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Wow. What a powerful article. It made me think of a lot of different things that aren't necessarily directly connected: 1) The early discussion of how access doesn't always mean success makes me think of the "Right to Fail" movement and the discussion of open access policies. While our statistics may show us that large percentages of students who test below a certain threshold will not pass, what about those who test below that threshold and do pass? The movement is about making sure students have the right to attempt courses even when our test measures say they won't succeed, thus the "right to fail" those courses. It's been both an empowering and a dismissive slogan in these conversations. 2) The discussion about the articles that made students feel like they belonged and were less alone made me think about a reading I always have my dev ed writing students read. Anne Lamott's essay "Shitty First Drafts" does a great job of dispelling some myths about the ease of the writing process, and students really seem to enjoy it. (http://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%20Drafts.pdf) 3) The theme that keeps coming up again and again in these success stories for me is that the teachers actually respect their students' intellectual abilities and trust them with actual hard work.

This is another link from the Citrus Bb site. This is most helpful in that it discusses the way that raised standards help students succeed and that research suggests many students are not succeeding because they aren't being asked to reach high enough expectations.

Another Citrus Bb link. This one focuses on how using teams or discussion groups helps students learn.

This article discusses Florida bill SB 1720 which passed last year and grants all students graduating from an accredited high school the right to refuse developmental classes and enter directly into credit-bearing courses regardless of test scores.

This is a copy of Connecticut's Public Act 12-40, which mandates the way that remedial education is delivered to students, focusing on a tiered approach that prioritizes embedded (supplemental instruction) coursework followed by accelerated, intensive coursework before the start of the school year. These changes are to go into effect Fall 2014.

Chabot College's accelerated English course is one of the longest running accelerated models nationwide. Students who do not meet the minimum Accuplacer scores for college English have two choices for their developmental coursework.