Developmental education is one of the most difficult issues confronting community colleges. Community colleges are charged with teaching students college-level material, yet a majority of their students arrive with academic skills in at least one subject area that are judged to be too weak to allow them to engage successfully in college-level…

Recent policy changes have facilitated an expanded role for VET in Schools in supporting school completion, with vocational education and training (VET) in schools qualifications and subjects receiving increasing recognition in senior secondary certificates. Despite increased attainment of VET qualifications amongst 15 to 19-year-olds (Australian…

In 2007, the Illinois General Assembly passed Public Act 0950694, "The College and Career Readiness Pilot Act", in an effort to reduce remediation within Illinois' community colleges. An important objective of this legislation was to better prepare students to be successful in transitioning from high school to college. According to the…

Community college stakeholders are searching with increasing urgency for approaches with the potential to improve the success rates for community college students, particularly those in need of developmental education. "Learning communities," which place cohorts of students together in two or more courses for one semester, are a popular…

This paper reflects upon the nature of a target-setting and mentoring scheme in an 11-16 school in England, through a series of retrospective interviews with students who continued into further education. It considers the extent to which the initiative impacted both upon students' formal academic achievement at 16+ and upon the subsequent…

The federal career and technical legislation reauthorized in 2006 required the recipients of its funding to offer at least one Program of Study (POS). All states have developed some components of POS through earlier initiatives, primarily Tech Prep, career pathways, and youth apprenticeship, that attempted to ease the transition of students from…

The United States Department of Education's "Annual Performance Report" (APR) for fiscal year (FY) 2009 provides detailed information on how the outcomes of the strategic performance measures identified in its "FY 2007-2012 Strategic Plan" and updated in the "Fiscal Year 2008 Performance and Accountability Report"…

Community college leaders need honest information about what's working in the community college and need to be challenged about the things that are not. State Legislatures and Congress need updated facts to assist them in making wise funding decisions. Community college advocates need updated information to assist them in their advocacy work, and…

Remedial or developmental courses are the most common policy instruments used to assist underprepared postsecondary students who are not ready for college-level coursework. However, despite its important role in higher education and its substantial costs, there is little rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of college remediation on the outcomes…