blog post California’s K–12 Educational Progress: Good News and Bad News By Niu Gao, Courtney Lee Apr 18, 2018 California's K–12 students have made gains in reading scores, but achievement gaps remain for English Learner, low-income, and African American and Latino students.
blog post Testimony: Reforming Key Policies at the Community Colleges By Sarah Bohn Apr 3, 2018 Reforming the assessment and placement policies of California's community colleges is vital to helping students achieve their academic goals.
Report Reforming English Pathways at California’s Community Colleges By Hans Johnson, Olga Rodriguez, Marisol Cuellar Mejia, Bonnie Brooks Feb 27, 2018 California’s community colleges are in the midst of numerous reforms to improve developmental (also known as remedial or basic skills) education. Developmental education is supposed to help prepare students for college work, but it has long been an obstacle to student success: most students in developmental courses never go on to complete a college-level course in English or math.
blog post Funding Increase for Community Colleges By Kevin Cook Feb 2, 2018 Community colleges get the bulk of higher education funds in the governor’s budget, which includes a new formula for dispersing the money.
Report Reforming Math Pathways at California’s Community Colleges By Hans Johnson, Olga Rodriguez, Marisol Cuellar Mejia, Bonnie Brooks Oct 23, 2017 The goal of developmental education (also known as remedial or basic skills education) is to help students acquire the skills they need to be successful in college courses, but its track record is poor. In fact, it is one of the largest impediments to student success in California’s community colleges. Many students do need additional work to be ready for college, particularly in math. But every year hundreds of thousands of students are deemed underprepared for college and placed into developmental courses from which relatively few emerge. Throughout the state, community colleges are revising assessment and placement procedures to ensure that students who are ready for college are not placed in developmental education. And, given the high failure rates in traditional developmental courses, colleges are also experimenting with alternative curricular approaches.
blog post K–12 Test Scores Vary Widely across Student Groups By Paul Warren Oct 20, 2017 The 2017 test results for California’s public K–12 school students underscore the need to improve outcomes for economically disadvantaged students, English Learners, and students with disabilities.
blog post Reforming Remedial Education in Community College By Olga Rodriguez, Mina Dadgar Oct 5, 2017 Reforming developmental, or remedial, education is essential to improving students’ success in community colleges. The good news is that there is major support for reform.
blog post CSU Ends Remedial Courses By Jacob Jackson Aug 10, 2017 California State University is eliminating remedial classes and will focus on helping students complete college-level work regardless of preparation.
Report Meeting California’s Need for College Graduates: A Regional Perspective By Hans Johnson, Kevin Cook, Marisol Cuellar Mejia Jun 27, 2017 Los Angeles County, the Inland Empire, and the San Joaquin Valley will play a critical role in whether California can keep up with the economy’s growing need for college graduates. Colleges and universities in these regions will need to work together to boost graduation rates, while enrolling more freshmen and transferring more students.