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Explores barriers adult basic education students face in obtaining postsecondary credentials. The authors offer suggestions to policymakers that can be used to improve the outcomes for ABE students based on lessons learned from three state-level policy initiatives: Bridges to Opportunity, Breaking Through and Shifting Gears. The paper also provides specific suggestions for federal support of similar efforts. (James Jacobs & Pamela Tolbert-Bynum -Community College Research Center, Columbia University, June 2008)

Studies the impact of student success courses on student persistence, completion and transfer. The report finds some impact, but was unclear about which characteristics of these courses were most beneficial. Researchers examined data from Florida's community college system. (Matthew Zeidenberg, Davis Jenkins and Juan Calcagano; Community College Research Center, 2007)

Told from the point of view of the Miami Dade College (MDC) Office of Institutional Effectiveness, this paper describes how the college has begun to develop a systematic and data-informed method for assessing and improving student outcomes across its large, eight-campus college. (Joanne Bashford and Doug Slater, Community College Research Center, 2008)

The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) is engaged in a strategic planning process to improve performance. A key objective is to encourage colleges to improve retention and academic success for unprepared students. This report presents the main findings from a study of VCCS developmental education and outlines suggestions to attain the strategic plan goals. (Josipa Roksa, Davis Jenkins, Shanna Smith Jaggars, Matthew Zeidenberg & Sung-Woo Cho, Community College Research Center, November 2009)

Powerpoint from a webinar hosted by the Community College Research Center as part of the National Center for Postsecondary Research

Details the tension between institutions developing innovative approaches to assess students and deliver remedial content and state policies that reinforce the traditional course-based design.

Brief by Bruce Vandal for NGA; highlights approaches to improve productivity, student success in remedial education; also has college completion implications

Article discusses a comprehensive evaluation of Achieving the Dream, which reveals that overall trends in student outcomes at the first 26 institutions to join the project remained relatively unchanged after five years, even though the colleges adopted a wide range of strategies to improve them. (Inside Higher Ed, 02/10/11)

Report examines the first 26 colleges to join Achieving the Dream. The colleges developed more sophisticated methods for data analysis and efficient systems for monitoring their efforts to improve student achievement. Conversely, about one-fifth of the colleges still struggled to implement many of the initiative's recommended practices, hindered primarily by weak institutional research capacity. (MDRC and Community College Research Center, February 2011)

Examines the evidence base on reforming mathematics classroom pedagogy, which may be a potential means for improving the course completion and learning outcomes of developmental math students. (Center for Community College Research, February 2011)

Research on the lack of progress that students make in developmental education. It attributes student failure to the fact that they don't begin or complete the full sequence of courses.

How the Effects of Postsecondary Remedial and Developmental Courses Vary by Level of Academic Preparation Paper by Angela Boatman and Bridget Terry Long from Harvard for the National Center for Postsecondary Research. The paper shows that in some instances remedial education does benefit students whose academic preparation is assessed at lower levels

Piece on how assessments can be more effectively employed for remedial education