This study examines the success of community colleges in providing students with adequate college-preparatory instruction. Research focuses on the place of remedial writing instruction in two California Community Colleges, one large and urban, the other smaller and suburban. The study used transcript analysis to investigate how well students from the two key college preparatory writing courses -- one an ESL course and one a non-credit beginning college reading and writing course -- fared in their academic work. The guiding research questions were: (1) how well do students in developmental writing courses fare in subsequent academic writing courses? (progress tracking); and (2) how well do Associate Degree English and college level English students with different instructional histories do in their academic writing classes? (historical tracking). The research found that for many students, remedial coursework is preliminary to extensive further college work, and the ESL cohort is most academically accomplished. The non-ESL students, the pre-collegiate basic skills students starting their college career with "English Fundamentals," did not fare as well. Only 58.6% passed the course, compared to 65.5% of the ESL students. Tables, charts and figures illustrate ethnicity demographics, cohort descriptive statistics, college English outcomes, progress tracking, failure and withdrawal rates by group, and grade point average. (17 references) (AS)