For nearly a decade, community college administrators across the country have been taking a long, hard look at traditional developmental education models. Their question: Are they effective in propelling students toward completion? In several states, including Tennessee, bold new initiatives are being put into place, with promising results. The challenge Not long ago, when test […]

To help combat the ever-increasing number of high school graduates needing to take developmental courses in college, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) decided to take matters into its own hands. “If you look at ACT Readiness benchmarks, 44 percent of students meet the benchmark in math, and 43 percent meet it for reading. So […]

At Howard Community College (HCC), in Columbia, Maryland, administrators have been taking a different approach to entrance and placement requirements for students who are close but not quite ready for college-level courses. For several years, the school has made the English Accelerated Learning Program available to new students who fall short of the reading or […]

Mississippi’s public high school graduation rate was just 75.5 percent in 2012–13, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Department of Education — well below the national average of 81.4 percent. Without a high school diploma or technical credentials, people face low-paying job prospects, even at a time like this, with relatively low […]

Five years ago, when Vicky Smith became president of McHenry County College (MCC), in Illinois, she held a meeting. In the room were MCC administrators, math and English instructors, the regional county K–12 superintendent and several district superintendents and curriculum directors. The college’s administration told the group that 57 percent of recent high school graduates […]

A more intense spotlight on college costs, student readiness and equal access is helping to increase the nationwide interest in programs that let high school students earn college credits. These programs are growing at a rate of about 7 percent per year, according to the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP). Adam Lowe, executive […]

When Carlos E. Santiago, commissioner of higher education for Massachusetts, joined the state agency, in early 2013, a task force was already in place to transform developmental math. Needless to say, the data that helped form the task force was abysmal: 60 percent of students who entered community college in 2010 needed remediation in math […]

In recent weeks, at least six major education organizations have urged rethinking developmental education and adopting a more holistic approach to college placement. A recent report, A Call to Action to Improve Math Placement Policies and Processes, released jointly by Jobs for the Future, The Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at […]

Students who take accelerated learning programs in writing and math at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), in Maryland, are more likely to advance to upper-level classes than are their peers who take standard remedial classes, research reveals. This success has inspired hundreds of other colleges to adopt similar programs. Like other community colleges, […]

With a major assist from the public-schools superintendent, North Carolina’s Sandhills Community College has scored a record number of applicants for its dual-enrollment program, drawing from high school students in the county of the college’s main campus. The dual-enrollment program is part of the statewide Career and College Promise initiative that launched in January 2012. […]