In response to concerns about the additional costs and time-to-degree associated with traditional developmental education programs, several states and postsecondary systems have implemented corequisite reform where academically underprepared students take both a developmental education course and college-level course in the same subject area…

For California's community colleges, fall 2019 marked the deadline for implementing the state's historic developmental education legislation, Assembly Bill 705 (Irwin 2017). AB 705 drove transformative changes in community college math and English programs as colleges implemented research-based placement policies designed to maximize students'…

Efforts to strengthen the pipeline to college degree completion have focused on improving college access and providing academic, social, and financial supports to students post-enrollment. This paper explores one facet of postsecondary education that has served as a barrier to both college access and success--developmental education--which has…

Florida Senate Bill 1720 drastically changed developmental education, beginning in fall 2014. This paper considers affected faculty members' perceptions and experiences with the passage and implementation of reform, according to focus group data provided by 294 participants at 21 Florida College System institutions between 2014 and 2019. We found…

This qualitative study aims to understand the experiences of students of color who have completed the transfer-level English class taught utilizing the concurrent model set by AB 705 and whether this model affects their academic success. The problem this study focused on was how equitable access to higher education is for community college…

Although nearly half of community college students require some type of remediation, less than one-third of the students who start in developmental education graduate within eight years (Park, Tandberg, Hu, & Hankerson, 2016). As such, there is great uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of developmental education (Ari et al., 2016; Bailey…

Developmental education (DE) reform took place among the 28 Florida College System (FCS) institutions in 2014. In this study, we examine how cohort-based passing rates in college-level English and math courses changed at different colleges for pre- and post-policy period and explore what institutional characteristics were related with various…

Under Florida's developmental education (DE) reform since 2014, recent public high school graduates and active-duty military personnel became exempt from DE and traditional placement tests. The legislation also required colleges to provide accelerated instruction strategies for students remaining in DE and offer enhanced advising and support…

With the developmental education (DE) reform movement at postsecondary still apace, this qualitative study seeks to understand the policy impacts of Florida Senate Bill 1720, major legislation mandating developmental education reform in the state of Florida. The body of literature thus far has focused on quantitative analyses of secondary data…

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This second interim report,…

Anywhere from 40 to 68% of first-year students, over 1.7 million, enroll in at least one or more remedial or developmental course for reading, writing, or mathematics before being able to continue into the mainstream of college coursework (Barnett, 2018; Complete College America, 2016; Logue, 2018 WV HEPC Academic Readiness Report, 2019). An…

State policymakers in the United States have in recent years experimented with new initiatives to change the procedures used by public institutions to assess and assign academically underprepared students to non-credit developmental education (or remedial) courses. This study explores whether the most recent developmental education reform in…

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This report first offers a…

This study examined perceived implications for equitable outcomes of students based on organizational changes related to developmental education reform, California Assembly Bill 705. The research site was a Hispanic Serving Community College with a majority Latinx student population. This instrumental case study employed various methods, including…

Objective: In 2014, Florida implemented Senate Bill 1720 (SB 1720), which drastically reshaped developmental education practices across the 28 public state colleges. Under the reform, around two-thirds of students became exempt from developmental education. Yet, many students were still required to take the placement test. If they scored below…