Giving Compass' Take:

• A bipartisan bill in Colorado bans four-year colleges from giving students placement exams for remedial courses after finding that they are holding many individuals back from obtaining a degree. 

• What are the challenges with this approach? 

•  Here are other ways policymakers have begun to look past remedial courses. 

A bachelor’s degree eluded Armando Manzanares for two decades because he couldn’t pass introductory college math. As he got older, his lack of a degree made it harder and harder to catch the attention of potential employers.

“I had all this experience, but I still didn’t have that damn degree,” Manzanares, an alumnus of Denver’s North High School, said. “It was really hard to find equitable employment.”

A bipartisan bill that passed the state House this week would take the approach that ultimately helped Manzanares get his bachelor’s degree and make it the standard across Colorado’s four-year institutions.

More than a third of students entering college in Colorado need some sort of remedial coursework, with the numbers much higher for students of color, those from low-income families, and those who are first-generation college students. For many of them, it ends up being a roadblock. Between 10 and 20 percent of students assigned to remedial, non-credit coursework ever make it to a college-level math class.

Instead of paying for multiple semesters of basic math or English courses before they could even attempt college algebra or freshman composition, most students would be able to sign up for college-level courses that allow them to earn credit and then receive tutoring or additional class time to master the material. The bill allows four-year institutions to offer such instruction without getting prior approval. And it bans the practice of using a single placement test to put students in remedial education.

Since the community college system rolled out supplemental academic instruction starting in 2013, the pass rates for English classes have increased from 36 percent to 74 percent and the pass rates for math classes have increased from 16 percent to 40 percent.

Read the full article about phasing out remedial education by Erica Meltzer at Chalkbeat