Initial results are in. And they look pretty good.
In December of 2012 The Charles A. Dana Center, Complete College America, Inc., Education Commission of the States, and Jobs for the Future published a white paper on the Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education. It was an impactful piece of work and laid the groundwork for all of us who are working on creating solutions & services and delivering them to students.
| A Brief Recap of Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education:WHY REMEDIAL EDUCATION IS BROKEN:
– Half of all postsecondary students and 70 % of community college students take one or more remedial courses and college completion rates for these students is below state and national goals – Many of these students never overcome being placed in remedial courses – Traditional delivery of several sequenced, semester-long remedial courses that students need to complete prior to enrolling in for-credit courses don’t work – Remedial education course sequences are one of the main reasons for high student attrition – The predictive validity of a single placement test that places students into remedial courses fails to find evidence to show improved student outcomes – Recent research has shown that a large percentage of students placed in remedial education could succeed in gateway courses – Current remedial courses are not aligned with the skills required to succeed in the core programs they are designed to prepare students for (i.e. the mathematics skills required for nursing is very different than what is required for business, or pre-engineering – There are no non-academic support services provided to students (i.e. student success skills) – The longer it takes for a student to get to their core program of study, the less likely they are to graduate THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR CREATING A NEW APPROACH TO REMEDIAL EDUCATION Principle 1. Completion of a set of gateway courses for a program of study is a critical measure of success toward college completion. Principle 2. The content in required gateway courses should align with a student’s academic program of study — particularly in math. Principle 3. Enrollment in a gateway college-level course should be the default placement for many more students. Principle 4. Additional academic support should be integrated with gateway college-level course content — as a co-requisite, not a pre-requisite. Principle 5. Students who are significantly underprepared for college-level academic work need accelerated routes into programs of study. Principle 6. Multiple measures should be used to provide guidance in the placement of students in gateway courses and programs of study. Principle 7. Students should enter a meta-major when they enroll in college and start a program of study in their first year, in order to maximize their prospects of earning a college degree. |
Now back to my initial statement.
In May of this year the Colorado Department of Education released their 2013 Legislative Report on Remedial Education which contained some pretty interesting results:
– In 2012 the number of High School graduates that were placed into remedial education in one subject was 37% – a 40% improvement over the prior year
– Most students required remediation in Mathematics followed by Writing and then Reading
– For the first year, remedial students had higher first year retention rates than non-remedial students (this is amazing)
– Approx. 62 % of remedial courses were completed successfully, an increase of over 59% over prior year
– Total cost to the state for remedial education for 2012-2013 was $56.1M – a $2M saving over prior year
In 2011 the Colorado Community College System created a developmental education task force and made recommendations for streamlining and implementing more efficient ways to deliver remedial education which lead to the aforementioned success. After 18 months of work, the task force redesigned the remedial education policy that resulted in a number of dramatic changes that Colorado’s community college system implemented statewide.
Some of the innovations that the CCCS implemented included accelerated course sequencing, modularizing and contextualized curriculum, learning communities, test preparation strategies, and combined courses. What is even more exciting is that they focused on integrating reading and writing for developmental students directly into core gateway courses and created pathways in mathematics vs having students take additional remedial courses. They also created a number of co-requisite courses for students so they could complete their developmental courses in tandem with their core course work [Principle #4 from the ‘Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education’ recommendations].
The bottom line – Colorado has taken some major steps to address one of the most serious issues impacting higher education. They have been bold, they have been aggressive, and they are starting to see posifit results.
Well done Colorado.
PS Here is a nice little video created by the Colorado Department of Higher Education that provides an overview of remedial education in CO.