While the landscape for developmental and remedial education can look discouraging, by being thoughtful and working together it can become more effective in narrowing educational disparities.
That was the sentiment from many of those who attended the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR) conference held in New York City last week.
“Examples of imagination and reimagination have changed the developmental reform landscape,” said Dr. Nikki Edgecombe, senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College.
This year’s conference theme, “Remedial Education Is Not Working for Many College Students. How Can We Do Better?” presented examples of what is working and what isn’t with the hope of attendees forging joint efforts to best serve students.
“We can and will do even better by sharing what we’re doing and learning not just with the reform-minded, but also with the many colleges still offering multi-course, multi-semester prerequisite developmental math, reading and writing courses,” said Edgecombe.
CAPR was founded in 2014 in response to the declining number of students completing college. At that time, nearly two-thirds of community college students and over 40% of students at public, four-year institutions were not graduating. Even today, thousands of students take developmental math and English classes, and for many of them, these courses are an obstacle to college completion.
“The work we’re doing in Massachusetts is around our newly announced equity agenda, which is focusing on addressing racial disparities in all contexts of post-secondary education,” said Dr. Elena Quiroz-Livanis, chief of staff and assistant commissioner for Academic Policy and Student Success at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
