Less than 25 percent of college students who take any developmental education courses earn a credential within eight years. Over the past three years, the six states in the Developmental Education Initiative have developed and enacted unprecedented changes in policy and practice in an effort to reverse these dismal outcomes.
Ahead of the Curve is the success story of these states—Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. Their reform agendas, captured in this latest JFF report, are designed to help more students who are placed in to developmental education accelerate into credit-bearing college courses—and continue their momentum through to credentials with value. Working in concert, this dynamic network of states undertook bold reforms such as redesigning the delivery of remediation, improving the collection and use of student data to guide priorities and investment, and enacting outcomes-based funding to provide incentives for colleges to encourage innovative solutions to long-standing performance challenges.
The achievements of these states are all the more noteworthy because they have occurred during extremely tough budgetary times and in the midst of significant research breakthroughs in community college best practices.
