To better understand the challenges and opportunities facing community colleges that want to expand apprenticeship opportunities to their students, New America conducted a year-long study. We created an advisory committee to guide this work and spoke to apprenticeship, workforce development, and community college leaders about the community…

A wealth of literature shows positive outcomes and experiences from arts learning, yet youth access to arts education has become significantly more inequitable over the past 30 years. Alongside the growing discourse around arts learning and equity issues, there is a recognized and persistent need for more research. We conducted a critical,…

Low degree completion rates are a critical problem at rural community colleges. In 2023, only 36% of students who enrolled at a community college in 2017 had earned a credential in the past six years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023a). Academic advising is critical to help students navigate the confusing pathways of higher…

The third case study from the Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development discusses the role community partners can play in supporting children's learning in collaboration with schools. "School-Community Partnerships: Joining Forces to Support the Learning and Development of All Students" cites key…

Literacy educators have long understood the importance of designing multicultural instruction for students. However, in an educational context that is both increasingly multilingual, literacy educators are not realizing that multiculturalism isn't enough. This article focuses on practitioner friendly recommendations for understanding linguistic…

Given the growing attention to community environmental education (CEE), this study develops a theoretical heuristic for this approach through a retroductive process by (1) examining theories appropriate for a CEE conceptual framework; (2) testing this framework in diverse contexts to determine its viability, and (3) reconceptualizing the…

Although sense of belonging has been conceptualized by higher education institutions in marginalizing ways, we reclaim the construct as authentic relationships characterized by humanization, mutuality, and respect for students' cultural assets, values, and social identities. To dismantle colonizing perspectives and foreground Indigenous ways of…

Despite evidence suggesting that standardized tests are an imperfect measure of academic readiness, many community colleges across the country rely on them alone to determine student course placement. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to transition to remote operations in spring 2020, proctoring in-person placement tests became…

Interaction between a learner and an instructor is an important part of the learning process. A lack of connection in feedback between an instructor and a learner in an online class room can result in less than optimal learning experiences. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore the perceptions of students related to…

This qualitative instrumental case study explored the experiences and perceptions of seven community college leaders of their use of anticipatory leadership. Two research questions guided this study: (a) How do community colleges use anticipatory leadership to respond to internal and external changes? (b) How do community college leaders use…

Community colleges enroll nearly half of the students in public undergraduate programs and a disproportionate number of first-generation, low-income, underprepared, and minority students. The new national completion agenda initiated by President Barack Obama had brought both visibility and pressure to community colleges, which had completion rates…

This study explored how administrators at community colleges conceptualized change related to resource allocation and managing competing priorities to support targeted programming for Latino men. The study included the perspectives of 39 administrators from seven community colleges across Texas using concepts associated with institutional change…

Educational leaders increasingly acknowledge the importance of developing partnerships to address pressing and persistent educational concerns. This article reports the results of a qualitative case study that examined an exurban district's efforts to improve educational outcomes through the development of multisector partnerships with community…

Attrition among new teachers with fewer than 5 years of experience was high in an urban high school in Texas. The high attrition rate is a problem for students, because high teacher turnover can result in teachers with low expertise. In this study, the conceptual framework used was Hord's professional learning community (PLC) model, which…

Brad C. Phillips and Jordan E. Horowitz offer a research-based model and actionable approach for using data strategically at community colleges to increase completion rates as well as other metrics linked to student success. They draw from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to show how leaders and administrators can…