmly believed that developmental students could not be successful in transferable courses
because their math “foundation is missing.” Eventually, she argued, STEM-aspiring students will
change their majors.
AB 705 implementation guidance from the Chancellor’s office provides colleges with
high school GPA thresholds for students to be placed in transferable English (GPA ≥ 2.6),
statistics (GPA ≥ 3.0), and BSTEM (GPA ≥ 3.4) courses without corequisite support. A footnote
with smaller text in the guidelines indicates that STEM-aspiring students who have not taken

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algebra 2 in high school are rare. Furthermore, “algebra 2 is highly recommended as preparation
for a STEM-oriented gateway mathematics course and that their likelihood of success will be
higher in a statistics course” (Hope & Stanskas, 2018, p. 6). Amiri interpreted this to mean that
students with low GPAs should opt for a non-STEM major. After confirming via email that the
footnote above was the one she referenced, she responded to me via email:
There are students who start and for a variety of reasons, have not completed Algebra 2
or equivalent at their high school. Many of them are our Hispanic and Black students.
Some of the same students start at the very basic level of math at the college and will
move up to Calculus and higher math courses. To discourage them before they even try
is not acceptable and, in my opinion, works against Equity.

Professor Amiri explained during our interview, “we have closed the path for those students who
want to be a STEM major and they never had a chance in high school to get what they need. And
we were the chance for them.” Data suggests she is misled about how many students persist
through calculus. In fall 2017, 201 students began four levels below transfer. After three years in
spring 2020, only one student was able to pass the needed prerequisite courses to enroll in
Calculus. The student did not pass the Calculus course
9
.
A Sunnyville math professor and AB 705 advocate, Justin Floyd, was similarly
concerned about how students are pushed out of STEM. As a former community college student
who at first struggled with math, Floyd was intimately familiar with how community college
offered him an opportunity to study math. He longed for students to have a similar opportunity.
It seems like we want to push all the students who are not prepared for college to take
statistics to pass a transfer-level class. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but I also want
STEM majors, and I want to give those students who want to try it and become a STEM
major. I want to give them that opportunity.

9
Data is for a tracked cohort from Fall 2017 through Spring 2020 using the California Community College
Chancellor's Office Datamart Basic Skills Progress Tracker Tool.

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However, Professor Floyd also agreed that STEM aspiring students with a weak math
background should not begin at the lowest developmental level. The problem was structural.
Colleges do not give students opportunities to “refresh their memory” before taking assessment
tests. “They’re taking it cold after a year of no math at all. So, what do you expect?” Professors
Amiri and Floyd and others not mentioned, therefore, viewed AB 705 to varying degrees as a
threat to students’ ability to pursue STEM pathways.
Why did opponents denounce AB 705?
Like advocates of the legislation, opponents relied on a range of beliefs to rationalize
their interpretation of AB 705. In contrast to supporters, opponents relied more closely upon their
first-hand experiences to make sense of AB 705 than on knowledge from data presentations at
conferences and department meetings. This included anecdotes about students’ educational
backgrounds and students’ time use while in college. No evidence could convince opponents
contrary to what their years of teaching had helped them believe, that developmental courses
were necessary if students were to succeed later on.
Opponents used Student Stories to Justify Developmental Education. Stories or narratives
are powerful meaning-making tools (Zilber, 2007) that shape past interpretations and hold power
and consequences for the future (Czarniawska, 1998). Therefore, stories can influence how
people “understand and construct past, present, and future ‘reality” (Zilber, 2007, p. 1038;
Gabriel, 2000). In this study, all 11 opponents overwhelmingly shared student stories
highlighting their deficiencies as explanations for inequitable outcomes. In faculty meetings,
these stories were used to sway popular opinion to maintain the status quo.
In math, stories highlighted gaps in student knowledge on important concepts. To
illustrate, when asking faculty to prove why developmental math courses should be offered,

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Dean Jenna Blackwood received anecdotal stories from faculty regarding one or two students in
their pre-calculus class. “Well, they can’t add fractions together. Really? (laughs),” reflected
Dean Blackwood. Gilberto Beltrán, a math faculty member, sympathizes with students who are
scolded by other faculty for not remembering math concepts. Professor Beltrán is angered when
he finds out that faculty yell at students for these memory lapses. “What the fuck? I mean, if
somebody doesn't know how to add two numbers together, that's a whole different story. Right?”
Faculty, he says, should just recap the material, “But I mean, they forgot how to add fractions.
Just help them out. Takes two minutes.” As an advocate of AB 705, such anecdotes that
condition students’ capacity to succeed at the transfer level on memory lapses like adding
fractions have little weight in justifying remediation.
Correspondingly, in English, students who “can’t write a sentence” were routine
arguments raised by opponents at department meetings. Dr. Angélica López, Village’s English
dean, facing fierce backlash from faculty opposing AB 705, shared, “I had faculty putting in
papers of their students in my mailbox so I could see how bad they were as writers.” Not
everyone agreed. English faculty Randy Sherman became frustrated from hearing claims that
students cannot write a sentence because “apparently they never make it into [his] classes.” To
Sherman, opponents tend to frame the problem using individual student anecdotes rather than
research and data. “These little stories that are meant to illustrate the deficiencies in our
students.” I followed up by asking whether these stories hold power in shaping how faculty
understand AB 705. Sherman responded:
No. Well, not those stories. Stories I’ve got in mind are ones that perpetuate this idea that
students are unprepared. But they do have power in rallying other people who don’t want
to believe that they’ve been doing harm.

“You remember the least prepared student in your class. You don’t remember the other 34

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students,” Professor Deborah Ridge says regarding the naysayers of AB 705. These stories were
used as evidence to justify how students are incapable of success and why AB 705 is such a
daunting feat.
Faculty opposed to AB 705 shared many stories of students. They remembered the
student who admitted to being “hungover” during the assessment test, leading to low placement.
Other stories focused on students not paying attention during test prep, being overwhelmed by
enrolling in too many units, students lamenting how “hard” a class feels, or student anxiety
enrolling straight into a transfer-level course. These stories were powerful personal experiences
of faculty who, arguably with good intentions, believed students are unprepared for the rigors of
the transfer level. The experiences captured within these stories proved among opponents that
developmental education was necessary for students to pick up needed “studenting skills” and
missing academic knowledge.
Opponents Rely on Myths About Students to Explain Inequities. Opponents relied on a range
of myths and assumptions about students to shape their understanding of AB 705. The first myth
emphasized how the K-12 system is not adequately preparing students for college. Responsibility
for “lacking preparedness,” especially among racially minoritized students, was assigned to the
schools and neighborhoods that students frequented. “I think inner-city students of color aren’t
getting an adequate education,” shared English Professor Arturo Gutierrez. To Gutierrez,
improved community college outcomes hinged on a strong kindergarten through high school
education. “Have a system in place for 12 years that is working. But if you don’t, this isn’t the
place to fix it. It’s too late.” Darrell Little, math faculty, believed K-12 educators “teach to the
test,” leaving students with a “false sense of security” in their math ability. Sentiments like these

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were common among faculty opposed to AB 705 who described how “impossible” it was for
students to “catch up.”
A second myth shared by opponents was that students did not invest sufficient time
studying, leaving them unprepared for the rigors of transferable coursework. An illustrative point
is opponents’ assertion that “external factors” and student choices over their use of time largely
determined low success outcomes. For example, Dr. Karen Park, Village math professor, shared,
“you're gonna have to sacrifice something. Whether that's time with friends and family and
relationships that are important, but for a season, can you sacrifice them?” For Professor Park,
the ability to spend time studying is a choice. “You have to choose what's most important for
you. You can't pass a math class if you don't understand the material, and there's no teacher or
no pedagogy or no method that can do that for you.” Similar attitudes were shared from other
math faculty who emphasized a weak “work ethic” and other “time commitments” that prevent
students from learning math. These myths motivated opponents’ thinking that AB 705 would fail
because students were not sufficiently exposed to experiences and behaviors associated with
success.
Chapter Closing
This chapter offered a window into how institutional actors made sense of AB 705.
Advocates relied on data, PD opportunities, and prior experience with acceleration to motivate
their support of the bill. These advocates saw AB 705 as removing “exit points” and increasing
access to transfer-level courses, particularly for minoritized students. By increasing access to the
transfer level, students would feel more confident and no longer describe themselves as “not that
smart.” Advocates’ familiarity with disaggregated data turned into them being unaffected by the
arrival of AB 705 and the evidence used to justify it. Advocates reflected on new data that

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highlighted the ways their complacency with the existing developmental system harmed
particular students. Years of PD and experimentation with acceleration leading up to AB 705
allowed advocates to welcome the bill and see their current practices differently. Critical race
sensemaking shed light on findings. I shared how advocates sought to increase students' agency
by affirming their college readiness (Ray, 2019). Further, advocates imagined it was possible for
students to succeed at the transfer-level (i.e., formative contexts; Unger, 1987) They also relied
on a range of personal, social, and professional experiences (e.g., knowledge communities, data
use, prior experience with reforms; Coburn & Talbert, 2006; Hill, 2001; Spillane, 2000) to shape
their sensemaking.
In contrast, opponents relied primarily on anecdotes about students and state rhetoric
about increased degree completion to interpret AB 705 as nefariously motivated. The perceived
motivations of policymakers (i.e., financially driven) influenced opponents’ receptiveness to AB
705, who feared the policy would lessen educational quality. Skeptics remarked how various
state initiatives (e.g., student equity funding, performance-based funding) prioritized degree
completion over educational quality and how it would lead to “unprepared” students. Faculty
opponents interpreted the onset of AB 705 as an attack on faculty power in shaping curriculum
and influencing future course sequences that they would teach. I emphasized how opponents
similar to advocates relied on their own knowledge communities and personal experiences to
distrust AB 705.
In the next chapter, I expand further on aspects of critical race sensemaking to show how
race factored in the sensemaking of advocates and opponents, just in different directions.
Advocates were aware and took steps to undo racialization as evident in various processes of
developmental education. Opponents, in contrast, took on a more race evasive lens and centered

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student deficiencies as responsible for inequitable success outcomes. These beliefs I argue in
chapter 8 culminated in responses toward the legislation that created challenges and
opportunities for Village and Sunnyville.

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CHAPTER 7: Awareness of Racialization in Developmental Education

Racialization is the process of assigning racial meaning to relationships, social practices,
or groups (Omi & Winant, 2015) and is constituted in policies and practices at various levels
(Ray, 2019). The effects of racialization are evident in forms of institutionalized and individual
racism (Gonzalez-Sobrino & Goss, 2019) within developmental education, which is described in
chapter 2. I framed developmental education as a racist and discriminatory system that
disproportionately targets minoritized students. The state of California recognizes this
racialization as evidenced by the legislative text of AB 705 (Irwin, 2017), which identifies
“students of color” as those most likely to receive placement in developmental education.
Whether implementers came to the same realization is of central concern for this study.
Therefore, this chapter describes the extent to which institutional actors recognize that
developmental education has patterns of racialization and that efforts to maintain this system
perpetuate racial inequity in success outcomes, and whether this awareness influenced their
sensemaking of AB 705. In doing so, I address my second research question: How does
awareness of developmental education as a racialized practice shape how institutional actors
make sense of AB 705? Advocates welcomed AB 705 because they recognized that racialization
was an inherent feature of developmental education. They identified racialization in two areas:
patterns of racialized placement and course curriculum that centers exclusively on whiteness
(Leonardo, 2009). To advocates, this recognition turned into support of AB 705’s mandate to
expand access and the questioning of existing curriculum.
In contrast, opponents saw developmental education as a necessary academic intervention
to correct student deficiencies described in coded and sometimes racially explicit ways (Pollock,
2004). Opponents consequently rejected the requirements of the bill and sought to protect the

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integrity of transferable courses. Whereas advocates saw the racial implications of
developmental education, opponents saw it through a race evasive lens (Annamma et al., 2017)
and did not realize the consequences of resulting inequities. Below, I share perspectives on
racialization in developmental education and how it catalyzed support or opposition to AB 705
among implementers. In sharing these perspectives, I expand on how racialized beliefs of
developmental education influenced the interpretation of AB 705 and the orientation of actors
involved with its implementation.
Advocates Disturbed by Racialized Placement Trend within Developmental Education

Advocates of AB 705 saw long developmental sequences as systemically racist by
denying access to the transfer level to specific students. At Village, over 77 percent of students
enrolled in developmental courses were racially minoritized students in the 2017-2018 academic
year. At Sunnyville, that number was nearly 90 percent in the same year. All advocates were
aware of these data showing the disproportionate over placement of racially minoritized students
into remediation relative to their proportion of enrollments in the college. Advocates were
disturbed by unspoken expectations from colleagues about the racial profile of transfer students
and developmental students. The anticipated status quo was one where the former (i.e., white and
some Asian subgroups) received higher placement than the latter (i.e., racially minoritized), and
for advocates, AB 705 was an opportunity to end this exclusionary function and disrupt the
system.
Described repeatedly as a system that “weeds out” people of color, developmental
education has built-in norms about who deserves to be “weeded.” Antony Lewis, an English
professor at Sunnyville, explains the institutionalized nature of the system.

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I think it's a weeding out system, which really, we don't talk about, especially in this
country, about how things are designed to weed people out. So, it is cool to walk into a
classroom and be like, “Okay, well, here's the rules for this class. Here's what you got to
do.” And then watch and see who does that. Like, sure, that's how most people teach.
And then you figure that the people who don't do this thing, well, they're the people who
don't go on, and that's fine because we don't want them to go on, anyway. I think it's hard.
The reason why this is so difficult is because we have a mentality that there is a certain
kind of person who should be rising. Institutions like these are great to weed certain
people out.

Lewis described students of color as the “weeded.” Weeds are undesirable plants that grow wild
in any direction if given the opportunity with sufficient water. These plants are removed to
accentuate ‘polished’ desired ones. Such a metaphor of ‘undesirables’ can be extended to
“unprepared” students for whom advocates like Professor Lewis say need to be centered in the
reform of AB 705.
The pattern of racialization in enrollment was visibly apparent to advocates. As Deborah
Ridge, math professor, shares, “all you had to do was open a classroom door, and you could tell
what level it was just by looking at the students.” Sofía Chávez, English faculty, describes how
“the higher [level] courses would be whiter because we were pushing out the Black and Brown
students before they could get there.” Relatedly, Gilberto Beltrán, math faculty, reflects on the
composition of his developmental courses, “I mean, most of my students were Hispanic, in the
low-level classes. I hardly saw any white people in there.” Recognizing these visual cues allowed
supporters to reflect on how placement has systematically excluded specific students. Under AB
705, that stood to change because most students were to receive transfer-level placement.
In addition to students' phenotypic distinction, this racialized enrollment pattern seeped
into faculty assumptions about students’ performance. As Gilberto Beltrán shared, the faculty
want “strong students” and “don't want to deal with the [knowledge] gaps in students.” These
perceived “gaps” in student knowledge were of central concern over whether students could pass

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transfer-level courses in an AB 705 environment. The belief about who is considered a “strong”
student is racialized, echoed by Justin Floyd, a math professor at Sunnyville:
Whether people want to admit this or not, sometimes people will actually walk around
and say, oh, “I don’t want to teach those students.” And I go well – Who are those
students? Alright? And so, there’s definitely things in terms of inequities, I think just
mindsets from both faculty, administration, and staff about who can learn, right?

Professor Floyd understood that “those students” was language coded for “Black, Latinx, any
student that’s from a disadvantaged background.” Similarly, as Professor Chávez shares
referencing Audre Lorde
10
, the faculty who created and promoted the system of developmental
education held students to an “imagined ideal,” the “standard,” which is the “perfectly able-
bodied young white man who has no concerns in life.” As Professor Chávez shared, faculty
beliefs about who belongs were “affirmed when they walked into class by the faces that they saw
there” and justified the racial distribution in transfer versus developmental courses, with whites
making up the majority in the former and racially minoritized in the latter. The desire to teach
“strong students” was coded language showing how whiteness had serviceability in certifying the
qualifications of white students and prematurely disqualifying minoritized students who did not
fit the “imagined ideal” described by Professor Chávez. The conscious and unconscious profile
of what characterizes a developmental student illustrates how power differentials and dominance
are maintained (Leonardo, 2009).
Awareness of this racialized enrollment pattern motivated advocates to promote the
prospect of teaching the full diversity present in the community colleges through equalized
placement under AB 705. Professor Floyd alluded to this by sharing faculty’s “responsibility” is

10
In her essay, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” Audre Lorde (1984) describes the
tension between dominant and targeted identities, and the construction of the “mythical norm,” which is “white,
thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure (p.120).”

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to teach and “care” for developmental (i.e., “disadvantaged”) students, not only transfer-level
(i.e., white) ones. As supporters of reform, faculty advocates believed AB 705 would be
“destabilizing” for faculty who are “unaccustomed” to teaching transfer-level courses with “[the]
actual student body” (Sofía Chávez). By correcting the overreliance of “sorting mechanisms (i.e.,
assessment tests; Taylor Scott)” that was “based on race more than anything else (Nancy
Rivera),” supporters saw AB 705 as an opportunity to end the racialized exclusion of minoritized
students in key courses.
Developmental education was legitimated by procedures like assessment tests that gave it
the mantel of objectivity and academic quality. Students were assessed, diagnosed, and placed
based on institutionalized processes. All these performative routines (Spillane et al., 2002)
contributed to its institutionalization and unquestioned acceptance. An advocate of AB 705, Dr.
Angélica López, English dean, describes how these routines were normalized:
Like I just keep thinking of the words ‘discouragement’ and, in some ways, ‘pushed out’
of the higher educational system, and we were doing it in this institutionalized manner,
and we were doing it in the name of ‘we’re helping them.’ But we weren’t – and the data
yields that we really weren’t – we were holding them back. And we were not giving them
or their high school teachers the benefit of the doubt.

Advocates like Dr. López desired to change the expectation of what a “college-ready” student is
and leave behind processes that disproportionately harmed specific groups of students under the
guise of fairness. Assessment tests were a resource and organizational tool that legitimized
minoritized students’ formal exclusion and faculty’s beliefs about them. AB 705 served as what
Ray (2019) calls an external source of change (i.e., state policy) that challenged existing racial
schemas like these and sought to redistribute opportunity.

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Advocates Welcomed AB 705 Because they Recognized Racialization in the Curriculum
AB 705 advocates sought to change the manner that developmental English and math
curriculum centered whiteness in course norms. Advocates shared examples from courses that
showed these trends. Despite developmental education enrolling predominantly Black and Latinx
students, advocates identified a pattern of faculty opponents resisting their representation in the
curriculum. In English, the debate centered on the use of “correct” English. Math advocates
questioned the white-centric origin of math and embedded whiteness of textbook examples. AB
705 presented an opportunity to revise the curriculum and reimagine transferable coursework to
make it more engaging and reflective of students.
Advocates Attentive to Racialized English Curriculum. In English, Village and Sunnyville
advocates described the consequences of placement in developmental education, including a
racialized curriculum. They underscored how English curriculum centers on white history,
stories, and people, and less on those of people of color. An example is an excerpt from a
conversation with Village Professor Randy Sherman, a white male. He questions the idea of
“correct English” to evaluate students in developmental education courses under the prior
remediation system. He challenges the notion that students should uncritically learn “correct
English.”
Sherman: As an English teacher, I’m really interested in this idea of “correct English.”
And every time I get shut down because nobody wants to talk about it. “You can’t say
that. What are you talking about?” You surely know this. There’s no such thing as
“correct English.” There’s the English that we’ve endorsed as being correct and we’ve
called it American Standard English. But a lot of my students who speak another
discourse within the English language are not speaking worse English. They’re speaking
English of a different group, that’s all.

Adrián: Like I speak Spanglish.

Sherman: There you go. Right. Or like if they speak with an accent or, say, code-
switching. Those things aren’t less than, but we’ve historically treated them as less

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than… And what does it mean when we speak the language or the discourse or the accent
of the group with all the power?

To Professor Sherman, prioritizing “correct English” in the teaching of literature means
upholding white-dominant norms and cultural practices. Faculty opponents rejected Sherman’
question that he posed as essential to implement AB 705 equitably, “what does it mean to be
good at English?”
Professor Sherman came to this realization through his shifting upbringing. Sherman
grew up in a working-class family through his late childhood with a single mother who later
married into a wealthy family. He described “social conditioning” he learned, including ideals
like valuing meritocracy and limited social safety nets. He credits his father for staying “open” to
have early “misguided assumptions challenged.” Once leaving home, attending community
college at Village and graduate school coupled with meeting people from “all over the world”
helped him move further away from “old attitudes.” Staying “open” to new possibilities were
virtues that assisted Sherman in participating in early acceleration efforts at Village as a early
career faculty member. Participation in these efforts later cemented his belief that AB 705 would
“change the world.”
Professor Sherman’ questioning of “correct English” was a viewpoint also shared by his
colleagues that were AB 705 advocates. Dr. Julia Sanders, a co-founder of Village’s ACE
program, challenged the use of standard English because that standard is “white, racist” and what
AB 705 allows is for faculty to question “the ways that we’ve been teaching in a system that has
that standard.” Advocates who believed developmental courses reinforced this racist standard
were challenged by opponents arguing that “cultural relevance, cultural responsiveness, anti-
racism (Sofía Chávez)” does not belong within English instruction. Professor Chávez rejected
these arguments that English curriculum should not center on race.

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That’s central to any kind of teaching or living (laughs) in the world. It’s not an add-on to
English. It’s central to English. If you’re working with language and power and the
construction of knowledge, of course, we have to be rooted in -- we have to be thinking
about race in that. There’s no way not to. Especially when the experiences of students
are being directly shaped by things like AB 705.

The previous status quo uplifted the linguistic practices of white people that Village advocates
argued were dismissive of the student body.
By mandating faculty to reorganize course offerings, advocates saw AB 705 as an
opportunity to rethink a transferable course curriculum reflective of the “actual student body
(Sofía Chávez).” The policy encourages but not mandates colleges to change their curriculum.
For example, state implementation guidance advises colleges to “innovate and design curriculum
that best serves their students (Hope, 2018, p. 8).” In other words, while AB 705 neither
necessitates curricular reform nor holds colleges accountable to it, advocates saw it as essential
to achieving the policy’s intended goals.
At Sunnyville, advocates expressed similar concerns over who was centered in
developmental curriculum. While Black and Latinx students comprise most developmental
enrollments, English Professor Antony Lewis was critical of faculty colleagues who resist their
representation in the curriculum. Although his primarily white colleagues did not outright argue
not to serve minoritized students, Lewis describes their opposition, “Well, should we be
centering them?” Furthermore, Lewis pondered at concerns raised by critics who questioned
whether minoritized students should be centered “at the expense of all students.” To Lewis, such
questions were comparable to saying, “Black Lives don’t matter, all lives matter.” English
curriculum whose standard was white before AB 705 was regarded as the norm and left
unquestioned. In contrast, centering students of color in the curriculum post-AB 705 was

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unwelcomed under the premise of harm to all students. Ironically, racially minoritized students
make up most Sunnyville enrollments (nearly 67% in 2017-2018).
Advocates Attentive to Racialized Math Curriculum. Village and Sunnyville advocates
questioned the white-centric origin of math and its relevance to non-STEM students.
Additionally, advocates described the embedded whiteness of math evident in examples offered
within class and textbook content. While math is commonly described as a neutral and value-free
discipline (Stinson, 2008), math faculty supportive of AB 705 like Professor Simon Kho
pondered over the origin of traditional math sequences. He explains, “I'm sure that curriculum
was designed a hundred years ago by white men, privileged upper-class white people, for their
kids to go to college. The math sequence hasn't changed a lot, at all.” As an instructor of over 15
years, having taught at all math levels, Professor Kho contemplated the appropriateness of
requiring all students to take college algebra. Six out of nine math faculty advocates shared
similar beliefs. Consequently, Professor Kho and colleagues believed AB 705 offered greater
alignment of students’ educational goals while providing critical math literacy.
Professor Kho loathed the historical pattern of teaching algebra, assuming that students
will later take calculus as STEM majors. He considered this a problem because most students do
not pursue STEM. “Our system is designed for like 20 whatever percent of students, whereas 70
to 80% of students are not STEM majors.” The unquestioned rationale to teach college algebra as
the endpoint of arduous developmental sequences was a norm whose racialized origin Kho
detested. “We just teach it because we've been teaching it.” However, AB 705 challenged that
norm by urging departments to rethink what math courses are offered for students who do not
need math-intensive backgrounds (e.g., enrolling liberal arts students into statistics). As I shared

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earlier, this contrasts with opponents who feared tracking students into statistic courses,
preventing them from pursuing STEM.
Faculty questioned the embedded whiteness of math curriculum, down to the examples
used in textbooks. Professor Deandra Shaw, describes what math textbook examples prompt her
to think about as a Black woman in the U.S., as well as their relevance to nonwhite students:
All the examples are about a train or airplane, or, you know, maybe not racialized, more
cultural. The cultural could be identified by race. But especially as you move higher up in
the math sequence, you get these problems about a boat or yacht or an airplane, a train.
You get all these things that cost money and/or experiences that you may not have.

I'm sorry, every time I think of a boat, I think of a slave ship because that's the first boat I
learned about in school. My mind, it automatically goes cultural learning… A lot of
professors will say, can you picture it? I think that's a bit insensitive… because, for
someone to picture a plane, they may also want to picture being on the plane. If they don't
have that experience, you don't know how that makes them feel.

Also, of all the examples they tend to give are old white, Greek, just old white men all
throughout the textbook. Just the examples, like especially when I was coming up in
math, it’s gotten better, with all the examples, the names were always like white people
names like Sam, Sally, Beth, Elizabeth, it was just all so many traditional white names.

Like Professor Shaw, math faculty supporting AB 705 were aware of how curricular
materials centered exclusively on whiteness and how misaligned developmental course
sequences were with students’ experiences. Village’s math Dean Jenna Blackwood similarly
described how she desired textbook examples that represent the student body more closely. She
yearned for “examples in the textbooks [that] are not some white guy who derived this formula
back whatever. Who cares? (laughs).” A more diversified curriculum combined with equitable
placement were efforts that Dean Blackwood suggested would make students feel more
“connected.”
Advocates attuned to how math curriculum is racialized accepted change because as
primarily faculty of color, these advocates understood what representation in STEM signified to

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minoritized students in the classroom. Therefore, these faculty had more desire to see it change
not only as a personal matter but as a way for students to “feel seen” as one respondent shared.
They saw diversified curriculum as a direct outcome of AB 705 and as a departure from the
racializing force of developmental education.
Opponents saw AB 705 as Necessary and Developmental Education through a Race
Evasive Lens
In contrast to advocates, opponents of AB 705 saw developmental education as a
necessary academic intervention to repair student deficiencies described in coded and sometimes
racially explicit ways. Opponents believed students were deserving of developmental placement
and at odds with realizing its ensuing consequences, they were largely race evasive and
prioritized upholding standards of academic rigor presumed to be diminished under AB 705.
Two trends stood out. First, opponents were generally race evasive and did not realize how their
perception of students while cast as neutral had implications in the form of biased assumptions
and expectations about their performance. Opponents did not consider factors within their
control (e.g., pedagogical practices, curriculum, etc.) to explain inequities. Second, opponents
were fierce protectors of “rigorous” courses who cast their concerns as altruism towards students.
Developmental courses were considered a meritocratic way to bring “unprepared” students up to
speed for the rigors of transferable courses. Opponents who framed developmental education as a
race-neutral intervention that was indispensable were more likely to oppose AB 705, which they
saw as forcing instructors to lower their academic standards.
Opponents saw Developmental Education as Correcting Deficiencies of Minoritized
Students. The thought of “unprepared” developmental students succeeding at the transfer level
was unimaginable among opponents due to internalized beliefs about their capabilities. Nine

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opponents saw developmental students as deficient both in their academic preparation and their
ability to be college students. Moreover, opponents’ racial schemas on students’ success or lack
thereof consisted of race evasive frames that situated meritocracy and student effort as central.
Therefore, the prospect of blending developmental and transfer-level students in a class under
AB 705 convinced opponents that students would “fail miserably (Dr. Karen Park)” much
sooner. Village math Professor Karen Park framed AB 705 the following way, “don't waste two,
three years to fail, just know right away, and then decide what's better for your life.” Dr. Park,
who described community college as a kind of “13
th
grade for many students,” suggests
developmental students need to decide if they are ready to make the “sacrifices (e.g., time with
family and friends)” needed to succeed.
When asked whether developmental education is racialized, Dr. Park had a hard time
acknowledging race mattered and reverted to external factors and students’ use of time. “I don't
know how to address the race issue only because you're trying to figure out what makes students
not be successful; I can't logically equate a person's race with their success or lack thereof.” As
a mathematician, Dr. Park reached a logical conclusion that circumstances surrounding the
student may be the culprit, including their management of time or unprocessed “emotional
trauma.” Moreover, income was also an issue, “maybe they don't have enough money not to
work or not worry about where they're going to find food.” I asked Dr. Park whether race and
income are historically connected, and after a long pause, she could not see the link.
And while it is well documented that certain ethnic groups have less money or less this,
the issue isn't so much race; it's well, they have less money. So, I personally have a hard
time answering that because I want to acknowledge that these disparities exist, but I don't
believe that it is simply because of their ethnicity there, it's just there's a whole lot more
to it. But when you look at groups of people, ethnicity is one of the easiest things to see.
(laughs).

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Such characterization that dodges race and reverts to students' external factors and Dr. Park’s
insistence that students may not exercise their agency or time in productive ways reinforces some
long-held beliefs regarding students’ poor developmental courses' performance. Moreover, her
efforts to suppress the influence of race and reassign responsibility of its consequences to student
deficiencies are previously documented (Pollock, 2004). Race evasive framing (Annamma et al.,
2017) like those used by Dr. Park attributes differences in educational outcomes to students’
external factors and not institutionalized forms of racism (Bensimon, 2005).
The point here is not whether Professor Park is right or wrong in assessing the issues
plaguing developmental students. What matters is how Professor Park’s unawareness of
racialization in developmental education – and narrow view of what constitutes racism – later
translated into attitudes about the purpose and efficacy of AB 705. Dr. Park was neither
supportive of AB 705 nor believed the bill focused on racial equity. Moreover, she was not
optimistic the policy would reduce racial disparities in the completion of essential transfer-level
courses. For Dr. Park, it all depended on whether students have a “stable home life” or the “free
time” to dedicate to learning course content and correct their weaknesses. Like Dr. Park, seven
other opponents were race evasive in their framing of students.
Without correcting the deficiencies of developmental students, opponents feared harm to
the transfer-level system. Advocates described how opponents often racialized students using
thinly coded language while maintaining the veneer of not seeing race. Village English Professor
Sofía Chávez describes the framing of developmental students – the majority of which are
minoritized students – by faculty opposed to AB 705.
When my colleagues talk about basic skills students, what they’re talking about is Black
and Brown students, even if they don’t say those words. If you listen, the things that they
say are the old racist stereotypes, current racist stereotypes. It’s not even old. You know,
that these students are going to somehow harm the transfer-level students. That these

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students are underprepared, that their schools that they’re coming from, their
communities, and/or their families are not preparing them – concern about the impact on
transfer-level students now being in class with these students. So, it’s very thinly coded.
But it’s the version, it’s the liberalism that makes people really cringe at the idea of being
racist. And so, they’re not open to acknowledging that.

The concern from faculty opposed to AB 705 is “what’s going to happen to my high-performing
students that are doing so well when they have these other people in their class?” The fear that
developmental students (majority minoritized) would harm transfer-level students (majority
white), as a kind of “contagion” or infection, was elevated by AB 705 and it made some faculty
opponents feel “destabilized.” The destabilization point was that courses will no longer be
segregated by race and ethnicity, as previously expected. “They were used to having whiter
classes than what our student population is,” Professor Chávez shared.
Another point that is illustrative of students' racialization arising from perceived student
deficiencies is the belief that an increase in the proportion of students who receive good grades
post-AB 705 is explained by grade inflation. Professor Sofía Chávez shares, “there’s no proof
that grades are being inflated. But ever since we have more Black and Brown students that we’re
seeing are succeeding, everybody’s freaking out about grade inflation.” Similarly, Nancy Rivera,
a recently tenured faculty member, adds allegations from faculty opponents, “we’ve faced a lot
of challenges from other colleagues, accusations of just watering [curriculum] down and passing
everybody. If that many people are passing, you can’t possibly be a good teacher, that stuff.”
The assumption that higher success rates among students of color result from grade
inflation suggest an expected script about who can succeed in a transferable course. That notion
became reinforced over many years and formalized under assessment and placement policies. A
resulting consequence of doubts over developmental students’ ability to succeed was opponents’
interest in protecting the integrity and rigor of transferable coursework. Conversations about

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revisiting curriculum post-AB 705 raised fears of lessening the presumed quality of education
that were informed by opponents’ expectations of life after transferring.
Opponents Seek to Protect Rigor of Curriculum and Pedagogy. Curriculum development and
pedagogical practices in K-12 and higher education are deeply rooted in eurocentric
epistemologies that center whiteness and maintain power asymmetries in the social production of
knowledge (Abawi, 2021; Arday et al., 2021; Patel, 2021; Vue, 2021). Minoritized communities
are then deemed personally and intellectually liable for not surviving within fields like STEM
that value meritocracy, competition, and individualism (McGee, 2021). Congruent with these
values is the belief expressed by six opponents of AB 705 that changes to the curriculum will
lessen its “rigor” and “integrity” and come at a cost to transfer-level students. Faculty opponents
relied on their academic expectations beyond community college to justify and protect
developmental coursework that they believed would properly prepare them for the “real world.”
These opponents drew upon their college experiences, familiarity with “standards” at transfer
institutions like the UCs, and assumptions about how a transfer-level instructor should teach to
assess the legitimacy of AB 705’s aspirations. I expand on these trends below.
Faculty opponents shared personal experiences that validated why they believed in a
“rigorous” curriculum. For instance, Village math Professor Ashlee Roberts, shared the moment
her high school friend transferred from a California community college to a UC “unprepared.”
Roberts explains, “he said it was like a slap in the face. Because he was not prepared for UC
[college]. So, I tell my students, I want you to be able to go and be successful somewhere else.”
Roberts describes herself as a “tough love person” who aspires for self-sufficient students that
can succeed post-transfer without “hand-holding.” The ability to be an independent learner (i.e.,
having “studenting skills”) were values that Roberts regarded highly based on her own college

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experiences and what she believed was essential to succeeding. The anticipation of what lies
after transfer solidified Roberts’ belief that AB 705 needed to maintain the rigor of courses to
prepare students.
Similar to Roberts, Cassie Walker, an English professor at Sunnyville, criticized a
California Acceleration Project conference about AB 705 that she believed advised faculty to
lower standards. Walker became frustrated when one of the presenters shared a norming session
to evaluate students’ essays. “All of the essays I would have given an F on. And [the presenter]
was telling us that we should give the students B’s or A’s for some things, where you really
could not understand a word the student was saying,” shared Professor Walker. Moreover, she
disagreed with the presenter who argued for faculty to look for ideas embedded in the writing,
rather than “organization” and “grammar skills.” Professor Walker interpreted this to mean
lowering standards rather than rethinking the curriculum. She adds:
It’s just about changing our standards in a way that’s not helpful to anybody because then
they’re not going to be successful in their jobs. Or when they transfer to UC (college),
good luck. I went to UC (college), and I know how they grade. There’s no way that a
student who writes that kind of essay is going to be successful in any of their classes. And
then they’re just going to fail or cheat or drop out.

Professor Walker rationalized that students would pay the “consequences” later if students do not
learn standard English writing. Her beliefs stood in contrast to AB 705 advocate Randy Sherman,
who, for example, as I shared earlier, contended “there’s no such thing as ‘standard English.’”
Of importance here is that Professors’ Walker and Roberts – based on their experiences
in college and those of colleagues – saw existing standards as preparing students for what they
presumed came after community college. Developmental education served as a vetting tool to
ensure that students were ready to be self-sufficient later and develop the needed habits to be
successful transfer students. In this way, they believed they were protecting their students from a

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“slap in the face.” One question that emerges is whether these concerns were unfounded as well
as the implications of these collective attitudes.
For example, expectations of rigor seeped into pedagogical practices not only among
opponents of AB 705 but also its advocates. These expectations became cultural norms
department-wide. Supporters unwittingly adopted a routinized pattern of being “tough” in the
teaching of transfer-level courses. These norms included being “harder” on students, having
“strict rules,” and generally being a “rigorous instructor” (Nia Hill). Recently tenured Village
English instructor Nancy Rivera explains the tension she felt when she began teaching, “I started
doing all the things that all my teachers had done because that’s how I knew what to do, but it
never felt right, right? I’d write in big letters no late papers.” However, for Professor Rivera,
turning in late papers was never an issue.
If a student comes to me and says, I had a problem, I’d be like yeah, sure, turn it in. So,
why am I doing these things? So, I felt a tension between my instincts of what I wanted
to do and be as a teacher versus what I thought I was supposed to do and be.

In this example, Rivera describes the unspoken tension she felt to teach transfer-level courses
with strict rules – like a no late paper submission policy – despite her relaxed position on the
matter. Post-AB 705, advocates like Professor Rivera sought to eliminate this policy which she
described as “dehumanizing.” In contrast, opponents sought to maintain it because they believed
it prepared students to develop critical college-going skills necessary in life, like turning in
assignments on time.
Like Professor Rivera, Taylor Scott, an English instructor at Sunnyville, felt an unspoken
pressure to teach “rigorously” when she taught transfer-level courses. She noticed different
norms in instruction between developmental and transferable levels, where the former needed
more “caring” teaching and the latter needed to be “rigorous” and “tough.” Her training in social

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justice-focused teaching programs and her experience teaching high school had solidified her
confidence in the “caring classroom” by her favorite researcher Nel Noddings
11
, but she quickly
pivoted. She explains:
When I came to the community college, I kind of stepped away from that because I
actually started teaching at the transfer-level first, a transfer-level reading class. And so, I
thought I had to be very ‘collegy.’ And so, I was, I don't know, more books focused and
more lecture focused because I thought that's what that meant… I felt like I had to be a
more draconian version of myself.

Professor Scott’s inclination to become a more “draconian” version of herself and teach in a
manner that is “collegy” was tangential to her social justice training. The classroom norms of
teaching at the transfer level were so strong that they subsided her agency to teach according to
her values and educational training. After finding out her “collegy” teaching was ineffective and
resulted in many students of color dropping her class, Professor Scott reverted to the “caring”
techniques she had developed through schooling and from teaching developmental students.
Concerns over rigor and integrity of curriculum permeated discussions of AB 705 and
were argued to be color evasive, neutral processes. “This is a meritocracy,” argued English
Professor Letty Sanchez as she expressed the importance of upholding high academic standards
that would prepare students for life after transfer. Some of the fear in the minds of faculty
centered on their college’s reputation. For instance, what would happen to Village College,
regarded as the “Harvard of community colleges (Dr. Angélica López),” and what risk did AB
705 pose to that distinction? Other fears focused on the sense of identity loss among faculty.
Respondents developed a strong sense of identity from the courses they taught. Some
developmental faculty regarded themselves as “developmental specialists” and “basic skills

11
Nel Noddings (2013) is a highly cited piece about moral, ethical, and caring education. It is considered the
quintessential philosophical work on “care” in education.

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experts.” Developmental faculty lauded such terms with great pride. In contrast, transfer-level
instructors were proud of teaching courses taught at prestigious schools like “USC,” “UCLA,”
and “Stanford.” Therefore, the revision of curriculum and pedagogical practices challenged
traditional norms regarding rigor and assumed expectations post-transfer and their faculty’s
identity as instructors.
Their concerns about rigor were justified from opponents' perspectives because it would
protect students from failure and adequately vet them for the next step in life. Rigor became
actualized in the form of “tough” rules like a no-late paper submission policy. A transfer-level
classroom also necessitated no “hand-holding.” The revision of curriculum needed to maintain
standards like “correct English.” Some advocates rejecting the underlying assumptions of these
broader teaching norms still adopted them unconsciously. While AB 705 mandated changes, it
was expectations cast as race evasive about developmental students who are primarily
minoritized that fueled opponents’ concerns, reactions, and attitudes towards the legislation.
Moreover, the faculty’s lived experiences were powerful sources of evidence that helped
interpret changes to the status quo as unwise.
Chapter Closing
In this chapter, I described the extent that institutional actors at Village and Sunnyville
recognized patterns of racialization within developmental education and whether this influenced
their sensemaking of AB 705. Notably, advocates to varying degrees identified how
developmental education had patterns of racialization in placement and course curriculum.
Among supporters this recognition turned into support of AB 705’s mandate to expand access to
transferable classes and rethinking of the curriculum. In contrast, opponents of AB 705 saw
developmental education as a necessary academic intervention that would correct student

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deficiencies, for instance, in content knowledge gaps or “studenting skills.” This race evasive
lens was used to explain and justify existing inequities. Opponents also desired to protect the
“rigor” of transfer-level courses – attitudes rooted in whiteness – and saw AB 705 as a threat to
the curriculum's integrity. Therefore, opponents saw AB 705 as eliminating necessary academic
programs that would result in students’ premature failure if removed.
Chapters 6 and 7 described how actors categorized as either advocates or opponents
interpreted AB 705. I begin to show how their existing beliefs and experiences informed their
assumptions about the validity of the policy and its likeliness to succeed. It also shaped their
willingness to experiment and how open they were to changes. Throughout, concepts from my
framework like sensemaking, resources, rules, and concepts like agency and whiteness as
guiding principles of organizational routines, mediated interpretations. The next chapter builds
on these themes by offering the implementation story of the four sites studied. I focus on
leadership's implementation role, particularly perceptions from faculty about their authority and
how faculty opponents and advocates received leader use of power.

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CHAPTER 8: How Institutional Leaders Implemented AB 705
This chapter addresses the third research question: In what ways do leaders exercise their
agency and power to influence the implementation of AB 705? The first goal of the chapter is to
discuss how four academic administrators who had the responsibility of putting the policy into
action responded to it and the preferences of their faculty. The second goal is to share AB 705’s
implementation story at four departments. I focus on leaders’ race-consciousness as a source of
agency and power to actualize AB 705’s potential as an instrument of racial equity or to
constrain its possibilities. In chapter 3, I framed power in terms of whose voices, identities, and
sensemaking are counted and privileged (Mills et al., 2010) and how organizations legitimize
resource and authority differentials that influence policy implementation (Ray, 2019). Power is a
force about the exercise of control (Foucault, 1979) and is commodified when relevant actors
exert influence within organizational contexts (Malen, 2006). I use the term agency like Chase
and colleagues (2013) to signify the actions of individuals who channel resources and
opportunities to historically minoritized students.
Based on academic administrators’ responses and descriptions by faculty, I organized
leaders at Village and Sunnyville into four types: disruptive, influential, accommodating, and
compliant leaders. Village’s English dean is described as a disruptive leader who challenged the
status quo, caused substantial disruption in existing faculty norms, and seldom appeased faculty
opponents’ concerns and interests. Village’s math dean is labeled as an influential leader who
was politically cautious, caused some disruption by centering equity, and possessed the
necessary capital to influence implementation. Sunnyville’s two English chairs were
accommodating leaders who were sensitive to colleagues' equity journey and attempted to raise
equity issues but were not as “judgmental” of opposing points of view given their lacking

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familiarity with how to have conversations about race. I contrast these advocates for equity with
Sunnyville’s math chair, a compliant leader who implemented AB 705 in the least disruptive
manner to the status quo and reluctantly met desired mandates. The key is that each department
(described in earlier chapters) differed in its ‘status quo,’ making leaders more or less agentic
based on their proximity to that status quo.
Table 11 below summarizes the profile of the four leaders. First, leadership type focuses
on the extent that leaders challenged the [white] status quo. If departments were to see AB 705 as
a racial equity initiative, a “shock” (Mills et al., 2010) needed to disrupt existing policies and
practices that were racially exclusionary. Second, three out of four leaders were strongly
supportive of the law from the perspective of equity. Next, leader demographics were vital in this
study. Two white leaders who were long-timers were perceived as making advances towards
equity more tolerable, legitimate, and less intimidating. In contrast, a newly hired Latina dean
received substantial backlash.
Finally, three leaders (Village English and math; Sunnyville English) were equity-minded
leaders to varying degrees, while Sunnyville’s math chair was race-evasive. Equity-minded
leaders are race-conscious, meaning they notice and interrogate inequitable outcomes due to
historical forms of exclusion and discrimination. They confront racially charged assumptions and
beliefs about students from policies and practices that, while described as neutral, are racially
disadvantageous to minoritized students (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012). Sunnyville’s math chair
was evasive regarding race and led a compliance-oriented strategy for AB 705.

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Table 11 - Profile of Village and Sunnyville Division Leaders
Academic Dean Administrators Academic Faculty Chairs
Village
English
Village
Math
Sunnyville
English
Sunnyville
Math
Leadership
type

Disruptive Influential Accommodating Compliant
AB 705
stance
Strongly support Strongly
support

Strongly support Strongly
oppose
Leader
demographics
Latina, Out-of-state,
“outsider” new hire

White woman
Former faculty
15+ years
White man/ woman
Former faculty
25+ years
combined

White woman
Former faculty
30+ years
Equity-
mindedness
-Race conscious
-Straight talk about race
-Confronted racially
coded language
-Saw and questioned
policies and practices
that perpetuate racial
inequity
-Assumed institutional
responsibility
-Risked professional
career to challenge
status quo
-Equity
advocate
-Utilized
disaggregated
data to address
inequities
-Institutional
perspective on
student success
-Talked about
equity in
department
meetings

-Equity advocate
-Utilized
disaggregated data
to address
inequities
-Institutional
perspective on
student success
-Talked about
equity in
department
meetings
-Uncomfortable
with race talk

-Race evasive
-Deficit
perspectives
about student
success
-Saw inequity
as a
consequence of
students’ poor
preparation

An additional difference across the four leaders was differential support from executive
leadership and their departments that enabled or constrained leaders’ influence. As I will show
below (summarized in table 12), Village’s vice president was heavily involved in coordinating
college-wide planning and directing resources to encourage equitable implementation. In
contrast, Sunnyville’s vice president was largely hands-off, leading to compartmentalized
implementation within Sunnyville. Departments also had cultural norms like the silencing

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(Gaventa, 1982) of early career faculty by more senior members, which influenced AB 705 at
Village’s English department.
Table 12 - Organizational Arrangements of Village and Sunnyville that Influenced Faculty
Responses to AB 705
Village
English
Village
Math
Sunnyville
English
Sunnyville Math
How vice
presidents
supported the
equitable
implementation
of AB 705
-Created collegewide taskforce
-Encouraged complete developmental
education removal
-Hired and uplifted early career faculty
-Outspoken about equity collegewide
-Protected English dean
-Helped coordinate logistics
-Professional development resources

-Logistics to ensure departments meet
regulatory and legal requirements
-Professional development resources
Department
culture
Senior faculty
“bully” early
career faculty
into “silence”
Collegiality and
collaboration led to
“one big family”
Respectful
“obedience” to
faculty chairs

Collaborative
“let's make the
best of [AB
705]”

Village’s English Division: A New Disruptive Leader Challenges the Status Quo
In chapter five, I explained how a dean oversaw for 17 years the English division
maintaining a “status quo” distribution of faculty power in hiring primarily white faculty and
upholding white norms, such as policing faculty for not dressing “professionally.” After a
national search, the successor to this dean was Dr. Angélica López, who began at Village shortly
before AB 705’s announcement. Dr. López’s hiring represented a departure from the existing
status quo where avoidance of race talk was common vernacular.
Dr. López was a higher education professional with over 20 years of experience teaching
and leading programs in universities and community colleges. A Latina with degrees from
prestigious institutions and whose prior work out-of-state centered on increasing student equity,
Dr. López expressed a passion for social justice and closing longstanding racial equity gaps,

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particularly in developmental English courses, which she taught out-of-state for many years.
Vice president Adam Miller believed she was a “great hire” because of her equity student-
centered focus, and prior experience with developmental education.
Opponents to Dr. López’s appointment criticized her for lack of familiarity with
California community college processes, particularly shared governance and faculty unions. Dr.
López’s positionality regarding her racial identity, academic experiences, and willingness to
engage in race talk was disruptive to the existing status quo. Furthermore, she saw AB 705 as a
racial equity initiative.
As a Latina myself, I’m very well aware of the barriers that students of color face. I faced
them myself. Not necessarily in this particular kind of context, but in other contexts. And
it’s upsetting to me when I saw data that was essentially discouraging our students in
various ways of progressing through their coursework, achieving their academic goals.

Her priority about AB 705’s racial equity implications caused discomfort among faculty
opponents. English instructor Sofía Chávez, an advocate of AB 705, had this to say:
She did come in with a clarity that [AB 705] this was a racial issue. And so, all those
little sensitive spots, right? People’s fragility around words like racism when you have
this woman clearly saying that this [developmental education] was a structural form of
racism and inequity.

As a leader, the new dean was different from her predecessor. She was outspoken about racism
and did not shy away from conflict. In contrast, the previous dean’s avoidance of confrontation
made it difficult to speak candidly about racial equity because it might invite conflict.
Racialized Perception of Village’s New English Dean
Dr. López’s racial identity and her awareness of it were uneasy for some faculty
opponents. “When [Dr. López] was hired, my wife who’s from [country outside the U.S.], she
said these older faculty are going to chew her out and not going to respect her,” shared Dave
Wilson, an English professor. “There was a bit of racism and sexism involved because she was a

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Latina.” When asking whether race in leadership mattered, most supporters agreed race factored
into the perception of the new dean. Professor Sofía Chávez explains:
[Dr. López] would say, rightly, that the experiences of many of these students were akin
to many of her own experiences, being a first-generation Latina. She would connect her
own background and she would communicate a lot of empathy for our students -- In a
way that I think was very unsettling to our colleagues who don’t have that kind of
empathy for our students, who dehumanize them, and for whom having a boss who’s
allying herself with these students, that felt very unsettling to them because their power
and authority was really being challenged.

The dean’s experiences as someone who faced educational barriers and was openly candid about
racism from a student’s perspective conflicted with faculty opponents' understanding that lacking
student success was attributable to students’ poor academic background and habits.
A student-centered stance from a minoritized administrator who understood inequity not
as an academic exercise but through lived experience was intimidating to some faculty
accustomed to leadership and cultural norms described to me as “deficit’ by several advocates. I
asked whether the response would have held if a white person held her role. “It would have
seemed as though it’s a woke white person – who is just like me and this liberal viewpoint is then
less threatening,” shared Dr. Selina Rodriguez. Dr. Adam Miller, the VP who hired Dr. López,
shared, “I bet it would have been different if I had hired a White woman from [state] who didn’t
look at things student-centered with an equity lens. But you know, we wouldn’t do that.”
The Power of Village’s Dean to Challenge Status Quo
Dr. López’s title as dean afforded her power to challenge the status quo, including the
authority to hire faculty, scheduling responsibility to add or remove courses, and managing AB
705’s implementation. Her formal power as a dean was coupled with her moral commitment to
racial equity. Furthermore, Dr. López had the power of symbolic and material currency (Knapp,

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1997) that came from being backed by a committee of executive leadership who also saw racial
equity as the legislation's goal.
When Dean López assumed the deanship in 2017, she joined a college-wide committee
formed to coordinate AB 705’s implementation. The members included the vice president of
instruction, deans over English, math, ESL, a Basic Skills Initiative (BSI) coordinator, one math
faculty member, and the professional development director. Despite being the “only person of
color in the room,” Dr. López felt empowered that the team wanted to do the “most courageous
thing possible” for students: the complete transformation of developmental education “through
the framework of race and ethnicity.”
Equipped with data and her administration's backing, Dr. López introduced the policy to
her faculty the month AB 705 passed (October 2017) by presenting data from the RP Group.
12

Faculty opponents rejected the data, shared Dr. López. They stressed the “data’s a lie” and that
students “need” remediation. “I had faculty putting in papers of their students in my mailbox so I
could see how bad they were as writers.” The “immediate pushback” that followed began to
forecast the “perfect storm” that was to come. “It got really, really ugly for me.” After reviewing
data in the fall of 2017, Dr. López used her power to eliminate the lowest developmental English
course (Appendix I offers a summary of course sequences pre- and post-AB 705). Village’s VP
encouraged her to remove both levels of developmental English, but Dean López understood that
decision would cause too much disruption.

12
The Research, Planning and Professional Development Group (the “RP Group”) for California Community
Colleges is a non-profit, non-partisan group that provides advocacy and data analysis for a range of policy and
practice issues within the community colleges. They are the premier group that has advised in coordination with the
Chancellor’s office on all things AB 705.

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Inherited Faculty Culture Stands in the Way of Reform at Village
Despite Village’s executive leadership championing equity, a challenge to Dean López in
advancing changes that benefit Black and Brown students was department-wide support from
faculty. Some faculty supported AB 705, and other faculty did not. In earlier chapters, a range of
experiences and racialized attitudes regarding developmental education were attributable to
favorable and unfavorable stances towards AB 705. Power imbalances between faculty of
various ranks (e.g., tenured, untenured) also intensified these differences.
Faculty opponents were overwhelmingly white and led by a Latino male, Arturo
Gutierrez. This group created cultural norms that enabled them to exercise their will through, for
example, long internal processes for approving curriculum. It included a formal presentation to
the department, a designated amount of time for discussion, and a public voting session. Faculty
opponents created these informal rules, which enabled them to subvert early career faculty
agency. It amounted to the expectation of early career faculty to “shut up, sit in the corner, watch
the older, the more senior folks, do their thing” (Randy Sherman).
The group of faculty opponents was faculty with over 15 years at the college who
believed in, as Dr. López shared, the “hierarchy of a structure.” This hierarchy was steeped with
norms regarding the exercise of power, as evidenced in who spoke during faculty meetings.
Below is an exchange that captures this dynamic and how Dr. López sought to change it.
Adrián: So, an example is like tenure-track, non-tenured, or adjuncts – they don’t have a
voice in this conversation.

Dr. López: That’s correct. Yeah. That was made very clear to me, not by [senior faculty],
but by the newer faculty who were told by them, ‘you don’t need to say anything.’ So one
of my goals – other than AB 705 – one of the things was to flatten the hierarchy and to
empower and give agency to all new faculty, brand new faculty. For me it was like I just
hired these amazing, badass faculty because they are badass. What message are we
sending them if I bring them in, and then you tell them just shut up? I want them actually

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to do the exact opposite. I want them to come and transform and challenge us with new
ideas and be innovative. And that was hard.

Flattening the hierarchy would give Dr. López a power advantage increasing her capacity to
prioritize racial equity in AB 705 and disrupt the status quo.
Dr. López believed that shifting the power dynamic between “old guard” faculty versus
early career faculty would advance her equity agenda forward and shift the department's
collective mindsets. She exercised her agency by hiring new faculty, which she believed would
change existing power dynamics that some described as “bullying” of early career faculty.
I got to hire faculty in the two years, and I got to hire a lot of faculty, and that shifted
things. If you ask me what is one of the most powerful things you can do to shift the
culture is you can hire new people.

To “shift the culture” meant hiring new faculty who were excited about AB 705 as a racial equity
imperative and had the “courage” to “take on” implementation and challenge faculty opponents.
Village English Dean Hires Equity-Oriented Faculty
In her first two years as dean, Dr. López oversaw nine faculty hires. These faculty
became part of a small coalition that led the Accelerated Courses in English (ACE) program and
advocated for racial justice. Out of the 18 past faculty hires within five years of 2020 (when
interviews were conducted), five were white, and all “came in with an equity lens (Sofía
Chávez).” In a department of about 45 faculty, 18 of them were pre-tenure – and as Dr. López
describes – were “more diverse,” fresh “out of graduate programs,” and “progressive” thinkers.
Vice president Miller supported Dean López’s move to hire more racially diverse and
equity-oriented faculty. In fact, he desired untenured faculty to be outspoken and help lead the
college in a new direction, “we should know you’re here. You shouldn’t be quiet. You shouldn’t
be hiding.” In their division, however, faculty are told differently. For example, he suggests
faculty are encouraged not to “be involved in anything controversial.” He wanted the new faculty

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to be “alpha” and “stand up to the noisemakers” despite AB 705 being controversial. Dr. López’s
introduction to Village coincided with the massive change that was AB 705 and a generational
shift in the faculty: who they were and what they believed. The hiring of these new faculty was
essential to change existing beliefs, but it also takes time – four years for tenure at Village –
where newly tenured faculty would “feel free” to speak up.
Village English Dean Attempts to “Flatten the Hierarchy” and Disrupt Existing Norms
In addition to hiring new faculty, Dr. López used her agency to disrupt faculty hierarchies
by including early career faculty in important committees – an uncommon practice. To prepare
for AB 705, in the summer of the 2018-2019 academic year, she assembled a workgroup of
faculty whose task was to review data, attend conferences, and propose developmental education
models to the department. The group consisted of one white faculty and eight faculty of color
(three adjuncts, three tenure-track, and three tenured). Previously an implicit rule was that only
tenured faculty could serve on committees. These faculty historically tended to be white. Faculty
opponents accused the dean of “handpicking” faculty because participation was contingent on
summer involvement in professional development.
Another way that Dr. López was disruptive of the status quo was her challenge of
faculty’s racist assumptions about minoritized students. At Village, one of the requirements to
gain admittance to the honors program is placement in transfer-level English. Dr. López
describes the moment a white woman faculty member posed a question and her response during
a planning meeting for AB 705, given the policy would expand access to the transfer level:
Dr. López: I had a white woman faculty raise her hand and say, well, ‘how is this going
to impact the honors program?’ And I didn’t really understand her question. So, I asked
for clarification, and she’s like, ‘well, now we’re going to just let anybody in?’ Then I
understood the question. And I said, ‘I’m going to stop you right there, and I’m going to
ask you to think about your question and what you’re implying with that question.’ And

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the rest of the faculty – Everybody was in the room were like (gasps), because they knew
what I was getting at.

Adrián: Which is that?

Dr. López: Which is that you’re worried about our brown students getting access to
honors, you know? And I’m like, open the doors, right? (laughs). ‘I need you to think
about what you just said because it’s not okay.’ And there was reaction in the room. And
it was one of the first times that I called somebody out for that.

Dean López’s confrontation of racially coded language violated expected department decorum. It
also brought to the surface how the faculty member’s question, framed as race-neutral, had a
“racially curious effect (Dumas & Anyon, 2006, p. 155)” on the Black and Brown students
excluded from the honors program. The passage above, including previous findings highlighting
how fear of harming transfer students (i.e., white) was used to justify excluding developmental
students (i.e., minoritized), shows how white students are cast as “racial victims (p. 156)”
whereas Black and Brown students are framed as “undeserving.” Dr. López’s “calling out” of
this faculty member went against established institutional scripts (Rowan & Miskel, 1999)
intended to influence “how actors think and behave” (Malen, 2006, p. 86).
Faculty Opponents Resist Committees Consisting of Early Career Faculty
After summer, in October 2018, Dr. López asked the committee to present their findings
and introduce four reform models to be chosen by department vote. The members were stopped
before they could present. “Filibustered is the word I would use for it,” shared Professor Wilson.
The opposition, coming from senior faculty, was first on account of violation of existing norms.
Faculty opponents felt the early career faculty group was forcing the division into prematurely
voting for reform options without full department discussion, an informal rule they created.
Other criticisms centered on the committee’s makeup. Professor Wilson explained how faculty
opponents referred to new colleagues in the committee.

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I’ll use the word ageist. Like, ‘these people are young, they don’t know what they’re
talking about, it’s inappropriate for them to come in and tell us older people what to do,
we have more experience.’ Blah blah blah. It was filibustering.

Faculty opponents saw Dr. López’s actions to empower early career faculty as benching the
team's star players in favor of new recruits. Interim Dean Trubbaya shared this sentiment in the
following quote, “when [Dr. López] was here, the senior faculty felt like, ‘we’re being pushed
aside. We don’t matter. Our ideas don’t matter. We’re old.’ And that she only really cared about
what the tenure-track thought.”
Faculty opponents speculated that nontenured faculty supported the dean for self-interest
as an assurance for tenure. Randy Sherman, professor and working group leader, describes how
the committee was portrayed by faculty opponents, whom he looked up to as “mentors.”
Oh my gosh, it was so crazy. We were referred to behind our backs as know-nothing kiss
asses. They thought we were just brownnosing Dr. López. They couldn’t imagine that
somebody might think Dr. López was brilliant and a wonderful dean and knew what was
going on and was ahead of the curve with a lot of her thinking. We supported her not
because she was our dean. We supported her because she was doing the right thing.

Dr. López appointed Randy Sherman before receiving tenure to a hiring committee for full-time
faculty. “People freaked out. When I was put onto a hiring committee? Like untenured on a
hiring committee for a full-time position? That was crazy.” Dr. López’s attempt to “flatten the
hierarchy” by hiring and placing early career colleagues in important committee positions was
seen as a threat to the division's established hierarchy and balance of power.
The silencing of others, regulating the participation of actors, and filibustering for the
protection of self-interest and power are previously documented (Gaventa, 1982; Morgan, 1986;
Stone, 2012). The dwindling power of opposed faculty members was at odds with what Rowan
and Miskel (1999) call established “rules of the game” (p. 359). Like a chess game, Dean López

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had introduced new board pieces to induce a new strategy and, ultimately, a “win” at what she
perceived would lead to equity. However, just as chess pieces have differential moves and
power, faculty opponents strategized to oppose the dean.
Faculty Opponents Begin Organized Resistance to Village’s English Dean
Just as Dr. López had disrupted the status quo, faculty groups organized to undermine her
efforts in the face of changes that sought to benefit Black and Brown students. A source of large
influence was the faculty union that mobilized in response to concerns about faculty pay at the
October meeting. Dean López and VP Miller endorsed the model of direct transfer placement
with a .5-unit corequisite, or “lab.” A lab model meant faculty would receive 75 percent of
lecture unit pay when teaching a corequisite course. Since lab hours require less work (e.g., no
homework grading, prep time, etc.), the faculty are paid less. A faculty union representative
passed out handouts informing faculty about the potential pay difference with a lab model at the
meeting. According to VP Adam Miller, the representative relayed the following directive to the
faculty, “don’t develop any curriculum until the college gives you lab parity.”
Another reason why the powerful faculty union became involved was a politically costly
decision made earlier by Dr. López. She proposed tenure denial to a faculty member in year two
due to poor evaluations in the first year of teaching. When the faculty union found out, they were
“pissed” (Dr. Selina Rodriguez). Although VP Miller and the college president supported the
decision, tenure denial created a dangerous precedent that made union members feel that the
dean was overstepping her authority.
Union opposition to Dr. López also overlapped with resistance from the least likely
detractors, some Accelerated Courses in English (ACE) program leaders. Advocates generally
described ACE as a precursor to AB 705 and therefore, one might expect the program’s leaders

169

to be supporters. However, when ACE was introduced in 2012, the program’s innovators felt
“undervalued” by Dean Bethy Cooper (Dr. Selina Rodriguez). Then, some of them felt
unrecognized for the early acceleration work that served as a precursor to AB 705 by Dr. López,
who believed students could complete the course in one semester, not two.
Next, complicating matters further was that three faculty union members were faculty in
the English division overseen by Dr. López. The dynamic meant that three faculty groups,
including oppositional faculty led by Latino Professor Arturo Gutierrez, a few ACE members,
and some union members, all collectively disapproved of the dean. Finally, a few days after her
early career faculty were “filibustered,” Dr. López addressed the faculty in a meeting.
Leadership Resistance Climaxes and Faculty Union Involvement
The night before the meeting, the faculty union sent out a four-page newsletter to all
Village faculty, of which two pages were dedicated to criticizing Dr. López. The union
newsletter targeting Dr. López included anonymous comments from nine English faculty
commenting on her “lack of leadership (Dr. Ben Clark).” The newsletter’s tone is skeptical,
accusatory, coarse, and offensive. The article in the newsletter was titled “Voices in Solidarity,”
and it presented various shortcomings that made the dean ineffective in the eyes of the
opposition faculty.
Newsletter accusations of Dr. López included faculty feeling “undervalued,” “belittled”
by a dean whom they described as “unqualified,” and exercising “poor leadership.” The faculty
was “proud” of “stand[ing] together” to fight against “administrative bullying” that was
attempting to “cut pay and erode working conditions.” AB 705 is framed as forcing “at-risk” and
“vulnerable students” into transfer-level English “without respect of their educational
background.” Moreover, the dean is accused of hand-selecting faculty for opportunities and not

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honoring shared governance processes. The financial “bottom line” is presented as an
administrative priority and faculty describe themselves as victims: “disrespect[ed]” and
“abuse[d].”
This faculty union newsletter that criticized Dean López set off a political battle between
the faculty union and the academic senate. Two white allies in the academic senate led a letter
petitioning Village faculty who supported the dean to send a message to the union that “it’s not
their role to defame somebody (Dr. Selina Rodriguez)” in a newsletter. Academic senate
president Ben Clark received this letter with over 60 faculty signatures supporting Dr. López
with a request that he make an ethics violation complaint against the faculty association.
Professor Clark agreed with faculty advocates. However, instead of making an ethics violation,
he withdrew his personal financial support to the union to symbolize he did not want to support a
union that “thinks it’s okay to put this on paper.”
At the meeting following the newsletter release, Dr. López presented data showing how
the newly created English courses that include corequisite support help increase student success.
The dean also acknowledged the newsletter that targeted her and her leadership. During our
interview, she shared that she told the group that union newsletter authors should not be
meddling in academic matters over curriculum.
Even though Dr. López had asked the faculty to allow her to make the presentation and
hold their questions to the end, she mentioned that a white woman instructor with a reputation
for her outspokenness immediately and repeatedly interrupted the deans’ presentation. In
response, the dean told the faculty member, “we’ve been privileging your voice for a really long
time.” This response and Dean López’s tone fared poorly among faculty opponents. Some
opponents described Dr. López as “yelling,” “rude,” “authoritarian,” and “toxic.” To AB 705

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advocate Dave Wilson, the dean was showing how the faculty member “was dominating the
discussion and other people’s voices were being silenced out.”
After this meeting, the mobilization against Dr. López strengthened. “A group of like ten
faculty would rotate scheduling appointments to see the president to complain about [López],”
shared Vice President Selina Rodriguez. In total, about 17 faculty strongly opposed her in a
department of about 45 full-time faculty. Out of the 17 faculty, 12 were white. The leaders of this
group were Arturo Gutierrez, a Latino, who applied and lost his bid for the dean position that Dr.
López filled, and Letty Sanchez, a Latina, who also strongly opposed AB 705. After the
appointment of a new president, this group of about ten faculty opponents pressured the new
president to remove the dean. To resolve the tension, the vice president hired consultants to
“repair relationships between the dean and the faculty (Dr. Ben Clark),” but the union distorted
the role of the consultants as an investigation of the dean.
Meanwhile, the new college president was under pressure from the faculty union over
whether Dr. López would deliver a rejection of tenure, as noted earlier. The union threatened the
president, “we’re going to the board during public comment and we’re going to issue our vote of
no confidence as a union (Dr. Selina Rodriguez).” Such a move would force the board of trustees
at Village to require the president to take action regarding the dean. What hinged in question was
avoiding a public vote of no confidence in the dean, which would hurt both the dean and the
institution.
After two years of facing the obstacles imposed by her detractors in a bellicose work
environment, attempting to reform the introductory English courses that would enable students to
enroll directly in transfer eligible courses, Dr. López was moved out of her position as dean of
English and appointed as dean of instruction. Dr. López left a legacy that included a critical pool

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of equity-oriented faculty hires, a complete overhaul of the writing center, and arguably prepared
the English department to implement AB 705 as policymakers intended. After careful executive
leadership maneuvering, a newly vacated manager position elsewhere in the college allowed Dr.
López to stay at Village. It was a “magic lining” (Dr. Selina Rodriguez).
Faculty Stronghold Votes Not to Support Students over Dean Discontent
Before Dr. López’s transition out of the department, the English division voted on what
model to offer to comply with AB 705. “They voted not to support our students. That’s how I
took it. It was heartbreaking for me. I cannot believe you all did nothing,” shared Dr. López
when reflecting on how she responded to faculty after the vote. She left the English department
in early fall 2019. In the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020, Village’s English department had direct
placement into transfer-level without any corequisite support offered. Interim English Dean Dr.
Malee Trubbaya confirmed via email that in spring 2020, the department voted to approve a .5-
unit lab model including additional corequisite support. Corequisites were offered until spring
2021. Dr. Trubbaya later explained to Dr. López that the faculty’s decision not to support a lab
model was “personal” opposition to her as a dean. Dr. López was shocked, “So you’re telling me
that the division punished our students of color because they didn’t like me and they didn’t like
my approach?”
Why Did Advocates Stay Silent?
To Dr. López’s realization, her leadership alone could not push through the objectives
that she and her “badass” faculty supporters desired. Instead, she felt “stuck” and “ineffective” as
a leader because the faculty who supported her did not back her publicly as resistance from
faculty opponents mobilized and grew more assertive. “They’re not stepping up. They’re not
exposing themselves,” she shared. In the following passage, Dr. López explains how she was

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ultimately on her own due to supportive faculty not taking risks to build the collective agency
and power necessary to overcome detractors and implement AB 705.
Most of the supporters are non-tenured, but there’s a few good [faculty] who were
tenured. I mean, I’m thinking of two Latinas in particular who were tenured, and they’re
amazing. But they didn’t want to take the risk. And I say that because we had
conversations. I talked to them. The risk of what was always my question? What do you
have to lose? People respected them, and that’s the thing. Like a leader also needs
soldiers. A leader also needs people that carry the torch and say, we’ve got you and I just
felt like, ultimately in English, that didn’t happen. When I left, I felt like it started to
happen because everybody was surprised that now she’s gone. I really believe strongly
that – and it hurts me to say it, but that you didn’t know what you had until it was gone.
Like I’m here for you. I’m here to protect you. I’m here to help you. I’ve got you. But
they don’t do much, and then when you leave, it’s like, why did you leave? We need you,
and it’s tough because I needed you, too.

While her title as dean afforded her the power to hire faculty, to change policies and practices,
and shift department discourse, faculty opponents were armed with powerful cultural norms and
procedures that enabled them to exercise their will and silence her potential allies. Shared
governance rules (e.g., developing curriculum) and unionization were influential forces that
blocked Dr. López’s efforts and intimidated her untenured “badass” faculty supporters. These
dynamics illustrate how policy implementation develops into a “site of struggle” (p. 150), where
social practices and conflict determine the possibilities and limits of individual and collective
agency Dumas and Anyon (2006).
An example is Professor Dave Wilson, previously academic senate president, who
describes how disputes on the senate made him reticent about engaging in political fights. As
academic senate president, he had to “take sides” and disagree with people. “It became personal,
and people were talking negatively about me to students and colleagues.” These issues later
affected Wilson’s family life and mental health. Therefore, advocates like Professor Wilson who
felt defeated by powerful faculty opponents often reverted their focus on what they could achieve

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in their classroom, not their department. “It’s best for me to just focus on my classroom and work
the best I can to implement [AB 705] in my own classroom,” he explains. The retreat strategy
used by Professor Wilson and others who felt intimidated by the opponents weakened the Dean’s
attempts to enact AB 705 with fidelity to racial equity. Despite losing the “battle,” Dr. López
ended up winning the “war”: the removal of all developmental courses, which resulted in more
students completing transfer-level English than ever before (see Appendix J for details on the
outcomes post-AB 705).
Village’s Math Division: A Influential Leader Convinces Faculty to do the “Right Thing”
Under Jenna Blackwood's leadership, a white woman who was a Village faculty member
for 11 years before becoming dean, the math department did not experience the same turmoil as
the English division. On the contrary, the math faculty at Village was receptive to developmental
education reform, allowing the elimination of developmental courses in the math division and
introducing corequisite support. Those who initially opposed AB 705 grew to support it after
seeing data showing the positive outcomes made possible by direct placement into transfer lever
math. What was undeniable was that most math students who began at the lowest developmental
math level failed to complete transfer-level math. Only 2% did so within three years, meaning
that thousands of students would fall off their educational plans each year.
Village Math Dean Goes Beyond Checking Boxes
Before AB 705, Village’s math division was “ahead,” having implemented multiple
measures and experimented with accelerated coursework in prior years (Appendix I offers a
summary of course sequences pre- and post-AB 705). The curriculum and course materials for
these accelerated courses were developed in-house, which generated faculty buy-in. “People
wanted to see it succeed,” shared Dean Jenna Blackwood. Yet, despite the department’s efforts,

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accelerated tracks for math still had poor success outcomes. In fall 2016, out of 1003 students
who enrolled in an accelerated math course with a corequisite, only 129 of them went on to
complete transfer-level math the next semester.
When AB 705 passed, Dean Blackwood distinguished between compliance and
successful implementation of the policy. “I know we’ve implemented AB 705. The question is
have we implemented it successfully and in the spirit of the law.” To Blackwood, this meant
going above having “checked off all the boxes” and achieving greater success outcomes in the
completion of transfer-level courses, particularly for “African-American and Latino students.”
As an administrator and former faculty member who attended multiple conferences related to
developmental reform, Blackwood understood the spirit of the legislation to mean the college
should offer “nothing below college level.” Through data, discussion, and leveraging influence
earned over time, Blackwood convinced the department of this interpretation of the legislation.
Village Math Faculty Converge Over Removing Developmental Courses
Like the English department, the math division had about 45 faculty members who were
supporters and opponents. The three white leaders, self-described equity advocates, who led AB
705’s implementation were Dr. Jacob Omar, Deborah Ridge, and Dean Jenna Blackwood. All
three had worked on state grants to reform their division’s developmental offerings. This
experience afforded them clout and respect among colleagues, which they used to improve
developmental sequences, prepare data presentations, and organize how to elicit faculty buy-in.
Opponents were described as “old school” and “deficit” faculty who valued assessment tests and
considered students unprepared for transfer-level coursework without prerequisites.
In 2018, the faculty converged in a day-long retreat to vote on a proposal to eliminate all
developmental courses except one level below. There was, in general, a universal agreement to

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accept the proposal. To eliminate three out of four developmental math courses a year (Fall
2018) before AB 705 would begin was possible due to many discussions and departmentwide
data analysis from CAP, the RP Group, PPIC, and outside data experts. Many meetings and
“hallway conversations (Dr. Omar)” helped build up the proposal’s vote and approval.
The remaining obstacle to direct placement was removing the remaining level of
developmental math. Dean Blackwood reviewed data to decide whether to offer any
developmental courses, which like Dr. Angélica López, was within Blackwood’s authority as a
dean. Under AB 705, the law stipulates that B-STEM majors (B is for business) can be placed
into a non-college level course if they have never taken Algebra II in high school. When
reviewing 2018 data, Dean Blackwood learned 150 out of 5,000 entering students qualified
under this criterion.
It was really hard for me to justify that I’m going to offer basic skills classes for 150
students that, one, I don’t know that the basic skills class is going to do anything for
them, and two, I have no way of guaranteeing that those 150 students are actually going
to be the ones who enroll in that basic skills class.

To further her concern, Blackwood learned that more students took it than needed when a
neighboring college offered developmental courses. “If you offer it, students will take it, even if
they don’t need it and if it’s against their best interest.” Therefore, Blackwood solicited feedback
from counselors and faculty to determine whether to offer a developmental course in fall 2019. “I
need you to tell me why we need to keep offering these classes,” she told the faculty. She
received a few anecdotes that she believed were inadequate justification to keep the classes.
When Blackwood decided not to offer any developmental courses, only a few faculty
protested. To advocates, the removal of non-college credit developmental math courses was an
anticipated move. Those opposed to the complete elimination of developmental courses were

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primarily senior faculty. One of the fears from senior faculty was teaching new material because
faculty “fossilize,” as Professor Ben Clark suggested. Recently hired faculty are “energetic” and
eager to “take on different projects” to “look good” during the tenure review process. In contrast,
senior faculty have undergone many legislative reforms during their tenure as faculty, leading to
fatigue and cynicism over new reforms. Professor Clark was sympathetic to the
apprehensiveness of senior faculty:
I see among the younger folks a stronger willingness to learn new things. I’m getting to
the point where I don’t want to learn new things anymore either, you know? (laughs) I’m
not really criticizing the older folks, except to say we still have to be adaptable. I’d like to
fossilize. I’d like just to have my set of notes or not even need notes [for lecture].

In both cases, advocates and opponents are exercising their agency for different reasons. Among
advocates, assurance for tenure drove them to be involved with various projects. Opponents who
did not want their long-established routines interrupted were less enthusiastic about changing.
However, opponents were smaller in size and their opposition was less intense than the
opposition within the English department.
Village Math Leader Qualities Encourage Smooth Implementation
Co-lead Deborah Ridge complemented Dean Blackwood’s influence to implement AB
705. Described as a “fierce advocate” of developmental reform, Ridge was previously basic
skills coordinator and the one faculty member of Village’s AB 705 implementation task force.
Therefore, she understood the “bigger picture (Dr. Adam Miller)” and held considerable status
among colleagues. Ridge’s vocal support of the policy persuaded newcomers to turn into
advocates. For example, when new faculty were hired, she quickly brought them onboard to “let
them know (Dr. Jacob Omar)” about the department’s vision and goals. This culture nurtured
collaboration and collegiality in the math department that Dr. Omar described as “one big

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family.” Dr. López did not have a comparable “Ridge” in the English department.
I asked interviewees whether Dean Blackwood’s racial identity as a white woman
mattered in faculty receptivity to her during AB 705’s implementation. Responses were mixed.
Some believed that race had nothing to do with faculty receptiveness to Blackwood’s leadership.
“I think it’s just because we have a really good dean right now,” shared Professor Sam Moore.
Others like Professor Omar believed a faculty composition that is “increasingly people of color”
is attributable to shifting the culture of a once “very white” department. This, he says, afforded
Dean Blackwood the ability to influence and gain the support of new faculty hires. Still, he
believed faculty bias might surface in the acceptance of Dean Blackwood, but such bias is hard
to identify.
I do think there’s a good amount of people in our department who are unaware of their
own implicit biases. I feel like it would somehow show in the level of respect – hmm not
respect, but like, the level of accepting authority, but I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. It’s
really hard to tell.

Village’s Math Corequisite Development and Teaching
In 2016, a full year before AB 705 was approved, Village’s math department prepared an
accelerated intermediate algebra course with a corequisite. The department experimented with
corequisites in lecture and lab configurations, allowing them to compare and determine that a lab
model was more beneficial to students (e.g., less financial aid strain). While some faculty desired
lecture unit pay, that concern did not dominate or stonewall conversations related to
implementation, as it did in the English division. For faculty who customarily taught
developmental or transfer-level algebra, their steepest AB 705 learning curve was teaching
statistics and its corresponding corequisite.
The statistics corequisite was developed by Professors Ashlee Roberts and Sam Moore,
two untenured math faculty, who collectively supported creating all necessary materials to

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deliver the corequisite. This included in-class activities and assignments, answer keys, detailed
written notes for facilitation, and even a video for faculty explaining how to carry out activities.
Examples of weekly class activities included topics like “Introduction to the Graphing
Calculator,” “Time Management and Forgetting Curve,” and “Sampling Bias using the
Gettysburg Address.” These activities were designed to develop students’ metacognition
affective domain and growth mindset, which are popular learning concepts in math, but also to
“hook [students] with something interesting (Ashlee Roberts).”
Despite Professors Roberts and Moore taking the initiative by pairing their existing notes
and activities, they feared corequisite time is misused. The legal expectation is that faculty will
not lecture or use corequisites as homework time. Yet, advocates found that some faculty do
misuse the class time. To math Professor Beltrán, it is “defeating the purpose” of offering
corequisites. “We're coming here with the structure that we worked on so hard to have this for
you. And you just want to lecture more? It just drives me nuts.” However, the rule-breaking over
how to teach corequisites is nearly impossible because no rules exist in the first place. “Pretty
much everyone – we all teach how we want,” shared Professor Omar. The faculty’s agency to
teach these new support courses turned out to be an important factor in implementing AB 705
because faculty can choose not to comply with the recommended outline of corequisites if
resistant to the policy. They can refuse to use Roberts and Moore’s materials that were informed
by current research on corequisites and over 100 hours of summer work.
How Village’s English Department’s Upheaval Benefited the Math Division
During the political battle over Dr. Angélica López – when English faculty refused to
develop a corequisite curriculum – Village’s executive leadership used their power to create
additional support for students if faculty were unwilling to create corequisites. After negotiation

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with the academic senate, the college president hired two support faculty for both the writing
center and the math success center. These full-time tenure-track faculty housed under student
services would develop “self-directed learning modules (Dr. Selina Rodriguez)” and identify
students' roadblocks in classes and design academic supports. These four support faculty are a
direct outcome of AB 705 due to resistance from the English faculty at Village.
When English faculty refused to carry out their curricular duties in protest of low pay and
concerns with their dean, executive leadership used their power to establish student support for
AB 705. In this and other ways – like encouraging new faculty hires to be outspoken and
prioritizing racial equity as a campus – Village’s vice presidents and college president were
heavily involved with AB 705. By comparison, Sunnyville’s executive leadership was largely
hands-off in coordinating and leading implementation. Additionally, department leaders varied in
proximity to the status quo and whether they were agentic in challenging existing norms.
Sunnyville’s English Division: Equity Leaders Accommodate Faculty’s “Equity Journeys”
Similar to Village, Sunnyville English department leaders expressed a value for racial
equity. However, they did not know how to talk about race and lacked experience facilitating
conversations about race. Despite limited resistance to eliminating developmental sequences, two
English department chairs (all white) with considerable authority could not center racial equity in
curriculum and teaching practices. Chairs accommodated faculty's “equity journeys,” meaning
that they did not force equity onto their faculty because they believed from personal experience
that equity competence occurs over time. Moreover, neither a risk-averse vice president created a
college-wide vision for AB 705 nor were professional development resources available to help
prioritize racial equity.
A key difference between Village and Sunnyville was the governance structure of

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leadership, which at Sunnyville consisted of academic chairs holding administrative duties while
at Village academic administrators (i.e., administrative deans) had the responsibility of hiring
faculty, scheduling courses, and selecting which courses to keep. As faculty elected positions,
Sunnyville chairs often had the title for many years and were highly respected by their faculty
because they were voted into the position.
Sunnyville English Chair Seeks to Reform Racist Practices
Sunnyville’s English department during AB 705’s implementation was led by Kevin
Cook, a white male who was a faculty member for seven years before being elected as chair in
2014. What stood to be reformed was removing six pretransfer levels of English courses and an
antiquated norming system found to be racist. Students who placed six levels below transfer
could spend up to 21 units or $966 in fees taking developmental courses. “Norming” was an in-
house process that consisted of faculty reviewing a “common essay” that students would
complete at the end of two developmental courses for the opportunity to be waived out of the
next level. Following a California Acceleration Project (CAP) conference, Cook asked the
institutional research office for data on which students were awarded waivers. “There was clear
racial bias in the way those waivers were being handed out,” he shared. White students were
waived at higher rates than Black and Latinx students, despite having comparable scores.
These conversations on structural biases in norming common essays began in early 2015.
They paved the way for the department to analyze more data, building buy-in to reform
developmental English. In 2017, the department voted to eliminate four levels below the transfer
level. In 2018, the department removed one more level. This means that by fall 2019 – the year
AB 705 took effect – the English department recommended most students direct placement into

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transfer-level both with and without corequisite support. Some students could be advised to place
in one level below transfer, though this was not mandatory.
In addition to conversations grounded in data analysis, the authority vested in the
department chair, in part, was attributable to the department’s ability to remove most of its
lengthy developmental sequences. “When I got the job, I was like everyone’s smiling at me all
the time. This is the happiest department in the whole world,” Cook reflected on his appointment
as chair. “There’s a baseline of obedience baked into that role, for better or worse.” Chairs have
control over faculty schedules and courses offered in the department. That power made faculty
deferential to the chair for fear of having their schedules and subsequent lifestyle interrupted.
“No one’s going to do something that they think is going to ultimately harm their self-interest.”
However, both Cook and subsequent chairs could not center racial equity beyond removing most
developmental courses despite that power.
Sunnyville English Faculty Inquire into Racist Practices with Data
Sunnyville’s English department consisted of supporters and opponents of developmental
reform. The “long-timer” opponents could “get their way no matter what” but were relatively
small in size and therefore ineffective at “raising hell” (Kevin Cook). As chair, Cook focused his
attention on supporters and those wavering in-between by talking about data and racial equity.
However, to his admission, his inexperience in facilitating conversations about race made these
efforts fall short.
In 2016, following a professional development institute convened by the USC Center for
Urban Education, Cook learned to analyze individual faculty data. Sunnyville’s institutional
research office prepared individual packets of data by instructor disaggregated by race and
ethnicity. Cook distributed the data packets at a department meeting and reassured the faculty

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that only he had access to this information. The purpose of the data was for faculty to see their
poor course success outcomes and become motivated to change them. According to Cook, the
meeting was unsuccessful because the faculty did not have much time to reflect on the data
handed to them at the end of the day.
In a follow-up meeting described as an “afterthought,” Cook attempted to bring faculty
together to discuss the data. By then, some senior faculty, or “meanies,” “stole the microphone.”
Cook describes how these faculty responded.
‘Who in the administration put you up to this? Are they tracking this data? We shouldn’t
even be talking about race and just all this stuff.’ Then there were the people who
actually cared but who were terrified of what they saw in their data and didn’t know how
to start talking about it.

To the ‘meanies,’ the data was “shell shocking,” according to Kathy Petersen, English faculty
because it brought forth allegations that administrators had an ulterior motive to use the data for
evaluative purposes. Faculty also feared getting called racist because of the racial inequities
evident in the data. With no one to help manage the “emotional” and “reflective aspect” of
reviewing data, the department was unable to “generate conversations and find solutions and
work through ideas (Cassie Walker)” in terms of reforming curriculum or teaching.
Sunnyville English Chair Maintains Status Quo for Fear of Race Talk
In addition to unprocessed data, Cook’s lacking familiarity with holding conversations
about race stifled his agency to prioritize racial equity despite his ideological commitment to it.
“I had my own trepidation about saying the words, ‘African-American,’ saying ‘Latinx’ in front
of a group of people at the time,” he shares. His awareness of equity was recent. “Even the term
‘equity’ was probably not as frequently used in 2017.” Despite his inexperience, Cook attempted
to expose his department to concepts such as white fragility and implicit bias. He also tried to

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create a library by authors of color to learn culturally responsive teaching practices while
learning the concepts himself.
Unfortunately, Cook’s efforts to center race fell short. An example was his assembly of a
curriculum committee for courses post-AB 705. That committee, comprised of individuals who
were selected because they were “committed to equity,” was provided by the college release time
for teaching and funding to create a revised post-AB 705 course. The committee’s guiding
principle and shared goal was to center a person of color as the primary text author for that
course. In the end, however, the department chose to keep a book authored by a white male.
According to Professor Cassie Walker, the main text by a white author covered “how to annotate
and how to be successful in school and intellectualism and things like that.” To Walker and the
committee, “there just wasn’t a lot of scholarship that we found from Latinx and Black scholars
on that area.” In a college that serves over 60 percent minoritized students, the decision to re-
center white authors in the curriculum was also made because existing readings “have really
good lesson plans,” and the committee did not desire to “develop completely new things.”
This finding shows how whiteness remained centered in the curriculum despite having
resources like time and funding to change the course. Faculty’s (un)awareness of existing
literature translated into inaction on their part to change the status quo. Though encouraged by
Cook, they reverted to a familiar curriculum supported by routines and norms like “good lesson
plans.” They did not use their agency to rethink either how a post-AB 705 course should look or
whether the authors represented in the curriculum reflected their students.
Sunnyville’s English Chair Transition and Accommodating Faculty’s Equity Journeys
Chairships, appointed by the college president and informed by department vote,
“enshrine participatory governance (Dr. Vanessa Nelson)” into the fabric of Sunnyville because

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faculty have agency over their leadership (i.e., election). When Cook left to become dean of
instructional services at Sunnyville, an election for his replacement took place. An interim chair,
Cassie Walker, took over for six months while formal elections unfolded. She suggested faculty
more easily opposed her because of her status as an ‘interim’ chair, a woman, perceived as
younger (though the same age as Cook), and her “softer personality.” Resistance also stemmed
from unprocessed data previously introduced by Cook (e.g., course-level data disaggregated by
instructor), which had “stirred people up.” Tensions remained with the nominated chair.
The chair elections were between a white female, Kathy Petersen, younger equity-
oriented, and an older white male, deficit-oriented. The election was contentious for similar
reasons as Walker’s interim tenure. Those who supported Petersen’s opponent were primarily
older white men aged over 45, who vocally opposed Professor Petersen by being “very rude and
disrespectful” and minimizing her “qualifications and accomplishments.” Respondents
speculated that the difference between how opponents treated Cook, a white male, and Petersen,
a white woman, was stark, with opponents seeming more “emboldened” to dissent against
Petersen, elected chair the summer before AB 705 took effect.
Professor Petersen used her agency to minimize resistance by accommodating faculty’s
“equity journeys.” As somebody who had various “pivotal moments” (chapter 5) that helped her
understand race as a white woman, Petersen was sympathetic and accommodating to others who
have not had these moments that help them process race in the context of their work as faculty.
Although she prioritizes equity, Petersen is not perceived as someone who is “judgmental” of
others who do not. This allowed her to “create a space” for everyone in an attempt to have the
department undergo a “cultural transition” to be “student-centered and more equity-minded.”

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New Chair Contends with Whiteness During Implementation
As a primarily white department, respondents demonstrated how whiteness guided
interactions among department leadership and strongarmed decision-making. For instance,
Professor Petersen details departmentwide correspondence where faculty members “verbally
attack[ed]” her and other faculty. After this incident, the details of which are off the record
because respondents did not feel comfortable sharing, a full-time faculty member of color
approached Petersen.
She said, ‘[Kathy], here you are, this person that’s done so much for the college and
seeing you get treated the way you get treated sometimes in the e-mail, it makes me think
I don’t ever want to be chair, because if – as a white woman if you’re being treated this
way, what does this mean for me as a woman of color?’ And so, what I’ve tried to
explain to people is that these exchanges that you think are harmless are really harmful to
a lot of people, but particularly people of color in our department.

Petersen described how these exchanges where white people “process their feelings” have a way
of “holding people of color in [the] department hostage.” By this, she meant that minoritized
faculty feared leadership appointments and speaking out in department debates. The
chastisement of white leaders by white resistant faculty was in concert with an unspoken
appreciation of whiteness, credited with allowing support of AB 705.
The fact that leaders overseeing AB 705’s implementation were white was considered an
asset to gaining faculty buy-in and advancing AB 705’s mandated changes. Professor Taylor
Scott, a white female, explains, “I think the fact that the face of AB 705 has been a white face has
actually allowed us to actualize it in ways we might not have otherwise.” As part of a team of
leaders enacting AB 705, Professor Scott led the creation of a corequisite support course. “All of
[team leaders] are white… when it came to who was driving the bus, it was all white folks,” she
shares. An all-white leadership team granted them legitimacy and power, but it also led to the

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questionable centering of equity. Professor Scott describes the insufficient attention to equity due
to all-white leadership as a “train wreck.”
Did some of my colleagues who are Latinx and Black who were on the committee, see
the train wreck coming sooner? I don't know. Maybe. They didn't say anything. Did they
feel like they could? I don't know.

This finding shows how the unspoken nature of whiteness shaped department rhetoric and
willingness to adopt policy reforms. Yet, as Professor Scott suggested, centering white voices as
drivers of the reform may have diverted attention away from equity for students and undermined
the agency of minoritized faculty colleagues. What blindspots could faculty of color as
metaphorical passengers have identified if they were comfortable enough to share? Professor
Scott could not say confidently whether “people’s voices were [equally] heard.”
Consequences of a Leadership Vacuum at Sunnyville
Another important factor that shaped whether AB 705 was implemented with fidelity to
racial equity that impacted the English and math department was lacking executive leadership
support. No coordinated approach existed “from the top.” At Village, a committee of executive
leadership and one faculty member agreed on the racial implications of AB 705 and how to
approach implementation. This taskforce, directed by Village’s vice president of instruction,
discussed, planned, and executed policy changes in conjunction with leaders of relevant areas
under a shared institutional vision: to improve outcomes for racially minoritized students.
Moreover, Village’s college president was also involved in configuring institutional support for
students. At Sunnyville, no coordinated collegewide effort existed. Instead, English and math
faculty met on their own to determine departmental changes.
Sunnyville's vice president of academic affairs was Dr. Vanessa Nelson, a white female.
Her role as VP was ensuring courses submitted by math and English departments met all

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logistical, regulatory, and legal requirements for curriculum. Dr. Nelson became VP in fall 2018,
a year after AB 705 had passed. New into the position, Dr. Nelson’s focus was addressing
logistical challenges such as scheduling courses, updating IT systems and software, aligning
corequisite support, and allocating resources for faculty professional development.
Although Dr. Nelson was involved with AB 705 logistically, she was hands-off in
bringing teams together to organize course and curriculum reform. Sunnyville only met twice
over 2 to 3-hour meetings as a campus to coordinate implementation before shifting planning to
departments. Collegewide correspondence continued via phone calls or emails. Several
Sunnyville interviewees, therefore, often described implementation as “procedural.”
Respondents attributed absent leadership “from the top” to the weak implementation of
AB 705 at Sunnyville. Two individuals who preferred not to be identified suggested vice
presidents at Sunnyville did not want to incur the risk associated with advocating for AB 705’s
implementation in one direction or another due to fear of faculty backlash. This created a “power
vacuum” that limited AB 705’s potential because executive leadership did not “put themselves
on the line.” At Village, Dr. Angélica López did ‘put herself on the line’ to push for equitable
implementation of AB 705. For this, she was driven out by the faculty.
At Village, many faculty often named the vice president; they were aware of his stance
and efforts to support his equity-oriented interpretation of AB 705. However, at Sunnyville,
interviewees seldom referenced “vice president” or “VP.” Only one individual named the VP
outright. Two other faculty did so in the conversation only after they asked me to turn off the
recording. Two facts transpire. First, this reinforces the reality that VPs at Sunnyville were
uninvolved in how the literature on policy implementation suggests it is necessary to shape
enactment with fidelity to policymakers' aspirations. Executive leadership can influence how

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actors learn about and enact policy by shaping access to resources and engaging in the social
process of policy interpretation and implementation (Coburn, 2005).
Second, fear of retribution in various forms – untenured faculty fear of speaking up in
department meetings, interviewee interactions in this study (i.e., off the record beliefs about
leadership), VP hesitance to shape implementation for fear of faculty backlash – suggests AB
705 conjured political uneasiness and aversion to exercising agency between faculty and
administrative leaders. Such a dynamic created distance between Sunnyville actors arguably for
the preservation and purity of a faculty function (i.e., curriculum development) and potentially
hamstrung the organizational resources (e.g., leadership) that could have facilitated change.
Lacking Professional Development Resources. Resources like professional development for
faculty were limited and attributed to AB 705 not addressing racial equity. Scarce resources were
a fiscal reality during AB 705 for several reasons. One reason was the Trump administration’s
racist rhetoric on international students attending American colleges that became hostile “federal
administrative policies towards anyone coming to the United States from anywhere” (Dr.
Vanessa Nelson). Sunnyville’s reliance on a large international student population means the
college saw significant drops in their enrollment along with their tuition dollars. Moreover, the
advent of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic the semester after AB 705 took effect further
constrained funding and resources. Plans for professional development were canceled due to
decreased budgets, and sessions that did occur were less effective, argued respondents.
Positive learning experiences that emphasized equity for faculty included a Summer
Faculty Institute organized at Sunnyville and Professional Learning Communities (PLC). The
former was pedagogical training for incoming faculty during the summer. The latter was a space
for faculty to collaborate and co-construct solutions for curriculum and class activity issues.

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While both were positive and commended by interviewees, the summer faculty institute only
included new faculty, not senior faculty, who arguably may benefit from new concepts. The PLC
opportunity, while positive, lost funding and was stopped. At the time of interviews, Dr. Vanessa
Nelson sought to identify funding to bring back PLCs but saw limited options. Although
respondents wanted to collaborate to develop equitable teaching practices, they had limited
structured opportunities. In part, this helps explain why English faculty reverted to white authors
due to what they perceived as lacking scholarship from “Latinx and Black scholars.”
Sunnyville’s Mathematics Division: A Compliant Leader Reluctantly Meets Mandates
In contrast to the three leaders described above – who took equity stances towards AB
705 – Sunnyville’s math chair shows how ideological commitments against policy led to an
implementation strategy that was compliance-oriented and the least disruptive to the status quo.
The chair was agentic in making it clear to faculty that she “hated” AB 705 and gave faculty few
opportunities to have different perspectives inform their understanding of the policy. As an
instructor for over 30 years, this highly respected math chair used her power to “make the best”
of AB 705 through democratic faculty participation leading to little faculty resistance. However,
while the three departments already discussed were described by the Campaign for College
Opportunity as “strong implementers” of AB 705 for offering majority transfer-level courses in
fall 2019, Sunnyville’s math division did not. The math division still offered two developmental
courses for students to enroll post-AB 705.
A Highly Respected Math Chair “Hates” AB 705
In 2015, Jessica Amiri, a white female, was elected as Sunnyville’s math division chair.
As a longtime faculty member and a former faculty association president, Amiri was highly
respected and her words carried considerable influence. She was outspoken about how she

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“hated” AB 705 and believed it worked against equity. Amiri interpreted enrolling students with
weak math backgrounds into statistics courses under AB 705 as discouraging them from
pursuing STEM. Under her leadership, math faculty at Sunnyville similarly opposed AB 705 and
supported developmental education as a solution that, while imperfect, was necessary to provide
students necessary preparation for the transfer level.
Professor Amiri is a strong advocate in the sequencing of mathematical concepts to learn
math. She believed that students who do not understand important math concepts are missing
their math “foundation” established in developmental courses, especially among STEM students
who require a “rigorous” math background. “You cannot put a student who doesn't know basic
algebra in a precalculus course and expect them to pass the course,” she shared. Despite her
strong opposition, her stance as a leader was to “make the best of it.”
To make the best of AB 705, Amiri acted as an intermediary between the faculty, college,
and state to ensure full compliance. That is, she spoke to faculty by loosely following the
guidance of lawmakers that she disagreed with – to follow the policies, rules, and criteria set in
implementation guidance – while ensuring that faculty worked together to meet these demands.
She sought faculty feedback and collaboration and did not “impose any ideas on anyone”
(Professor Darrell Little). Her approach as an intermediary between the state and Sunnyville
garnered approval from her colleagues. “Once you push too much, then you’re going to get a ton
of resistance that you’re not going to be able to sort of overcome,” shared Justin Floyd, math
faculty. Further, Amiri allowed the faculty to “come to understandings on their own.” As a
leader, her approach focused on eliciting faculty feedback to reform a sequence consisting of
four developmental math courses.

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“Let's make the best of it.” Amiri used her influence as chair to comply with AB 705, having
three priorities: 1) developing strong corequisites, 2) updating placement criteria, and 3) creating
a new guided self-placement process. The first, corequisite support courses, were designed
through committee work. A total of six corequisite support classes for transfer-level classes were
created with individual committees for each. With about 30 full-time faculty, each of the six
committees had between four to five faculty. Nearly all full-time faculty were involved in
developing corequisites and had free rein to develop materials as they saw fit.
Goal #1 – Developing Strong Corequisites
To illustrate how the department accomplished Amiri’s first goal, I showcase how the
faculty developed a corequisite for finite math. The corequisite includes various worksheets,
added class time practice, and in-class videos on non-math concepts, like time management.
Their corequisite design intends to provide students extra time to practice problems, ask
questions, and learn from their peers in a collaborative and engaging space. Corequisite
worksheets math include concepts like “learning how to graph a system of inequalities,” with
step-by-step instructions for students. Some faculty offer just-in-time remediation, support in
class for students who may not recall developmental content in a transfer-level class. Faculty can
use corequisite time before a lecture or after, a flexible choice dependent on the instructor.
A downside to corequisites at Sunnyville is the fiscal and course load burden it places on
students. For example, Amiri described how a traditional pre-calculus course is now eight units,
five for the main lecture section and three for the corequisite section. If students at Sunnyville
drop this eight-unit math course, they fall under the threshold for full-time student status putting
their financial aid in jeopardy. Furthermore, similar to Village, corequisite pay for faculty was an
issue. As a former negotiator of faculty contracts, Amiri demanded that faculty be paid the same

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lecture units for any additional hours worked, and Sunnyville’s administration agreed. Her
advocacy of faculty self-interests reaffirmed why the majority of the department “value and trust
[her] judgment and leadership (Darrell Little).” While parity in lab pay benefited Sunnyville
instructors, a three-unit corequisite strained students’ resources vis-a-vis financial aid and
sharply contrasted with the .5-unit lab model from Village.
Goal #2 – Updated Placement Criteria
The second priority of Amiri was improving placement criteria. The math department
decided to mostly follow the chancellor’s office placement guidelines for students who attended
high school in the U.S. whose goal is transfer or degree attainment, with one caveat. “We
tweaked it a little bit for the lowest level,” Amiri shares. For students with a GPA below 2.3,
Sunnyville math places students one level below transfer. The chancellor's office recommends
these students be placed into transfer-level with corequisite support. The decision to make
placement more restrictive means Sunnyville will need to prove through data within two years
that their placement method achieves better outcomes than the chancellor’s office suggestions.
“We are not throwing them into the ocean. And without any life jacket,” Amiri shared.
Changes to the placement process were uncontested and straightforward. The department
provided Dr. Angel Vásquez and Emma Smith, the staff overseeing the assessment center,
revised criteria for placement. Amiri welcomed the flow of labor. “They didn't try to change
what we were recommending, so they were very supportive. Absolutely.” The math faculty
welcomed complete control over AB 705 changes, including placement criteria, and attributed
this to a process of implementation that was viewed as “democratic.”
Amiri objected to state guidelines on the use of high school GPA for placement. For her,
high school GPA is inaccurate because it is not indicative of math competency. Also, “different

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high schools have different criteria for GPA.” These arguments were repeated among her faculty.
Mistrust of high school performance measures and the subsequent need to evaluate students
based on “neutral” metrics such as assessment tests help corroborate racialized scripts about
student groups and reinforce racial hierarchies, as Maldonado (2019) illustrated. Darrell Little, a
math professor, exemplified this mistrust by suggesting that a large urban high school district
educating primarily racially minoritized students “teach[es] to the test” and gives students a
“false sense of security” that they understand math. For Little, Sunnyville’s intake of students
from feeder schools that “lower their standards” means proper placement is challenging.
Goal #3 – New Guided Self-Placement Process
Finally, due to Sunnyville’s large international student population, the college needed to
devise a new placement method for students who do not have a U.S. transcript, per AB 705
requirements. The department created a guided self-placement process, including a non-cognitive
assessment of students' math abilities (Kosiewicz, 2015). AB 705 prohibits all colleges from
assessing students based on the following (Perez, 2019):
• Incorporate sample problems or assignments, assessment instruments, or tests, including
those designed for skill assessment, unless approved by the Chancellor; or
• Request students to solve problems, answer curricular questions, present
demonstrations/examples of course work designed to show knowledge or mastery of
prerequisite skills, or demonstrate skills through tests or surveys. (p. 1)

The math department developed the self-placement over two weeks, which contrasted with the
English department's four months. “All you can write out is a statement asking have you solved
for X before?” shares Emma Smith, Sunnyville’s former assessment center director. While
Sunnyville’s math faculty expressed doubt over the efficacy of guided self-assessments that do
not directly test math ability, they still complied with this aspect of the law.

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Why Power and Agency were Important in the Math Department
If it seems as though the math division’s implementation of AB 705 was dull, that is
because, as described by participants, it was “uneventful.” Everyone agreed, including the chair,
that they opposed the legislation. Most of the department doubted students’ ability to succeed in
transfer-level courses, but under Jessica Amiri, they partially complied with the law.
Furthermore, the college did not “micromanage” her department. “They basically said you are
the expert; you know what you're doing,” shared Amiri. The college also provided time for
faculty to collaborate and assured equal pay for new corequisites.
Governance processes rooted in “democratic” values were a form of power for Jessica
Amiri as a leader because they afforded her near-universal support from faculty and allowed her
to partially comply with a policy that she opposed with little resistance. Additionally, unit heavy
corequisites and the placement of low GPA students in developmental courses because of
distrust of high schools minimized student agency and resources. While her leadership created
harmony among colleagues, her vocal opposition to AB 705 made it easier for the department to
reject its goals and racial equity aspirations. Furthermore, uninvolved executive leadership also
made the avoidance of equity during implementation more likely.
Chapter Closing
Using Critical Race Sensemaking (CRS), this chapter shows how agency and power
influenced the implementation of AB 705 by discussing how leaders tasked with overseeing it
responded to it and the preferences of their faculty. I organized leaders into four types,
disruptive, influential, accommodating, and compliant leaders, showing that leaders varied in
their equity-mindedness and the extent that they actualized the policy as an instrument of racial
equity. Additionally, Village and Sunnyville’s executive leadership were differentially involved

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in supporting the sensemaking of AB 705 from the perspective of equity and exercised their
power accordingly.
Dr. López, labeled a disruptive leader, was a staunch supporter of racial equity and
exercised her power to “flatten” faculty hierarchies by hiring and promoting early career faculty
onto influential committees. This attempt to reorient power in the department received resistance
from tenured faculty opponents who used the lobbying power of unionization and shared
governance processes to circumvent and block the dean's efforts. She was ultimately driven out.
This department shows how conflicting values and self-interests between administrators and
faculty can lead to vastly power-laden policy implementation. Jenna Blackwood, an influential
leader, leveraged her power deliberately as a former faculty member to convince faculty to
eliminate developmental math classes. Supported by an equally influential co-lead, Deborah
Ridge, Dean Blackwood led the endorsement of AB 705 from an equity perspective and
benefited from the department’s involvement in prior acceleration efforts, which made AB 705
“expected.”
Sunnyville’s two English chairs were inexperienced at facilitating dialogue about race
and therefore accommodated to faculty's “equity journeys.” Despite having resources to change,
the department grappled with manifestations of whiteness that limited the agency of faculty of
color and halted curriculum reform. Whereas the three leaders above saw AB 705 as a racial
equity initiative, Sunnyville’s math chair was compliant in implementing the policy but did not
push for racial equity as a priority because she believed the policy worked against equity. The
case of Sunnyville shows how influential leadership can be in the collective interpretation of
policies like AB 705 that challenge existing beliefs about students – views built over a lifetime.
In the final chapter, I consider how these findings fit within the broader literature on race,

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sensemaking, and developmental education reforms. I close by describing the study’s
implications.

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CHAPTER 9: Discussion and Implications
This dissertation examined the sensemaking and implementation of AB 705 by focusing
on the race consciousness of administrative leaders and faculty as a source of agency and power
to actualize the policy’s potential as an instrument of racial equity or to constrain its potential.
Despite a few studies that have examined the implementation of developmental reforms
generally (Brower et al., 2017; Daugherty et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2015; Kalamkarian et al., 2015),
little is known about how implementers understand and respond to the potential of such reform
efforts to advance racial equity in community colleges. This study expands on critical policy
implementation studies in higher education that examine race and power in sensemaking (Chase,
2013; 2016) by situating sensemaking within a racialized organizations framework (Ray, 2019).
Using critical race sensemaking, I documented how racialized beliefs and lack of racial
literacy coupled with the reticence of policymakers and the Chancellor’s Office to be more
explicit about AB 705’s racial equity aims undermined implementation from the standpoint of
racial equity. Although heralded by advocates statewide, such as the Campaign for College
Opportunity, AB 705 did not have sufficient structures and guardrails to ensure that
implementation would be guided by an awareness of its potential to advance the racial equity
goals envisioned in the Chancellor’s strategic plan, Vision for Success. As the findings show,
implementation was left up to administrative and faculty leaders in positions of power that were
differentially committed to enforcing AB 705 as a racial equity strategy. Notably, they differed
in their formal and symbolic power to actualize that commitment.
This chapter proceeds in three sections. First, I discuss the main findings through Victor
Ray’s (2019) four tenets of racialized organizations. Next, I draw connections between these
findings and the scholarship on a) sensemaking and policy interpretation, b) critical

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sensemaking, and c) developmental education reform. Then, I offer implications for policy and
practice. Appendix K summarizes the study’s limitations.
Summary of Major Findings
This study pursued three research questions. My broad goal was to examine if AB 705
was understood as a racial equity initiative with transformative potential and whether those who
were charged with its implementation enabled or constrained this interpretation. I organize my
summation of findings based on my three research questions.
1. In what ways do institutional actors understand the goals and desired outcomes of AB
705?
Consistent with sensemaking principles, individuals’ interpretations of AB 705 reflected
professional socialization, personal experiences, and contextual characteristics of their
departments and institutions. I organized the spectrum of interpretations by characterizing
respondents as advocates for or opponents to AB 705. Generally, advocates viewed AB 705 as
eliminating the many “exit points” within long sequences of non-credit courses that for decades
have thwarted the degree aspirations of students placed in a developmental track. Advocates
viewed AB 705 as a means of providing access to the coveted transfer-level curriculum,
particularly for racially minoritized students who have been harmed the most. Their frequent
participation in professional development opportunities helped them reinterpret (Spillane et al.,
2002) developmental education as detrimental to specific students, including Black, Latinx,
Indigenous, and some sub-groups of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent. A smaller
number of advocates guided by racial justice values, prior to the passage of AB 705, had acted
on their own to reform developmental education through “accelerated” courses. Their
engagement in reform efforts that preceded AB 705 primed them to exploit the opportunities

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offered by the law for more far-reaching comprehensive reform (Coburn & Talbert, 2006). These
advocates leading this reform movement tended to be early career faculty with less power.
In contrast, opponents were suspicious of AB 705 and believed it was driven by
efficiency and financial concerns, not educational priorities. Opponents viewed AB 705 as
poorly informed by lawmakers disconnected from the student experience. Furthermore,
opponents distrusted professional development (Cohen & Hill, 2000; Jennings & Spillane, 1997)
and instead held on to pre-existing practices, knowledge, and beliefs (Cohen & Ball, 1990) and
relied on stories and anecdotes (Zilber, 2007) about students’ capacity to succeed to support their
staunch opposition. Often, opponents framed their rejection of AB 705 as protecting students
from being underprepared and experiencing failure in the future. Contrary to advocates,
opponents tended to be senior tenured faculty with significant power.
Critical race sensemaking helped explain the data in different ways. For the first research
question, the tenet that argues racialized organizations legitimize the unequal distribution of
resources (Ray, 2019) showcased how resources – particularly to develop racial literacy – were
scarce. Although many examples of this tenet were evident in the interviews, I will focus below
on professional development. Previous research has lauded professional development as the key
to making policy reforms successful (Cohen & Hill, 2000; Jennings & Spillane, 1997) by
introducing implementers to concepts and evidence that better prepare them to accept new ideas
(Coburn & Talbert, 2006). This study affirms that professional development opportunities
influenced advocates and armed them with the necessary data evidence, examples of reform, and
methods of inquiry into specific practices that helped them interpret and welcome AB 705 with
greater fidelity to its intents (Heck, 2004). These interviewees often participated in professional

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learning communities (Spillane et al., 2006) like California Acceleration Project conferences,
helping socialize them into the statewide anti-developmental education faculty camp.
Professional development had its challenges. First, since these opportunities are not
compulsory and sparingly compensated vis-à-vis additional pay, only supporters or those open to
new ideas tended to participate. Moreover, faculty adjuncts were largely kept out of this
resource, as previously documented (Gerstein, 2009). Next, although professional development
was an effective strategy in the coalescing of reformers, with possibly the exception of the small
number of institutes offered by the Center for Urban Education on equity-minded teaching,
respondents shared that major statewide programs lacked a strong focus on racial literacy as
applied to pedagogy, classroom culture, and curriculum. A 2021 report examining professional
development webinars that focused on guided pathways and AB 705 by the Academic Senate for
California Community College’s (ASCCC) found that racial equity was not addressed directly
and that equity was only addressed in vague, general terms (Hernandez-Hamed et al., 2020).
Although the webinar presenters acknowledged equity as a central goal of the Chancellor’s
Office’s Vision for Success (2020), the authors of the report write that the presenters “lacked the
knowledge and expertise to speak about the enactment of racial equity” and that their “equity
stance leaned toward fairness and equality for all (p.7).”
My findings show that the four sites studied did not have sufficient resources to launch a
buy-in campaign to gain the support of influential faculty opponents, nor were departments
exposed to frequent race-conscious learning experiences. A reform like AB 705 cannot be left up
to chance. The policy came about through the efforts of community-oriented organizations and
exemplified externally-driven change that Ray (2019) argues can challenge dominant racial
schemas, for example, that minoritized students cannot succeed at the transfer level. However,

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AB 705 was not paired with equally important structured resources to prepare the faculty to shift
their mindsets and develop “altered racial meanings (p. 20).” Ultimately, training on racial
literacy hinged on how department leaders budgeted limited state resources and which learning
opportunities they encouraged faculty to attend. These findings emphasize how scarce
institutional resources from the state mediated whether AB 705 can be described what Chase’s
(2016) respondents called a “policy of opportunity” for minoritized students (p. 985).
2. How does awareness of developmental education as a racialized practice shape how
institutional actors make sense of AB 705?
In the written law, AB 705 acknowledges racialization (Omi & Winant, 2015) in
developmental education by identifying “students of color” as those most likely to be placed into
remediation (Irwin, 2017). However, beyond this general acknowledgment of racialization, AB
705 is race-neutral in acknowledging, evaluating the role of, and centering race in developmental
education reform (Trinidad & Felix, forthcoming). A key focus of this study was whether or not
respondents were aware of remediation’s racialization consequences and how this awareness
shaped participants’ understanding of AB 705. Advocates who realized developmental education
disproportionately targeted minoritized students supported removing this racist practice and
accepted AB 705 with greater urgency and buy-in. They also saw how constructs like whiteness
(Leonardo, 2009) materialized within class curriculum and course placement trends.
In contrast, opponents reverted to race evasive attitudes or skirted around race (Annamma
et al., 2017; Pollock, 2004) and instead relied on external factors (Bensimon, 2005) such as
whether students have a stable home life to justify why minoritized students are unsuccessful.
These opponents depended on their personal experiences transferring to a 4-year university or
that of peers to claim that students would be unprepared later if deprived of the remediation

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provided by developmental courses. Hence, opponents who disregarded the confounding
influence of race in the existing developmental system discredited AB 705 as poorly informed
and bound to fail.
A tenet from critical race sensemaking borrowed from Ray (2019) that helped answer my
second research question is that the decoupling of formal rules is racialized. This tenet helped me
see how opponents who may object to the underlying premise of AB 705 or may fail to
acknowledge racialization can bend the rules to maintain a white status quo. An example
illustrative of this point was not including an author of color as the primary course text of a
transferable English course post-AB 705 because of unquestioned routines and a primarily white
Sunnyville faculty demographic with limited exposure to works by authors of color. In spite of
resources like time and funding to reform the course – of which centering an author of color was
a priority – the faculty reverted to a white status quo despite the department chair’s wishes to
diversify the curriculum.
Organizations are created from shared assumptions and espoused values of members who
often have “a similarity of educational background in the members, a shared task, and/or a
similarity of organizational experience (Schein, 2010, p. 55).” Only until AB 705 was
Sunnyville’s historically white English division asked to reassess their values and meet their new
chair’s recent commitment to diversify the curriculum. The rule breaking that ensued was not
without consequences. The recentering of a white author for the main text of a transferable
course means minoritized students will remain unseen in the curriculum. The findings show how
implementers may defy policy mandates in favor of routines and traditions imbued with
whiteness. It also highlights the importance discussed later in the implications of hiring,

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empowering, and involving new members in reforms that often demand fresh perspectives and
innovative strategies.
3. In what ways do leaders exercise their agency and power to influence the implementation
of AB 705?
This study examined leader race-consciousness as a source of agency and power to
actualize the potential of policy as an instrument of racial equity or to constrain its possibilities. I
found that implementing leaders diverted from the status quo to varying degrees based on their
ideological commitments regarding AB 705, their standing among colleagues, and their ability to
navigate powerful department norms. The findings affirm that implementing leaders with
significant organizational power are essential in prioritizing racial equity in policy. They are
important because they have various forms of positional, expert, and referent power (Birnaum,
1989) that can help facilitate necessary culture shifts (Schein, 2010). Below I discuss how
leaders exercised their agency by focusing on the story of Dr. López.
Village’s English Dean, Dr. Angélica López, had positional power as formally defined on
an organizational chart. This gave her the authority to determine the courses offered and
faculty’s schedules. However, she lacked legitimacy as an outsider, which was compounded by
her racial identity and determination to enforce AB 705 as a racial equity strategy. Positional
power is necessary, but referent and expert power (Birnbaum, 1989) are equally important to
create new and novel interpretations of phenomena in academic organizations. Dr. López’s
outsider status granted her limited referent power, which refers to whether “individuals
personally identify with and like” their leader (p. 2). Furthermore, her expertise on racial equity
(i.e., expert power) was misaligned with the espoused values within the division – namely, the
near-universal support of developmental education among long-time faculty opponents.

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Schein (2010) offers three reasons why new leaders may be “discredited and forced out”
of an organization – new approaches do not result in improvements, the new leader is not
credited with improvements that do occur, and the “new leader’s assumptions threaten too much
of the core of the culture that is still embodied in the founder’s traditions” (p. 288). Arguably,
opponents to Dr. López believed no improvements were needed in the first place – they viewed
remediation as effective despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Moreover, they rejected a
leader whom they perceived as an “outsider” questioning their power as faculty. This study
shows that positional power and a formal policy are insufficient to redefine developmental
education as a practice with racist outcomes and define AB 705 as a strategy of racial reparation
for educational malpractice.
In comparison to Dr. López, the other three white leaders were less committed to being
explicit about racial equity in AB 705. They also had institutional history and trust from
department colleagues protecting them from faculty resistance. Furthermore, Dr. López made
leadership mistakes that likely hampered her ability to influence the department. First, she did
not develop strong relationships with faculty through social meetings like “grabbing coffee.”
Next, as one respondent put it, Dr. López pulled on the “lever of social justice.. too hard at the
wrong times and too quickly.” To exert policy influence, leaders can draw upon various assets
such as positional authority, social connections, and individual attributes (Dahl, 1984; Malen,
2006). Even if leaders have positional authority, a racialized organization (Ray, 2019) lens
helped me understand how whiteness mediated Dr. López’s agency as a leader because her
attributes (e.g., expertise, identity, values) did not align with whiteness. As a result, Dr. López’s
willpower was constrained. A takeaway is that dismantling racially oppressive systems requires

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organizations committed to change over time with leaders who possess assets along with
political savviness to center racial equity in equity policies.
To summarize the findings, several factors inhibited the implementation of AB 705 as an
instrument of racial equity at Village and Sunny. First, AB 705 did not explicitly focus on race
sufficiently enough to sway implementers to recognize, evaluate, and reinvent pathways to the
transfer level with racial equity in mind. Second, the state of California did not pair the bill with
resources that would engage potential detractors in the process of reflection. Finally, most
important to the third research question, faculty in the California community colleges have
considerable influence and are protected by tenure, shared governance, and unionization forces
that allowed opponents to block (e.g., Village English) or limit (e.g., Sunnyville English) the will
of leaders.
In each of these factors, we can identify the four tenets motivating the behaviors of
racialized organizations proposed by Victor Ray (2019). According to Ray, racialized
organizations like Village and Sunnyville can empower or restrict the agency of racial groups
(i.e., faculty, students); they legitimize the unequal distribution of resources (i.e., inequitable
access to transferable courses); allow whiteness to function as property (i.e., minoritized students
excluded from the honors program); and justify the decoupling of formal rules (i.e., keeping the
curriculum white). From the standpoint of race-neutral policy analysis, the findings might be
considered singular instances of resistance, interpersonal conflicts, lack of visionary leadership,
or idiosyncratic organizational culture. In contrast, when the four tenets are brought to bear on
the findings, we can discern why and how policies with liberatory potential are redefined and
aligned to fit into the existing – albeit white-centered – environment.

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Connecting Findings to Research and Theory
I draw connections between these findings and the bodies of literature that informed this
study: a) sensemaking and policy interpretation, b) critical sensemaking, and c) developmental
education reform.
Sensemaking and Policy interpretation
Sensemaking studies on policy implementation have attempted to understand how
organizations develop new frames of action to create change (Coburn, 2005; Datnow, 2000;
Spillane et al., 2002). The literature on sensemaking emphasizes social-psychological factors of
sensemaking such as individual worldviews (Spillane et al., 2002), social and collective contexts
(Coburn, 2001; Hill, 2001; Spillane, 1999), professional communities (Spillane et al., 2006),
institutional context or “thought communities” (Coburn, 2001; Vaughan, 1996), and historical
contexts (Lin, 2000). My findings confirm previous literature while identifying additional issues
not discussed in previous studies regarding the sensemaking of developmental education
reforms: racialization in beliefs, mistrust of policymakers’ objectives, and a fear of identity loss.
Influence of Racialization in Sensemaking and Developmental Education. This study takes
on Parker's (1998) and Tate’s (1997) call to examine not whether racism exists within education
systems but to examine how racial meanings provide the basis for action. As previously
documented in the K-12 literature, perceptions of race impose meanings to policy based on the
social status, power, and attributes assigned to racial or ethnic groups (Evans, 2007). This study
confirms that racial meanings are evident in the interpretation of equity policies that may
materialize into support or opposition of such reforms. Awareness of racialization in
developmental education primed faculty advocates to see the movement towards developmental
reform in positive light reaffirming existing understandings (Spillane, 2000), namely, that

208

remediation harmed minoritized students. On the contrary, individuals who lacked the
knowledge to understand or accept how developmental education produced inequities did not
find professional development resources (Cohen & Hill, 2000) compelling enough to achieve
what Spillane and colleagues (2002) describe as a “sense of dissonance” that leads to
“reinterpretation of one’s beliefs (p. 418).” These findings reaffirm how not reaccessing one’s
beliefs can lead to policy interpretation that reinforces the status quo (Chase, 2013).
Critical scholars pay attention to the framing and defining of problems because they
inform responses to such problems (Tate, 1997). The opponents in this study framed the problem
as students being unprepared for transfer-level courses based on placement tests that have been
discredited. They lacked the awareness and resources (e.g., professional development) to
problematize their own practices and reflect on their implicit beliefs that reproduce inequality.
Their inability to question themselves and be less confident in their assertions obscured them to
the harms perpetrated by developmental education and blinded them to the possibilities for
transformative change offered by AB 705 (Hill, 2001). I am not suggesting that educators who
are ‘culturally aware’ translate their training and awareness into equitable practices (García &
Guerra, 2004). Rather, policy interpretation, particularly of reforms with equity implications, is
heavily influenced by racialized beliefs developed over a long time.
This study shows how academic departments reinforce broader racial superstructures
(Ray, 2018) by justifying racial inequality with racialized ideologies. For example, like Evans
(2007), I found that the prospect of minoritized students accessing a resource historically
reserved for students labeled as college-ready (i.e., transfer-level courses) led opponents to
magnify deficits associated with remedial education students and the potential tainting of
academic quality. Additionally, faculty opponents who failed to acknowledge racialization

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attempted to maintain status-quo structures like unchanged curriculum, the preservation of
developmental offerings, and “rigorous” teaching practices.
This study affirms the importance of Irby’s (2018) study showing how participation in
professional development offerings that are race-conscious and that use evidence to show the
ineffectiveness of developmental education can help shift actor’s sensemaking about race.
Opponents like Deborah Ridge became a supporter after frequent attendance. Sufficient
incentives for resistant faculty to participate in professional development opportunities are
essential to “grow the choir” of support and create more “Ridge’s” that can support department
leadership. Faculty should be given a chance to learn about and develop support for policy
reforms. Without these opportunities, it is unreasonable to expect that policies like AB 705 will
achieve their intended outcomes. This study highlights that race-conscious policy
implementation may hinge on conditions (e.g., trust in leadership, professional development) that
exposes participants to new approaches and theories and is informed by an understanding of
academic organizations as racialized.
Mistrust in the Motives of Policymakers and College Administrators. Opponents viewed AB
705 with suspicion and imagined that policymakers had hidden motives. Their mistrust of
external policymakers and their agendas overwhelmed the educational aims of AB 705. As
Cohen and March (1974) and Birnbaum (1989) suggest, in academic organizations that are
complex and where different groups vie for power and resources, policies often become “garbage
cans” to which unrelated things get attached. This was evident in the arguments made against AB
705. It was viewed as a money-saving strategy that was being intentionally disguised as an
education policy. It was also viewed as an attempt to divest faculty of their autonomy to exercise
their prerogative on academic matters. For opponents, AB 705 symbolized the loss of power and

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perhaps their deprofessionalization as policymakers and external actors (e.g., Education Trust-
West, the Campaign for College Opportunity) were perceived as usurping the power of faculty to
decide “what faculty members [teach]” and how it is taught (Clark Kerr, 2010, p. 128).
A policy like AB 705 is not experienced by campus participants as a detached,
ahistorical, objective, self-contained policy. For opponents, AB 705 was very much part of an
efficiency and accountability state agenda that threatened faculty autonomy and eroded their
power. The opponents’ suspicions were not totally unfounded. The current chancellor of
California’s community colleges, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, has been more willing to challenge the
statewide academic senate and join forces with external agencies to make progressive changes.
He is the first chancellor to speak out on racial equity and institutionalized racism and to center a
strategic plan on the imperative for closing racial gaps in graduation and transfer. These findings
indicate that policy interpretation is highly subjective and contingent on political conditions,
power, fear, and perceived motives not only situated in organizational, professional, and social
contexts (Lin, 2000; Spillane 1998; Yanow, 1996) but also broader policy contexts. These
findings are important because institutional leaders are responsible for implementing new
policies while responding to ideological resistance to reforms spanning many years.
Policies also become distorted or lethal mutations (McLaughlin & Mitra, 2001) when
implementation is not supported by professional development that ensures implementers
understand the theoretical underpinnings of a new program or initiative. Studies of innovations
(Chase et al., 2020a) show that in the absence of implementation facilitated by expertise, the first
stage of the innovation will lead implementers to reinterpret the innovation so that it fits with
prior knowledge, and to simplify it. For the most part, implementers on both camps interpreted
AB 705 as a policy to restructure developmental education through the addition of co-requisite

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courses. Liberatory pedagogical practices to address the myriad ways in which minoritized
students have been failed by the “subtractive practices” (Valenzuela, 2010) of developmental
education were rarely, if at all, considered. The faculty at community colleges is predominantly
white and many have been part of the system for decades. They have seen many innovations
come and go. As one of the study participants said, some faculty “fossilize” and exhibit a cynical
attitude toward anything that represents a departure from the familiar. In turn, cynical
implementers may succeed in blocking reform-minded leaders and early career faculty who have
not been able to build the “social credits” to control the reform agenda.
The Fear of Identity Loss Among Opponents. Membership in thought communities can help
define how we associate meaning with things. Our racial or ethnic identity, social class, political
leanings, and other “thought communities” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 404) help us categorize
phenomena developed from childhood through socialization in professions as adults. My
findings show that another barrier to AB 705’s implementation with fidelity to its potential as a
racial equity tool was a threat to professional identity. Instructors’ identities are strongly linked
to the courses they teach and their specialties. Titles such as “developmental specialist” and
“basic skills expert” were repeatedly used by faculty members to describe themselves. The
pattern of academic labor distribution at both sites made it a norm for faculty members to
identify as instructors of basic skills courses or transfer-level courses.
Consequently, eliminating basic skills courses for basic skills faculty opposed to AB 705
represented the loss of their professional identity and potentially the loss of a job and income.
Their resistance was ideological as well as self-preserving. Faculty opponents who taught the
exclusionary transfer-level general education courses transferable to the CSU and UC systems
also opposed AB 705. For these opponents, the prospect of their courses being filled by students

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who before AB 705 would have been channeled into basic skills courses, represented the
lowering of standards and loss of quality. Their courses would no longer have the status of
exclusion and therefore risked losing course “rigor.”
Access to transferable courses among faculty opponents was synonymous with ‘prepared’
students who were primarily white and perceived as academically capable of succeeding. AB
705 shook this sense of identity and questioned its underlying assumptions. This was
demonstrated at Village’s English department when AB 705 stood to expand access to the honors
program eliminating criteria like transfer-level placement that reproduced racial hierarchies.
Opponents did not overtly say they did not want minoritized students to access the honors
program post-AB 705. However, the implications of what an opponent said, “now we’re going to
just let anybody in?” were racially exclusionary (Dumas & Anyon, 2006). Furthermore, the
avoidance of educators to openly discuss race despite clear quantifiable racial inequities
(Pollock, 2004) neglects the coded manner that racial euphemisms can still perpetuate these
outcomes (Lewis, 2001).
The findings show differences in how elastic faculty were at the thought of curricular and
pedagogical reform. Faculty opponents’ teaching identity depended heavily on expectations of
class “rigor” rooted in their experiences of 4-year university teaching. The maintenance of course
rigor was so entrenched in the culture of departments that even early career faculty who
supported AB 705 felt pressured to teach in a manner that was “collegy.” This meant being more
lecture-focused with “strict” rules. The feeling of “collegy” teaching evoked the traditional
images of collegiality and shared values associated with the idealized image of “alma maters”
and what came after community college. These results suggest two things: first, patterns of hiring
and allocating teaching loads along levels (developmental or transfer) created siloes rooted in

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professional identity and departmental cultures that prevented faculty from seeing their practices
in a new light; and second, when actors interpret policies as contrary to existing academic
expectations, they may be less inclined to examine the authenticity of those expectations and
abandon the status quo.
Critical Sensemaking
Consistent with critical sensemaking, this study highlights the ways implementer identity
is tied to agency in the formulation of sensemaking (Helm Mills et al., 2010). The idea of
formative contexts – institutional and social practices that influence societal routines and limit
what can be imagined (Unger, 1987) – helped me see how whiteness (Leonardo, 2002) was
manifested in faculty attitudes about who was worthy of transfer-level placement and whose
faces reflected course curriculum changes post-AB 705. For example, one respondent described
the “imagined ideal” from the standpoint of opponents of what a transfer-level student looked
like – a non-disabled young white man. Such imaginary affirmed the belief among opponents
that developmental (e.g., minoritized) students would fail under AB 705. Another example in the
findings was the refusal of English faculty at Sunnyville to select a textbook written by an author
of color as the primary course text for transferable English. This example shows how whiteness
can be real in consequence (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) by maintaining belief systems that
materialize to exclude minoritized students.
The concept of organizational rules that argues rules control, constrain, guide, and define
social action (Helms Mills & Mills, 2017) helped highlight “how things [got] done” (Thurlow,
2009, p.3) to implement AB 705. The findings revealed power differentials in creating and
delivering rules that stalled attempts at developmental reform. For instance, the rule of public
voting to approve curriculum in Village’s English department undermined the agency of early

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career faculty. Respondents argued that senior faculty who created this informal rule “bullied”
and silenced the voices (Gaventa, 1982) of untenured faculty into voting in favor of proposals
endorsed by them. This finding suggests that rules and parallel cultural norms that enforce them,
like faculty claiming it is “tradition” to have public voting, can limit the transformative potential
of equity policies. Moreover, failed attempts to reform such rules show how power can reaffirm
existing structures. In this case, the rule-creators revolted against the dean who attempted to
change the rule.
Finally, discourse – language and related practices that normalize ideas to the point of
becoming ways of thinking and believing (Helms Mills & Mills, 2017) – highlighted how some
rhetoric proved critical while others less so (Dumas & Anyon, 2006). This study offers examples
of how rhetoric stymied progress and maintained the status quo privileging specific faculty
interests. For example, in Village, English faculty failed to produce corequisites over concerns of
faculty pay that were publicized collegewide in the form of a faculty union newsletter. In
Sunnyville English, a contested chair election left opponents attacking an incumbent by
delegitimizing her qualifications in public forums. The findings show how rhetoric during policy
implementation can materialize the flow of power to recenter the interests of the powerful. For
sensemaking, the results highlight how rhetoric during policy interpretation is ripe with power
asymmetries.
Developmental Education Reform
Existing research on developmental reforms can be summarized into four categories: a)
studies on the effectiveness of reforms on success outcomes measured by transfer-level course
completion, transfer to 4-year institutions, and degree or certificate completion; b) changes in the
share of course offerings under various models of developmental reform such as making

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remediation optional; c) availability of transfer-level course offerings and; d) implementation
studies into potential challenges enacting developmental reforms. Much of this literature uses
quantitative and qualitative data to make broad claims into the effectiveness of developmental
reforms. Existing studies neither examine the sensemaking of these reforms nor how race
influences implementation.
The results demonstrate faculty relied on a varied range of prior experiences, beliefs, and
schemas to understand the bill (Chase, 2014, 2016; Cohen & Ball, 1990; Spillane et al., 2006;
Spillane, 1998; Weick et al., 2005). Their interpretation was socially mediated (Coburn, 2001),
and their actions were contingent on existing hierarchies in their departments (Ray, 2019). Like
Brower and colleagues (2017), actors in this study had various self-interests in mind during the
implementation, including pay differentials, loss of power, and fear of identity loss (Chase, 2013;
2016). This study also affirms institutional leadership's role (Coburn, 2005) in setting the agenda
and guiding implementation.
Like recent reforms in California (i.e., guided pathways), developmental reforms treat
organizational change as a structural problem. There is an assumption that with time
implementers across 116 colleges will have the motivation and opportunities to change their
beliefs and cultural practices. While AB 705’s aspirational goals were endorsed from the
standpoint of equity, its specific mandates are raceless and averted attention to racial equity
(Trinidad & Felix, forthcoming). As this study shows, with limited state guidance, sensemaking
of AB 705 made the difference of whether implementation was designed from a sense of racial
justice or from the motivation to maintain the current system. In great part, at these two
institutions, the liberatory potential of AB 705 was severely weakened by the lack of strong race-
conscious guidance from the Chancellor’s office. The consequences of the Chancellor’s failure

216

to provide strong race-conscious guidance are also evident in a recent report on the
implementation of the Student Equity Plans, which found that the majority of colleges did not
mention race or specific racial groups in their planning efforts (Chase et al., 2020b).
The paradox is that the Chancellor has taken a strong stand on racial justice, but his
subordinates are more influenced by bureaucratic norms that lead to guidance memos that
emphasize procedural implementation over implementation for a greater good. Consequently, the
pursuit of a racial equity agenda depends greatly on equity-minded leaders and faculty who are
willing to rethink themselves and their practices (Bensimon, 2005). Otherwise, the equity
aspirations of AB 705 may go unrealized, or worse, poor success outcomes may reaffirm the
position taken by the policy’s detractors.
Implications for Policy
Several policy implications emerge from this study. Prior research has argued that clear
and concise policy language for equity initiatives are essential, not only in the rhetoric of policy
aspirations but, importantly, in the specific mandates (Felix & Trinidad, 2020). AB 705 could
have lessened ambiguity by clearly delineating the policy’s intended beneficiaries (Chase, 2013;
2016). For example, stronger policy language on developing a culturally responsive curriculum
and teaching to the colleges’ specific student population may have urged faculty to redesign their
classes with racial equity in mind. Clearer language may have allowed advocates like Dean
López to speak for support of equitable reform through the words of the bill, rather than her own,
which were cast as malicious and untrustworthy.
While accountability measures were generally vague and revolving, especially unclear
was whether colleges would be held to account to address equity issues during implementation.
Until November 2020, a full year after implementing the bill, colleges were guided to submit

217

data on equitable placement (Lowe & Davison, 2020). The explanation for this guidance is as
follows, “Submission of this data at this time supports colleges in assessing their equitable
placement practices in advance of the title 5 deadline and potential corrective action (p. 3).” The
data template prompts colleges to report various data, for instance, how well students with the
lowest GPAs performed in transfer-level courses, disaggregated by race and ethnicity. Such
accountability metrics earlier than 2020 would have likely helped colleges evaluate their existing
systems and coordinate change accordingly.
Vague and haphazard guidance from the Chancellor’s office left implementers in a state
of limbo over what to do next. If implementers took a step towards implementation, they risked
not complying with future Chancellor office requirements. In respondents' words, the
Chancellor’s office providing “guidance after the fact” complicated their planning efforts and
created uncertainty that any changes risked being rejected later by the state. Therefore, it is
unsurprising to have found a range of beliefs about the policy’s potential for equitable change.
Another factor to implementing AB 705 as an equity initiative was the people tasked with
overseeing implementation. There was a broad range of faculty beliefs and leadership
approaches to AB 705 in only two colleges studied. Such variability among two colleges that
were already “ahead” of implementation suggests additional forethought from policymakers was
warranted. It is insufficient to assume that campuses had avid supporters of developmental
reform in place who had the “skill and will (Dahl, 1984; Malen, 2006, p. 88)” to take on
implementation and its accompanying baggage (e.g., faculty resistance). Further, guardrails to
protect innovative leaders from faculty resistance were necessary. For instance, mandating full
transparency in disseminating information and clear communication across campus stakeholders
may have allowed faculty to trust leadership more easily. Uniform messaging about equitable

218

implementation may have assisted leadership intentions to appear less self-motivated.
Studies have found that policies that provide financial incentives and support tend to
receive greater acceptance, enthusiasm, and support (Stone, 2012). Both of my sites were
disappointed at the lack of financial support that accompanied AB 705. The Chancellor’s office
advised colleges to use Student Equity and Achievement (SEA) categorical funds. In the 2018-19
academic year, 114 colleges received $455 million in SEA funds. However, as both sites argued,
most of this funding was already allocated to existing equity programs, leaving them to make
difficult budgetary decisions. Extensive reforms like AB 705 that require cognitive shifts in
beliefs and a host of technical changes require funding to ensure smooth implementation. Also,
institutional leaders need a high level of equity competencies and race-consciousness to see this
reform as transforming the learning experiences of minoritized students.
Finally, the last consideration for policy was the management of time. College
practitioners who respond to a broad range of reforms and unexpected challenges (i.e., COVID-
19) are in a constant state of initiative fatigue (Kub & Hutchings, 2015). Community colleges do
not have an “Office of External Reform and Implementation” (Felix and Trinidad, 2020, p. 482),
and often responsibilities are added on top of existing ones. This reality clouded implementers'
ability to spend adequate time understanding, examining, and adjusting their practices, especially
with inconsistent guidance from the state.
Implications for Practice
Implications for practice are clear. Among the most pressing challenges in community
colleges is the diversification of the faculty body. In the fall of 2020, white students in California
community colleges represented 23.3 percent of the full-time equivalent student (FTES) body. In
the same semester, white faculty represented 56.9 percent of tenured and tenure track faculty.

219

These numbers are even more disparate when disaggregating by faculty rank. For the 48.1
percent of Latinx students, the system has yet to be led by comparable percentages of Latinx
administrators, faculty, and classified staff
13
.
In my findings, I show that primarily white faculty departments struggled to decenter
whiteness in ways that would lead to the equitable implementation of AB 705. From curriculum,
pedagogy, and assumptions about students, all four departments I studied exemplified the
centering of whiteness that in part was attributed to the underrepresentation of faculty of color.
While department leaders were aware of this problem and had taken steps to recruit more faculty
of color in recent years, such efforts were insufficient and too late to tilt the scales towards
equity. Colleges need to recruit racially and ethnically diverse individuals with a range of
personal and professional experiences that reflect race consciousness and care for racial equity.
Without fresh perspectives to challenge the status quo, the culture of academic departments will
remain insular and be used to discredit any “outsider” or policy from pushing racial equity
change.
My findings highlight challenges that emerge from leadership transitions during the
implementation of large-scale reforms. At Village, a deanship appointment right before AB 705
took effect resulted in pushback from faculty who felt too much change was pushed by an
“outsider.” At Sunnyville, a chairship transition halfway into AB 705’s implementation led to the
new incumbent’s legitimacy being questioned, which seeped into attitudes about the policy.
Furthermore, the vice president of academic affairs began her post at Sunnyville in 2018,
midway into AB 705’s implementation. This VP mainly was hands-off in bringing teams

13
Data extracted from California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) Datamart using “Faculty &
Staff Demographics Report” and “Full Time Equivalent Students (FTES) Summary Report” for the Fall 2020 term.

220

together to organize implementation in a manner that supports collective policy interpretation
(Coburn, 2005). These examples show that institutional and divisional knowledge acquired over
time is critical to advancing equitable policy implementation. These assets can help elicit buy-in
and leverage authority in productive ways that create change. However, that hinges on whether
leaders have equity competencies and the will to challenge the status quo. Sunnyville’s math
chair possessed various forms of capital to weld policy influence (Dahl, 1984) but did not
leverage them to advance racial equity in the manner intended by policymakers because she
“hated” AB 705.
Closing
I anticipated race to matter in the implementation of AB 705. I did not expect the level of
political calculations that leaders must undertake to center race during implementation. Also
unexpected was the organized resistance from some faculty who feared changes to the racialized
status quo. Such fear was rooted in perceived threats to personal faculty interests, position,
authority, and power. To many, AB 705 posed a risk to longstanding norms that were a source of
personal and professional identity. A lifelong career.
AB 705 was cast as a structural solution to a multifaceted problem that requires
structural, cultural, and personal change. However, it is hard to believe any reform like AB 705
can achieve its equity goals without diverse leadership that possesses critical race consciousness.
Moreover, as this dissertation hopefully makes clear, racialized organizations like community
colleges have a role in creating contexts favorable to transformational change. Without
awareness of the consequences of racialized practices – such as the pattern of not hiring faculty
and leadership of color – community colleges will be unable to answer the call as society’s
greatest equalizers.

221

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263

Appendix A
Policy Context: California Initiatives Leading up to AB 705

Year Initiative Outcome
2006

Basic Skills
Initiative (BSI)

Grant funded through the Strategic Plan of the California
Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), BSI calls for
colleges to develop action plans to spend supplemental funds to
address the needs of students placed in developmental education.

2010 SB 1140:
Student
Transfer
Achievement
Act (Padilla)

SB 1143:
Community
Colleges:
Student Success
and
Completion:
Taskforce and
Plan

Collaboration by California Community Colleges (CCC) and the
California State University (CSU) to create Associate Degree for
Transfer (AD-T) programs that guarantee transfer with junior
standing to the CSU.

Bill requires Board of Governors (BOG) to adopt plan to improve
student success by establishing a taskforce to examine, provide
recommendations, and report out best practices and models for
achieving student success.
2012 SB 1456:
Seymour-
Campbell
Success Act of
2012

Student Success
Task Force
(SSTF)

SB 1456 directed BOG to 1) create mandatory processes for
incoming students 2) place limitations on time to degree declaration
3) set academic standards for low-income students obtaining fee
waivers and 4) create the Student Success and Support Program
(SSSP).

Through SB 1143 in 2011, 23-member task force provides 22
recommendations to improve “the educational outcomes of our
students and workforce preparedness of our state.”
2014 SB 850:
Baccalaureate
Pilot Degree
Program

SB 1456:
Student Success
& Support
Program
(SSSP)
BOG authorized in collaboration with CCC and CSU systems to
create statewide baccalaureate degree pilot program under specified
degree completion timeframes and specific curricula not offered by
the CSU or University of California (UC) systems but necessary for
workforce needs.

Student Success and Support Program (SSSP) offered funds to
create admissions, orientations, assessment, counseling and student
follow-up processes (formerly matriculation).

264

SB 860: Budget
Trailer Bill

Student Equity
Planning (SEP)

To receive SB 1456 funds for SSSP, colleges must submit a Student
Equity Plan.

To receive equity funding ($530 million since 2014), colleges
required to develop equity plans that require community colleges to
identify inequities, develop activities, and create goals for achieving
equitable student success outcomes.

2015 Basic Skills
Outcomes and
Transformation
Program
Funding ($89 million) provided 5-year grants to 64 colleges to
improve basic skills completion rates by implementing or expanding
innovations and redesign in the assessment, student services, and
instruction.

2016 AB 1602:
Strong
Workforce
(SW)
Through BOG recommendations, funding ($248 million) allocated
to develop career technical education (CTE). Innovative, risk-
taking, and data-driven approaches called upon to be competitive for
California’s labor market.

2017 AB 19:
California
College
Promise

Guided
Pathways
Program

Vision for
Success

AB 705:
Seymour-
Campbell
Student Success
Act of 2012:
Matriculation:
Assessment

Funding allocated to community college to waive fees for one
academic year for new enrolling fulltime students who submit a
FAFSA/CA Dream application.

Multiyear framework designed to have all California Community
Colleges implement Guided Pathways to improve student outcomes.
The framework integrates support services with clear course-taking
processes that promote more effective enrollment and course
completion outcomes.

CCCCO Chancellor Eloy Oakley Ortiz set state-wide goals to be
met by 2022 for the community colleges centered on: increased
degree, credential, certificate completion rates, increased percent of
transfer students to the CSU or UC, decreased accumulation of units
to earn an associate’s degree, increased percent of CTE students
employed in field of study, reduce equity gaps, and reduce regional
achievement gaps across all measures.

Legislative mandate requires colleges to use multiple measures
(high school grades, coursework, GPA, etc.) when making English
and math placement decisions. Colleges required to maximize the
probability that students will complete college-level coursework
within one year.

265

2018 AB 1809:
Student
Centered
Funding
Formula
(SCFF)

The bill bases community college funding for each full-time
equivalent student (FTES) on 25 percent of the SCFF on student
transfer and completion outcomes.
Sources: (About Guided Pathways, 2016; Advancing Student Success in the California Community
Colleges: Recommendations of the California Community Colleges Student Success Task Force,
2012; Basic Skills Student Outcomes and Transformation (BSSOT) Program, 2015; BSI: A
Collaborative Project Driven by the System’s Strategic Plan, 2009; Statutory Language: Student
Centered Funding Formula – AB 1809, 2018; What Is Strong Workforce?, 2016; Senate Bill - SB-
1440 California Community Colleges: Student Transfer, 2010; Assembly Bill - AB-19 Community
Colleges: California College Promise., 2017; Senate Bill - SB-860 Education Finance: Education
Omnibus Trailer Bill., 2014; Assembly Bill - AB-1809 Higher Education Trailer Bill., 2018; Senate
Bill - SB-850 Public Postsecondary Education: Community College Districts: Baccalaureate
Degree Pilot Program, 2014; Assembly Bill - AB-705 Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of
2012: Matriculation: Assessment., 2017; Senate Bill - SB-1143 Community Colleges: Student
Success and Completion: Taskforce and Plan., 2010; Senate Bill - SB-1456 Community Colleges:
Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012., 2012)

266

Appendix B
AB 705’s Goals Regarding Assessment, Placement, and Curriculum

AB 705: Irwin.
Seymour-Campbell
Student Success Act of
2012: matriculation:
assessment*
Written by: Jacqui Irwin (Democrat representing 44
th
Assembly District in California)
Signed by: California Governor Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (October 13, 2017)
Timeline: Full implementation required by Fall 2019
Policy Goals 1. Increase the number of students who enter and complete transfer-level English and
math courses within one year
2. Minimize the disproportionate impact on students created through inaccurate
placement processes
3. Increase the number of students completing transfer-level English within three
years.

Assessment and
placement
• Bans use of cognitive skills tests for the purposes of placement. Colleges must rely
on multiple measures using the following criteria: high school coursework, high
school grades, and high school GPA, as well as non-cognitive measures (e.g., time-
management, academic self-confidence, decision making)
• Colleges must use “default placement rules” offered by the Chancellor’s office
which provides recommendations of placement based on high school course-taking
and performance
o Colleges can design their own local placement rules but must provide data
evidence that their localized rules are better for students within two years
• Prohibits placement of students in developmental English or math courses unless
colleges can prove that students are “highly unlikely” to succeed in a transfer course
and that enrollment in pre-transfer course will increase the likelihood of passing
gateway transfer-level course within one year (“throughput”)
• Students have the right to learn about their rights under AB 705 and can also
challenge placement
• Accelerated English and math courses count as pre-transfer courses, so colleges
must also prove the efficacy of these courses to improve throughput rate
• Among students who graduated from high school within the past years and whose
goal is to transfer, colleges should enroll these students directly into transfer-level
courses. For students who attended high school more than 10 years ago, colleges
should use self-reported high school data and self-placement
• College should adjust placement for students who received placement prior to the
implementation of AB 705 so they can retroactively benefit from the policy

Curriculum • Curriculum should align with student’s goals and skillsets necessary to complete
transfer-level English and math courses within one year
• Non-STEM major students should have access to pathways in liberal arts math and
statistics

267

• Career and Technical Education (CTE) students should have access to relevant math
courses applicable to their career and technical programs.
• Colleges can offer preparatory programs for credit and non-credit (e.g., gear up)
• Faculty required to review developmental education course offerings to see if they
are relevant
• New curriculum to meet or exceed throughput rates compared to direct placement
must provide data evidence within 2 years

Co-Curricular • Co-requisite courses can be required if they increase the likelihood that students
will pass transfer-level courses
• These co-requisite courses should not be part of the English and math sequence, and
they do not count towards the 1-year clock

*Although AB 705 also mandates changes in ESL, this study only examines changes to English and math courses
since completion of these courses serve as a barrier for an overwhelming majority of new enrolling community
college students.

268

Appendix C
Historical Context of Developmental Education in the U.S. 1800s-Present

Time
period
Historical context State of
Developmental
Education

Explanation of poor
academic
performance
19
th
century
– early 20
th

century
Primary and secondary
education were not
required in the 19
th
century.
Compulsory education
began in the 20
th
century.

Since the mid-1800s,
universities sought to
end admission to
students with
“defective preparation”
Between 1894 to
1920s, poor study
habits believed the
cause of poor academic
performance.
1920s –
WWII
High school preparation
improved, and new
generations of 2-year
colleges established.
Most 4-year colleges
stopped providing
developmental
education. 2-year
colleges absorb the
bulk of developmental
education students.

Between 1930s-1940s,
poor reading and study
skills believed to cause
poor academic
performance.
Post-WWII Due to the G.I. Bill, many
“underprepared students”
enroll in colleges and
universities.
4-year colleges begin
testing applicants to
identify underprepared
students and admit only
those most promising.
Rejected students
enroll in community
colleges and technical
institutions.
Environmental and
socioeconomic factors
cited as primary cause
of poor academic
performance.
“Compensatory”
replaced by
“developmental or
remedial” to describe
the additional
education required for
underprepared students.

1950s Sputnik-era/Cold war
competition drives up
college and university
admission standards.
Further bulk of basic
skills training shifts to
the 2-year colleges.
Continued reliance on
environmental and
socioeconomic factors
to explain academic
performance.

1960s-
1970s
More “underprepared
students” are graduating
high school. The Higher
Education Act of 1965
(HEA) expands access to
2-year/4-year colleges
expand access and offer
credit for
developmental
education. By 1970s,
Socioeconomic factors
still believed to cause
low academic
performance until early
1970s. Cultural and

269

college for minoritized
students.
developmental
education become
major function of the
community colleges.

individual student
differences as well as
learning styles added to
the list of causes.
1980s-
1990s
Tightening of higher
education resources and
further increases to the
number of students’
requiring postsecondary
developmental education.
States move towards
improving K-12
preparation, raised
admission standards for
bachelor’s degree
programs, and
increased providers of
developmental
education (e.g., private
for-profit colleges)

Fee costs seen as a
barrier for students’
college degree
progression and
completion.
2000s-2010 2008 recession
significantly decreases
higher education budgets
across the U.S. The Higher
Education Opportunity Act
of 2008 improves access to
postsecondary education to
students with intellectual
disabilities and increased
eligibility for financial aid.
Studies examine
pitfalls of
developmental
education. Calls for
efficiency in placement
put pressure on the
community colleges to
improve their
developmental course
sequence offerings and
placement practices.

Enrolling in
developmental
education seen as
growing impediment to
completing degrees and
transfer to the 4-year
university.
2010s-
Present
National foundations (e.g.,
Campaign for College
Opportunity, Complete
College America, Jobs for
the Future, etc.) partner
with organizations to push
a developmental education
reform movement aimed at
improving completion
rates, shortening time to
degree/credentials, and
more efficiently leading to
college-level courses.
National emphasis on
completing degrees for
economic vitality.
Adoption by states to
new forms of
developmental
education including
corequisite courses,
accelerated
coursework, placement
into college-level,
supplemental
instruction, multiple
measures, etc.).
Developmental
education seen as major
obstacle in efficiently
and effectively
completing degrees.

Poor academic
performance explained
by coursework that is
not career oriented or
relevant to the student.
Greater emphasis on
structuring students’
experience in college
(e.g., guided pathways)
by limiting choice and
pathways for college.
States moving away
from developmental
education as inhibitor
of student success.

270

Sources: Amended from Renfro and Armour-Garb (1999) using additional citations (Baker, 1993; Boylan &
Boone, 1995; Ignash, 1997; Johnstone & Lane, 2012; Katsinas & Tollefson, 2009; McMillan et al., 1997;
Ravitch, 1974; Shults, 2000)

271

Appendix D
U.S. States Implementing Changes to Developmental Education

State Prior outcomes Change in developmental education Outcomes after
change
California
(2017)
Under 44% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 6
years*
AB 705 – Requires community colleges
to maximize the probability that
students complete transfer-level English
and math courses within one year of
starting by using requires multiple
measures for assessment and
corequisite models for instruction

N/A

Connecticut
(2012)
Under 17% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years
PA 12-40 – required reconfiguration of
developmental education by both
colleges and high schools. Limits
developmental education to one
semester, introduces multiple measures
for placement, and embeds support for
college-level courses

N/A
Colorado
(2013)
Under 31% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years

Corequisite developmental education –
taskforce led self-study led to adoption
of corequisite developmental education
and structured math pathways

Over 64 % of
students
completed
English and math
developmental
education in 1
year
Florida
(2013)

Under 25% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years

SB 1720 – Mandates colleges not to
require developmental education for
those with Florida HS diploma and
institutions must also offer more
flexible options for student outside this
exemption
N/A
Georgia
(2011)
Under 20% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years

“Complete College Georgia”
introduced by Georgia’s Governor
brings on corequisite developmental
education – Faculty taskforce led policy
changes system-wide

Over 63 % of
students
completed
English and math
developmental
education in 1
year

272

Indiana
(2014)
Under 37% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years

Multiple measures and corequisite
developmental education – Grant
funded self-study of Ivy Tech
Community College supported scaling
of corequisite developmental courses in
math/English system-wide
Over 55 % of
students
completed
English and math
developmental
education in 1
year
Minnesota
(2016)
Under 60% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education**

HF 2749 – Mandates colleges not to
require developmental education for
students who meet benchmarks on state
HS exams, the ACT, or SAT
N/A
North
Carolina
(2009)
N/A Together with Achieving the Dream
and Jobs for the Future, Developmental
Education Initiative (DEI), a state DE
redesign policy, formed a working
team. Changes included integrated or
accelerated coursework and multiple
measures for placement practices.
Intermediate algebra no longer required
to be eligible for college math courses
in liberal arts majors. Redesigned math
placement tests.

N/A
Oregon
(2015)
Under 22% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years

HB 2681 – taskforce created to evaluate
and recommend best practices for
developmental education
assessment/placement
N/A
Tennessee
(2010)
Under 31% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years
TN Board of Regents A-100 Guideline
– Corequisite developmental education
– Complete College Tennessee Act
prohibited developmental education in
the 4-year colleges. System-wide
corequisite models implemented across
Tennessee community colleges in fall
2015

Over 61 % of
students
completed
English and math
developmental
education in 1
year

273

Texas
(2017)
Under 17% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years
HB 2223 mandates corequisite
developmental education – range of
corequisite models including extended
instructional time, paired courses,
mandatory academic support services,
and technology-mediated support.
Mandates 75% of developmental
education to be corequisite courses by
2020.

Preliminary
results are
promising
Virginia
(2008)
N/A Developmental Education Task Force
created to study DE outcomes and offer
recommendations. DE English and
reading courses were integrated.
Intermediate algebra no longer required
to be eligible for college math courses
in liberal arts majors. Redesigned math
placement tests.

N/A
Washington
(2013)
Under 47% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education**

SB 5712 – Encourages colleges to use
multiple measures for developmental
placement. Encourages colleges to use
multiple measures for developmental
placement.
N/A
West
Virginia
(2013)
Under 37% of
students
completed
math/English
developmental
education in 2
years
Corequisite developmental education –
Chancellor individually convinced
college presidents to reform
developmental education. Academy
formed to develop a Corequisite
Developmental education
implementation plan

Over 62 % of
students
completed
English and math
developmental
education in 1
year
Sources: (Carroll, 2011; Corequisite Remediation: Spanning the Completion Divide, 2019; Developmental
Education (PA 12-40), 2012; Daugherty et al., 2018; Fergus et al., 2015; Scott-Clayton, 2018; Kalamkarian et
al., 2015; Mejia et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2019)
*Data is for 6 years rather than 2 years, as such California rates are not scaled to those of other states
**Unclear timeframe for completion rates as reported by Minnesota and Washington

274

Appendix E
Service Area Characteristics of Study Sites (2017)

Service area of college: Sunnyville Village
Established 1886 1886
Race/ethnicity (percent)
White
Black
American Indian/ Alaska Native
Asian
Native Hawaiian/ Other Pacific Islander
Latinx (Hispanic non-white)

76.6
4.3
0.4
10.0
0.1
16.0

53.9
10.2
0.3
16.3
0.2
34.4
Sex (percent)
Male
Female

49.1
50.9

48.3
51.7
Educational Attainment (25 years and over; percent)
Less than 9
th
grade
High school, no diploma
High school diploma
Some college, no degree
Associate’s degree
Bachelor’s degree
Graduate or professional degree

2.9
2.9
8.7
13.6
5.0
38.7
28.4

7.9
4.5
13.7
15.6
7.2
27.6
23.5
Population Total
Average household size
Home ownership rate
Median property value
Median household income
Median age
Individuals below poverty level
89,736
1.96
27.7
$1,170,000
$86,084
40.5
10.7
137,122
2.5
43.6
$689,700
$76,264
37.9
15.5

275

Appendix F
General Interview Guide for Faculty, Counselors, Administrators, and Staff

Introduction
Thank you for taking the time today to speak with me. My name is Adrián Trinidad and I am a
PhD candidate at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. I
have asked to interview you because you are involved with implementation of AB 705 at the
college. This is a semi-structured interview, which means that while I have a protocol with some
set questions, the course of this interview will be dictated by what you tell me.

Interview Goals
There are two purposes for this interview. First, I am interested in learning about your role in
implementing AB 705. Second, I would also like to learn about your understanding of AB 705
and how you came to understand it through your work.

Before we continue, I would like to ask whether it is possible for me to audio record this
interview?

Informed Consent
I have with me an informed consent form, which outlines your rights as a participant in this
study.

I would like to emphasize three points. First, I will make every effort to keep your responses
confidential. What this means is that no one besides myself and/or a professional transcriber will
hear the audio recording of this interview. It also means that transcripts will not contain your real
name; I will provide you with a pseudonym, unless you want to prove me with one of your own
choosing.

Second, please know that your participation in this interview and in the study more generally, is
voluntary. You can stop the interview at any time. You can also tell me to stop recording at any
time, or to indicate whether a comment is “off the record.”

Finally, you will not receive payment or compensation for doing the interview.

[Provide form and give a few minutes for review, signing.]

Time Frame and Questions

The interview should last no more than one hour. Do you have any questions?

Interview Questions:
Role and responsibilities
1. How long have you been at the college?
a. What is your title of your current job?
b. Prior to this job, did you serve in another role at the college?

276

2. Can you describe your responsibilities as [job title]?
a. What aspect of these responsibilities relate to implementing AB 705?
b. In addition to the daily responsibilities of your job, do you serve on any committees?
c. What is your role on these committees?
d. What responsibilities do you have as a member of this committee?

3. In addition to the daily responsibilities of your job, are you involved in other campus
programs or initiatives?
a. Which programs/initiatives?
b. What is the purpose of these programs/initiatives?
c. What is your role on these programs/initiatives?

Understanding of AB 705
4. Before AB 705, what was working well in developmental education? What was not working
well? Probe on assessment tests, multiple measures, corequisite, optional placement, etc.

5. What do you think is the purpose of AB 705? Why?
a. How did you learn about AB 705? How was it introduced?
b. Who is responsible for the implementation of AB 705? What is their racial/ethnic
composition?
c. If someone not familiar with AB 705 wanted to know why it was adopted, what
would you say? Probe about race and ethnicity, racial gaps in developmental
education
d. What are the benefits of AB 705? What are the cons?

6. How does your understanding of AB 705 shape…
a. Your work as [role, e.g., faculty member, department chair, committee member]?

7. When do you know that this college has fully implemented AB 705? Does it mean that
developmental education is eliminated altogether?

8. How is AB 705 talked about at this college?
a. Where is AB 705 talked about the most? (e.g., committee meetings, academic senate,
informal conversations, etc.)
b. Is there something from those conversations that stands out to you? What is it?
c. What do you think AB 705 means for the college?
d. When AB 705 was introduced, how was the policy received by the campus?

8. What do race and ethnicity have to do with this policy from your perspective? From the
campuses perspective? From the policy’s perspective?
a. What is the dominant view of race in this campus?
b. How are these views supporting or limiting the potential of AB 705?

Role of organizations in sensemaking
9. How does this college support or constrain your understanding of AB 705?

277

a. Does this college provide the appropriate resources to implement AB 705 as you
understand it? Why?
b. Do you feel you have the agency to implement AB 705 as you understand it?
Why?
a. If not, who has the resources to shape how AB 705 is implemented?

10. Are there any rules set forth by the college that should be followed when implementing AB
705?
a. What are the rules?
b. Who made the rules?
c. Does anyone get to break the rules? Why?

11. Many organizations and education leaders have highlighted the ways developmental
education reinforces racial inequities in the community colleges. Do you believe it is possible
for AB 705 to close existing equity gaps developmental education? How so?

12. Who are the most active proponents of AB 705 here? Who would you say is skeptical of AB
705?

Closing Questions and Remarks
That’s it for my questions. Do you have questions for me before we close?
I’ll be reviewing this interview closely over the next week or so. It’s possible that I may have
additional questions or follow-up questions. Would you be open to talking again?
Thank you again for your time.

278

Appendix G
Summary Characteristics of Interview Participants

Name Site Race Gender Title Tenure
Length at
institution
Stance on
AB 705
Dr. Malee Trubbaya Village Asian Female Administrator Yes 17 Advocate
Dr. Selina Rodriguez Village Latinx Female Administrator Yes 11 Advocate
Dr. Angélica López Village Latinx Female Administrator N/A 3 Advocate
Jenna Blackwood Village White Female Administrator N/A 16 Advocate
Dr. Jesse McCallon Village White Male Administrator Yes 2 Advocate
Dr. Adam Miller Village White Male Administrator N/A 3 Advocate
Dr. Naomi Crest Village White Female Counseling Yes 8 Opponent
Simon Kho Village Asian Male English Faculty Yes 18 Advocate
Nia Hill Village Black Female English Faculty Yes 2.5 Advocate
Sofía Chávez Village Latinx Female English Faculty Yes 15 Advocate
Nancy Rivera Village Latinx Female English Faculty Yes 6.5 Advocate
Arturo Gutierrez Village Latinx Male English Faculty Yes 20 Opponent
Dr. Julia Sanders Village White Female English Faculty Yes 12 Opponent
Dave Wilson Village White Male English Faculty N/A 16 Advocate
Randy Sherman Village White Male English Faculty N/A 18 Advocate
Gilberto Beltrán Village Latinx Male Math Faculty Yes 7 Advocate
Sam Moore Village Multiracial Female Math Faculty N/A 2 Advocate
Ashlee Roberts Village White Female Math Faculty Yes 2.5 Opponent
Deborah Ridge Village White Female Math Faculty Yes 20.5 Advocate
Dr. Karen Park Village White Female Math Faculty Yes 9 Opponent
Dr. Ben Clark Village White Male Math Faculty No 12 Advocate
Dr. Jacob Omar Village White Male Math Faculty Yes 8.5 Advocate
Angel Vásquez Sunnyville Latinx Male Administrator No 20 Advocate
Dr. Vanessa Nelson Sunnyville White Female Administrator Yes 29 Advocate
Kevin Cook Sunnyville White Male Administrator N/A 13 Advocate

279

Sarah Hayes Sunnyville White Female Counseling Yes 31 Opponent
Antony Lewis Sunnyville Black Male English Faculty Yes 3 Advocate
Letty Sanchez Sunnyville Latinx Female English Faculty No 22 Opponent
Cassie Walker Sunnyville White Female English Faculty N/A 15.5 Opponent
Kathy Petersen Sunnyville White Female English Faculty No 14 Advocate
Taylor Scott Sunnyville White Female English Faculty Yes 16 Advocate
Brooke Foster Sunnyville White Female English Faculty Yes 13 Advocate
Deandra Shaw Sunnyville Black Female Math Faculty No 5 Advocate
Darrell Little Sunnyville Black Male Math Faculty Yes 18 Opponent
Justin Floyd Sunnyville Black Male Math Faculty Yes 12 Advocate
Evan Ramirez Sunnyville Latinx Male Math Faculty N/A 3 Advocate
Jessica Amiri Sunnyville White Female Math Faculty Yes 30 Opponent
Emma Smith Sunnyville White Female Staff Yes 5 Opponent

280

Appendix H
Summary of Course Sequence Changes Pre and Post-AB 705

Department Year
6 levels
below
5 levels
below
4 levels
below
3 levels
below
2 levels
below
1 level
below
Transfer
level
Village
English
(before
2018)

• •
English**
Accelerated
(2018)

• *
English**
AB 705
(2019)

English**
Math
Accelerated
(2016)

•
SLAM
STEM
(2016)

• • • •
STEM
SLAM
(2016)

• • •
SLAM or
STEM
AB 705
(2018)
STEM*
AB 705
(2018)
SLAM*
Sunnyville
English
(before
2015)
• • • *** • *** • •
English*
Accelerated
(2017)

• •
English*
AB 705
(2018)

•
English*
Math
(before
2015)

• • • •
STEM*
Accelerated
(2016)

• • •
Statistics*
Accelerated
(2016)

•
STEM or
Statistics*
AB 705
(2019)

•
STEM*
AB 705
(2019)

•
Statistics*
Blue dots reflect a level below the transfer level. A gray box represents no developmental courses offered.
* Corequisite support offered, using multiple measures ** no corequisite support offered *** assessment waiver
possible depending on essay score

281

Appendix I
Post-AB 705 Success Outcomes for Village and Sunnyville
Village
English
Village
Math
Sunnyville
English
Sunnyville
Math
Percent of courses offered at transfer-level in
Fall 2019

100% 100% 97.6% 70.5%
Enrollment numbers in transfer-level course 832
Fall 2016;
2,838
Fall 2019
435
Fall 2016;
1,616
Fall 2019
778
Fall 2017;
1,793
Fall 2019
1,323
Fall 2017;
2,199
Fall 2019

Success rate of transfer-level course

68.6%
Fall 2016;
58.6%
Fall 2019

76.9%
Fall 2016;
54.1%
Fall 2019

68.5%
Fall 2017;
62.9%
Fall 2019

8.2%
Fall 2017;
11.4%
Fall 2019

Village English – Percent of First-Time in College Freshmen Successful in English 1 in First-Term
by Ethnicity/Race (includes an honors version of transferable English, no corequisite)

282

Village Math – Percent of First-Time in College Freshmen Successful in Transfer-Level Math in
First-Term by Ethnicity/Race (includes STEM and non-STEM transfer-level courses)

Sunnyville English – Percent of First-Time in College Freshmen Successful in English 1 in First-
Term by Ethnicity/Race (includes corequisite)

283

Sunnyville Math – Percent of First-Time in College Freshmen Successful in Transfer-Level Math in
First Term by Ethnicity/Race (includes STEM and non-STEM transfer-level courses + corequisite)

284

Appendix J
Request for Interview: AB 705 Policy Implementation

Dear X,
I hope you are having a great fall semester.

My name is Adrián Trinidad and I am a Ph.D. candidate at the USC Rossier School of
Education. At the Center for Urban Education under Dr. Estela Mara Bensimon, I conduct
research on racial equity in community colleges and policy implementation. AB 705 as you
know is one such policy with the potential to change success outcomes in remedial education.
My dissertation examines how individuals like yourself understand and implement AB 705.
______ ______ suggested I speak with you given your involvement with AB 705.

I want to ask if you would please be willing to take part in an interview for my dissertation.
Given your important role in implementing AB 705, I hope to understand what the
implementation process has been like for you as well as your experience implementing the
policy. My hope is that the results of this study will add to scholarly and practitioner discussions
on policies like AB 705 – what works and what does not – as well as what others can learn from
your experience.

To this end, I ask if you would please accept my invitation for an interview. The interview
should last up to an hour. I am very flexible in days and times available and can meet you
at a place that is most convenient for you.

Please let me know if and when this might be possible for you. Thank you so much for your
time.

You are greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
Adrián Trinidad

285

Appendix K
Study Limitations

This study has three limitations. The first limitation was time. I interviewed participants
spring of 2020, one semester after mandated full compliance of AB 705. By this time, I assumed
implementers had transformed their developmental systems with all necessary support systems in
place (e.g., corequisites). This was not the case. For instance, corequisites for Village’s English
division were offered until spring 2021. Given that sensemaking is iterative and recursive
(Coburn, 2001), the meaning-making of AB 705 may change over time.
The insights I captured were a snapshot after immediate implementation. As
implementers continue to wrestle with the policy’s demands, they cannot fully describe what
implementation means because my respondents were actively interpreting and enacting AB 705
when I left Village and Sunnyville. In fact, many speculated the policy would evolve along with
their actions. DeLeon and DeLeon (2002) describe policy implementation as “what happens
between policy expectations and policy results” (p. 472). The results of AB 705, while
promising, are preliminary and will likely remain that way considering the COVID-19 global
pandemic, which obscured the policy’s outcomes.
Next, respondents were primarily supporters of AB 705, and few vehemently opposed it.
Faculty who were firmly against the policy were challenging to reach in this study despite my
many attempts. One plausible reason was the angle that prospective interviewees may have
believed I brought to the research. When reaching out to respondents, my recruitment email
included the following (Appendix J): I conduct research on racial equity in community colleges
and policy implementation. AB 705 as you know is one such policy with the potential to change
success outcomes in developmental education. My dissertation examines how individuals like
yourself understand and implement AB 705. Perhaps AB 705 opponents believed my framing of

286

the bill based on my training and research would cast their comments in a negative light, hence
why maybe fewer of them accepted to interview. While I attempted to be fully transparent about
my research aims, undoubtedly who I was may have swayed away respondents.
To elucidate this point, three equity-oriented faculty indicated to me after our interview
that they accepted to be interviewed after seeing my background, research, and affiliation with
the USC Center for Urban Education. They did not want to be interviewed about AB 705 by
“non-critical” researchers for fear their words would be skewed to frame the policy negatively.
In contrast, two of the most resistant and outspoken opponents of AB 705 challenged me before,
during, and after our interview. My dissertation data, interview questions, and assumptions about
AB 705 were criticized. Concerns about confidentiality were also evident among opponents. I
sensed discomfort in these interviews despite attempting to treat respondents with humility and
respect. It is also undeniable that asking sensitive questions about political turmoil and
challenges with colleagues would cause hesitance.
I approached this obvious limitation by treating each interview with no predetermined
bias as much as possible. My goal during data analysis was to understand how respondents came
to their beliefs, not the righteousness of their beliefs. I assumed all respondents intended well and
that each believed they were making strides towards equity. This intentional naivety allowed me
to focus on the aspects of critical race sensemaking that would help explain patterns in the data,
not my personal beliefs about data. That said, the data in this study skews towards equity-
oriented supporters and their secondhand accounts about what opponents believed. These
interviewees recited verbatim, sometimes with vivid detail, what opponents shared. My attempts
to then paint a straightforward story while obviously imperfect is still valuable in elucidating
challenges. This study may have looked different as an ethnography captured when

287

conversations about implementation took place. However, as I indicated in chapter 4, given my
data collection timeline and my research questions, there was limited value in conducting
observations after most implementation decisions were already made.
Finally, a third limitation is that I made mistakes conducting interviews, particularly
toward the end of data collection. In the beginning, I linearly asked questions and followed up on
a range of questions. As the interviews progressed, I began to seek out in several interviews (i.e.,
about four interviews) whether emerging themes were correct. As an example, when Dr. López
shared that recently tenured faculty of color were afraid to speak up under her leadership and did
not feel “safe,” I asked, “And likely because of the older tenured faculty?” Instead, I should have
asked, “what might make them still feel unsafe?” to not predetermine Dean López’s answer. An
interview response fresh in my mind from another faculty member prompted me to ask her
whether older tenured faculty made early career faculty feel “unsafe.” She agreed – and further
shared that the department's broader culture was one of “bullying.” However, Dr. López may
have shared differently had I not felt overly confident about emerging themes.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Trinidad, Adrián Luis (author)

Core Title AB 705: the equity policy – race and power in the implementation of a developmental education reform

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Urban Education Policy

Publication Date 11/19/2021

Defense Date 08/24/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag AB 705,AB705,California Community Colleges,Community colleges,critical race sensemaking,critical sensemaking,developmental education,developmental education reform,Higher education,implementation of developmental education reform,OAI-PMH Harvest,policy implementation,Power,Race,racialized organizations,sensemaking

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bensimon, Estela Mara (committee chair), Harper, Shaun Ramon (committee member), Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette (committee member)

Creator Email adriantrinid@gmail.com,adriantrinidad@alumni.usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC17138272

Unique identifier UC17138272

Legacy Identifier etd-TrinidadAd-10245

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Trinidad, Adrián Luis

Type texts

Source 20211122-wayne-usctheses-batch-899-nissen (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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