Developmental education reform has shown promising evidence toward improving short-term outcomes, yet questions remain about whether these early gains contribute momentum toward mid-term and longer-term postsecondary success. In 2014, Florida implemented one of the nation's most comprehensive developmental education reforms. Many students became…

Almost two-thirds of students who enter community colleges every year are judged to be academically not ready to engage in college-level coursework. In order to enroll, these students typically must take one or more "remedial" or "developmental" math or English courses that will not count toward their college degree. The…

The idea behind guided pathways is straightforward. College students are more likely to complete a degree in a timely fashion if they choose a program and develop an academic plan early on, have a clear road map of the courses they need to take to complete a credential, and receive guidance and support to help them stay on plan. However, most…

A growing number of community colleges and four-year universities are seeking to improve student outcomes by redesigning academic programs and student support services following the guided pathways approach. These institutions are mapping out highly structured, educationally coherent program pathways for students to follow by starting with the end…

A significant challenge in higher education is to narrow the educational attainment gap between academically prepared and unprepared students. To this end, developmental or remedial education is intended to improve the academic skills and knowledge of students who are unprepared for undergraduate coursework, particularly in the areas of…

An alarming 30 percent of college freshmen in the nation are considered unprepared for college coursework and assigned to remedial education upon entry. Recent studies have explored the effects of remediation on college outcomes using rigorous quasi-experimental designs, but the results of these studies are inconclusive and the designs typically…

The authors prepared this report after exploring programs using a 90-day cycle process borrowed from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). The IHI 90-day cycle scans activity in the field as a "quick way to research innovative ideas and assess their potential for advancing quality improvement". The goal was to "get under…

Community college stakeholders are searching with increasing urgency for approaches with the potential to improve the success rates for community college students, particularly those in need of developmental education. "Learning communities," which place cohorts of students together in two or more courses for one semester, are a popular…

The Learning Communities Demonstration is a national research project that is testing the effectiveness of learning communities in six community colleges across the United States: Merced College in California; The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) in Baltimore, Maryland; Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida; Houston…

The Learning Communities Demonstration is a national research project that is testing the effectiveness of learning communities in six community colleges across the United States: Merced College in California; The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) in Baltimore, Maryland; Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida; Houston…

The current study examined differences in student performance and retention rates for those who completed remedial reading or remedial writing courses and those who did not in a private university in South Florida. International students also were compared to non-international students on academic performance and retention rates. The conceptual…

Recent efforts to identify and meet the needs for remedial education in Florida's public community colleges and universities are described in this paper. First, a synthesis of the literature on remedial education yields the following recommendations: (1) skills training must be integrated into other college experiences; (2) cognitive skills…

These three papers represent the results of the third phase of Florida's Impact of Testing Project. After reviewing the background to the project, the first paper discusses third-phase findings in terms of project objectives, i.e.: to determine entry-level assessment procedures and their uses in student placement; to determine the impact that…

Remedial or developmental courses are the most common policy instruments used to assist underprepared postsecondary students who are not ready for college-level coursework. However, despite its important role in higher education and its substantial costs, there is little rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of college remediation on the outcomes…

This report focuses squarely on strategies for instructional improvement in American high schools. Specifically, this study examines how high schools that perform below average incorporate their state's accountability goals into their own goals, identify their challenges, and search for strategies for instructional improvement. It focuses on how…