By Amy Leonard, De Anza College
California’s AB 1705 (Irwin) aimed to remove unnecessary barriers that delayed community college students from entering transfer-level mathematics. Its equity goal matters: students should not be placed in lengthy preparatory sequences when they can succeed in calculus.
However, interviews with De Anza College mathematics faculty Doli Bambhania and Usha Ganeshalingam suggest that AB 1705’s current implementation may be creating unintended consequences. While the law lets students enter calculus more quickly, some arrive without sufficient aptitude in algebra, trigonometry, functions, and the mathematical reasoning the course assumes.
Their experiences raise an important question for educators, administrators, and policymakers: How can California preserve access to calculus without confusing access with readiness?
A Wider Range of Readiness
Before AB 1705, students who needed additional preparation could be directed into algebra, trigonometry, or precalculus before attempting Calculus I. De Anza continues to offer precalculus courses, corequisite support, guided self-placement, and the Math Performance Success (MPS) program.
The difference is that these options are now recommendations rather than firm placement requirements.
Bambhania emphasizes that all students are eligible to enroll in Math 1A, De Anza’s first calculus course. This means a student whose highest completed high school course was Algebra I could still choose to enter calculus directly. Students may be advised to begin in precalculus or enroll with additional support, but the final decision remains theirs.
In theory, this provides students with greater agency. In practice, Bambhania says it has produced an “unprecedented range of preparation” within individual calculus classrooms. Some students have already taken calculus in high school, while others struggle with basic algebraic operations.
“It is nearly impossible to teach effectively to both extremes simultaneously,” she explains.
Ganeshalingam reports a similar pattern. In her classroom, many students enter calculus with little knowledge of common functions, including trigonometric and logarithmic functions. She estimates the percentage may be “close to 80%,” though she stresses this is an instructor observation rather than a formal institutional statistic.
“Students are entering calculus not having the experience and skills needed for calculus,” she says. “They not only lack the mathematical skills needed for calculus, but have also not developed the critical thinking skills to analyze the conceptual problems that arise.”
Why Precalculus Still Matters
Both faculty members argue that precalculus is not simply an additional hurdle between students and their degrees. It provides the language and reasoning skills through which calculus is taught.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of having working knowledge of Precalculus when attempting to learn Calculus,” Bambhania says.
Calculus depends on students’ ability to work with functions, equations, graphs, symbolic notation, algebraic expressions, logarithms, and trigonometric relationships. New calculus concepts are introduced through those foundations.
“In that sense,” Bambhania concludes, “Precalculus is a true prerequisite to Calculus.”
Ganeshalingam agrees: “Proficiency in precalculus is essential to master calculus concepts and techniques.”
Their concern is not that students with weaker preparation are incapable of learning calculus. It is that they are being asked to learn calculus and several semesters of prerequisite material during the same term.
A student who once learned trigonometry but needs a review may benefit from a few additional hours of support. A student encountering trigonometric functions for the first time faces a very different challenge.
The Pressure on Students and Faculty
Instructors have always reviewed prerequisite concepts. Under current conditions, however, review can become a substantial portion of the calculus course.
Bambhania says she now reviews algebra, trigonometry, and other foundational concepts more slowly and more frequently. Even then, the pace remains too fast for some students.
“It’s nearly impossible for those students to learn Calculus and many of the key Precalculus concepts during the same term,” she says.
She compares the experience to “running as fast as you can to catch a speeding train.” Students may work hard and seek help but still be unable to close a multi-semester preparation gap within one quarter.
The consequences can extend beyond one course. Bambhania has seen students leave calculus believing they are not “math material.” Some have changed to non-STEM majors after becoming overwhelmed.
Ganeshalingam also worries that the policy is affecting what happens inside calculus classrooms. While she does not claim to speak for the entire department, she believes some instructors have lowered expectations, reduced instructional depth, or allowed notes on quizzes and examinations in response to changing student preparation.
She reports that, in her experience, pass rates—particularly in Calculus I—have “plummeted.”
These observations should be examined through local, disaggregated data. They should not be treated as verified department-wide findings. But they identify questions colleges should investigate: Are pass and withdrawal rates changing? Are instructors covering less content? Are students who pass Calculus I prepared for Calculus II and later STEM courses?
Corequisites Help, but Cannot Replace Preparation
Both instructors support corequisite courses as one form of assistance.
“As a department we began to offer co-requisite courses to provide additional support to STEM majors,” Ganeshalingam explains. “Our MPS program was also expanded to include classes in the calculus series.”
Corequisites can provide additional practice, review, instructor contact, and help with prerequisite concepts as they arise. However, Ganeshalingam cautions that they cannot address every type of learning gap.
“While I do believe that corequisite courses are helpful for helping struggling students,” she says, “they still cannot fill in the gaps that are needed for success in calculus.”
Bambhania makes a similar distinction. At De Anza, a calculus corequisite provides approximately 2.5 additional hours of weekly support. The MPS program provides about five additional hours, along with embedded tutors, counseling, a dedicated tutorial structure, career programming, and scholarship opportunities.
Even this more intensive model has seen declining calculus success rates since AB 1705, according to Bambhania.
The lesson is not that corequisites are ineffective. It is that support must match the depth of a student’s need. A short support course may refresh forgotten material, but it cannot always replace the first-time learning of algebra, functions, and trigonometry.
What Current Metrics May Miss
Both instructors question whether existing success measures fully capture students’ experiences.
Ganeshalingam is particularly concerned about relying on data collected during the pandemic, when many courses were taught online, and unauthorized assistance was difficult to measure. Bambhania similarly notes that online instruction, unproctored assessments, and the growth of AI may have influenced recorded success rates.
They also worry that students who drop calculus early can disappear from the data without colleges understanding why they left.
A student may withdraw because of work, caregiving responsibilities, or financial pressures. Another may leave because the course assumes mathematical knowledge the student never had. Those experiences should not be treated as interchangeable.
A more complete evaluation should include early drops, withdrawals, repeated attempts, student explanations for leaving, performance in Calculus II, persistence in STEM majors, and success in later courses that depend on calculus.
Throughput matters, but completing Calculus I is not the only meaningful outcome.
AI and the Loss of Productive Struggle
The growing use of generative AI adds another complication.
Both instructors acknowledge that AI can support learning. It can explain a concept in multiple ways, create practice problems, generate mock quizzes, or act as a patient tutor.
The risk is that students may use it to bypass the reasoning process.
“For an unprepared student,” Ganeshalingam says, AI can become an easy way out.” Students may ask for a solution before spending meaningful time trying to solve the problem independently.
“I feel that there is learning, and critical thinking skills being developed in working out the details of a problem and struggling on your own,” she explains.
Bambhania calls this process “productive struggle.” Grappling with a difficult problem helps students develop understanding, retention, confidence, and the ability to apply concepts in new situations. AI can weaken that process by providing an answer before the student has attempted the reasoning.
Colleges therefore need clear AI expectations, process-based assessments, oral explanations, and opportunities for students to demonstrate unaided mathematical fluency.
A Call for a More Balanced Policy
Neither Bambhania nor Ganeshalingam argues for returning to placement systems that trapped students in unnecessary remedial sequences.
Their interviews instead point to a more balanced approach.
Students should retain access to calculus, but they should also receive honest information about the preparation the course requires. Colleges should be allowed to make meaningful recommendations based on multiple measures, including prior coursework, time away from school, guided self-placement, and demonstrated knowledge of algebra, functions, and trigonometry.
California should also invest in comprehensive support programs rather than assuming that a limited corequisite can address every preparation gap.
Most importantly, policymakers should avoid treating acceleration as the only measure of equity.
“I don’t think that any form of AB 1705 that rushes students into calculus will help. Educational inequities need to be addressed earlier in a student’s mathematical career,” says Ganeshalingam. “It can take years to develop the critical thinking skills and knowledge needed to be successful in calculus.”
Bambhania offers an equally direct conclusion: “We must stop treating ‘acceleration’ as a synonym for ‘equity.’ True equity means meeting students where they are, not forcing them into high-stakes environments without the foundational tools to survive.”
AB 1705 was right to challenge unnecessary barriers. Its next phase should ensure students not only have the right to enter calculus, but also a viable path through it.
Access opens the door. Preparation, support, and sustained learning determine whether students can walk through it.
Source note: This article is based on written interview responses from De Anza College mathematics faculty members Doli Bambhania and Usha Ganeshalingam. Classroom estimates and observations about pass rates, student preparation, and instructional changes are practitioner perspectives and should not be represented as verified institutional statistics without additional local data.