Researchers, organizations, companies, non-profits, practitioners, and to some extent, the public, are clamoring for massive reform in developmental coursework in higher education (American Association of Community Colleges, 2018; Edgecombe et al., 2014; Complete College America, 2012). One such reform is the push for integrated reading and…

Objective/Research Question: How do student- and school-level factors measured in the final year of high school contribute to the odds of a student being assessed to need remediation in Math during the students' first community college enrollment? Methods: The present study draws on five years of linked secondary and post-secondary administrative…

Due to low success of traditional, postsecondary remediation mathematics, The Maryland Mathematics Reform Initiative First in the World Grant (MMRI-FITW) sought to develop and implement a statistics pathway as an alternative to traditional algebra-based math, to accelerate developmental mathematics students' progress into credit-bearing…

Background. Placement in developmental education in college is associated with negative effects on credits earned, course achievement, and degree attainment (Valentine, Konstantopoulos, & Goldrick-Rab, 2017) and requires substantial investments with costs to students and institutions estimated at $1.3 and $7 billion (Ganga, Mazzariello &…

State policymakers in the United States have in recent years experimented with new initiatives to change the procedures used by public institutions to assess and assign academically underprepared students to non-credit developmental education (or remedial) courses. This study explores whether the most recent developmental education reform in…

Helping students complete developmental course sequences and graduate from college is one of the biggest challenges facing community college leaders and educators. The majority of entering students need one or more developmental courses yet most of these students never finish the developmental sequence. Colleges are continuously developing new…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare the effects of new developmental statistics-based courses to traditional algebra-based developmental courses. The study used extant data from eight institutions and a matched sample of 2,041 students (Treatment, N = 748; Comparison, N = 1,293). All students enrolled in a treatment or…

Emerging practices in both K-12 and higher education hold great promise in the establishment of equity frameworks. The use of finely disaggregated data, the effort to track additional student groups, and related work, all help to establish policies and tools to monitor the impact of reform efforts to address inequities. State programs and…

For many students, developmental education is the largest obstacle to college success, hindering progress before they ever enroll in a college-level course. Postsecondary practitioners and researchers have been re-examining and challenging many traditional elements of developmental education from placement strategies to the sequence of courses…

This report provides an update on student retention, graduation, and transfer for first-time, full-time students entering Maryland community colleges. This includes information regarding student outcomes two, three, and four years after initial enrollment at the community college, beginning with students in the 1996 entering cohort. Data are…

Nobody wants to be here. In remedial English, earning no credit, stuck. Now--after months of commas, clauses, and four-paragraph essays--students have one last chance to write their way out. Twenty students sit at computers, poised to start the final in-class essay for English 002 at Montgomery College. Anybody can enroll here, and all kinds do.…

When students first enroll in college, they are required to demonstrate readiness for college-level work. Course placement depends on standardized assessments, and students who do not attain a satisfactory score are typically assigned to developmental (e.g. remedial) education courses. The theory behind this approach has been that remedial…

Afterschool and competency-based learning are increasingly emerging as student-centered, supportive learning models to prepare students for college and career. This white paper explores the intersection and relationship between these two fields, recommends ideal policy environments for implementing successful programs, provides real-world…

To support the long-term success of underprepared students, many community colleges are experimenting with accelerated developmental education models, which allow students to complete remediation and enroll in college-level math and English within a shorter time frame. This study examines three developmental acceleration programs, including two in…

Community colleges play a vital role in postsecondary education, enrolling more than one in every three postsecondary students. While their importance has grown over the past 50 years, their students' success rates remain low. Consequently, community college stakeholders are searching with mounting urgency for approaches that increase students'…