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NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jeff Landis, PR Director 617.728.4446 ext. 146 (office) 978.473.6346 (cell) jlandis@jff.org JFF POLICY BRIEF PROFILES STATE APPROACHES FOR IMPROVING DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION BOSTON, MA (June 23, 2009) — The large numbers of students in community colleges who must take developmental or remedial education courses before they can succeed in college-level work severely threatens their chances of earning credentials and degrees. It also contributes to the erosion the nation’s primacy in education attainment among competitor nations. A new policy brief from Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit organization, describes the important role that state policy can play in helping community colleges advance students who are placed in developmental education. According to Setting Up Success in Developmental Education: How State Policy Can Help Community Colleges Improve Student Success Outcomes, a student who starts in developmental education courses upon entering community college has far smaller chance of ever earning a credential or degree than students who are academically prepared to engage college-level courses at the start. Setting Up Success in Developmental Education highlights the ways in which 15 states have approached improving outcomes for students who test into developmental education. These states —Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington — are participants in Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a national initiative focused on student success and funded by Lumina Foundation for Education and 18 other funders. “Instead of acting as a bridge helping low-income and students of color who are not initially prepared to succeed in college achieve their dreams for better jobs, better wages, and better lives, developmental education has often acted as a filter through which thousands of students and their hopes of earning credentials and degrees are lost,” says Mike Collins of JFF, and author of Setting Up Success In Developmental Education. State policy can play a critical role in helping community colleges get more students through developmental education and on to credentials and degrees. Achieving the Dream states worked individually and collectively in the following policy areas to improve outcomes for students in developmental education: Preventative Strategies: States must define and align standards and expectations for “college ready” transitions from K-12 into community college.   Assessment and Placement: A carefully thought-out placement/assessment policy is critical to improving outcomes for developmental education students. These policies affect whether students slip through the cracks and are allowed to enroll in college-level courses even when there is little probability they will succeed. Implementation and Evaluation of Program Innovation: Limited evidence as to “what works” in developmental education, combined with large enrollments and the corresponding expense for colleges, suggests that states should redouble efforts to identify strategies and interventions that can increase student and institutional performance in developmental education.   Performance Measurement and Incentives: States must develop accurate indicators of how well community colleges are performing, including intermediate measures of success, and reward institutions for high performance. Building on the strategies described in Setting Up Success in Developmental Education, several Achieving the Dream states will participate in the new Developmental Education Initiative, a robust exploration of what works at the institutional and state policy levels to improve outcomes for students who test into developmental education. The Developmental Education Initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education and managed by MDC, Inc. For a copy of Setting Up Success in Developmental Education: How State Policy Can Help Community Colleges Improve Student Success Outcomes, visit www.jff.org. For more information on the Developmental Education Initiative, visit http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-room   Jobs for the Future Through research, action, and advocacy, JFF develops promising education and labor-market models that enable American families and companies to compete in a global economy. Across the United States, in partnership with foundations and other national nonprofits, JFF improves the educational and workforce pipelines leading from high school to college to family-sustaining careers. Our initiatives take us to 206 communities in 41 states and the District of Columbia. For more information visit www.jff.org. Achieving the Dream Achieving the Dream is a national initiative to help more community college students succeed. The initiative is particularly concerned about student groups that have faced the most significant barriers to success, including low-income students and students of color. It acts on multiple fronts, including efforts at community colleges and in research, public engagement, and public policy. Achieving the Dream began in 2004 with 27 community colleges in five states. As of mid-2009, the initiative has grown to more than 100 institutions enrolling more than one million students in 22 states.  Achieving the Dream is funded by Lumina Foundation for Education and 18 partner foundations. For more information, visit www.achievingthedream.org