Data & Accountability

  • Performance Incentives to Improve Community College Completion: Learning from Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative

    Found In: Publications

    This state policy brief gives an in-depth overview of the Student Achievement Initiative (SAI), a Washington State initiative to create performance incentive policies for community colleges. SAI employs data and performance funding to motivate colleges to implement systemic changes in practice that lead to improved student outcomes. <more>

  • It’s Not About the Cut Score: Redesigning Placement Assessment Policy to Improve Student Success

    Found In: Publications

    This publication highlights the effect that assessment policies have on student placement rates in community colleges and details state placement assessment policy patterns for developmental education at enrollment; the usage of an approved placement exam (namely, COMPASS, ACCUPLACER, and ASSET); and the usage a standardized cut score or range for placement purposes. <more>

  • Serving Adult Learners in Higher Education Principals of Effectiveness

    Found In: Publications

    Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) partnered with American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) and conducted a benchmarking study of six highly adult learning focused colleges and universities then transformed the benchmarking study findings into principles of effective practice. This publication, Serving Adult Learners in Higher Education Principals of Effectiveness, introduces eight "Principles of Effectiveness for Serving Adult Learners", which describe processes and approaches which could be adopted by colleges seeking to improve access by and quality for adult students. <more>

  • Setting Up Success in Developmental Education: How State Policy Can Help Community Colleges Improve Student Outcomes

    Found In: Publications

    This brief released by Jobs for the Future describes how the fifteen states participating in Achieving the Dream, a national initiative to improve student success in community colleges, concentrated their policy efforts in four key areas. <more>

  • ABE Career Connections: A Manual for Integrating Adult Basic Education into Career Pathways

    Found In: Publications

    To further the efforts to connecting Adult Basic Education (ABE) with postsecondary career pathways, the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), funded the Adult Basic Education Career Connections (ABECC) project in 2006-2010, a demonstration project involving five sites across the country. Between 2008-2009, the sites developed and implemented work plans focused on improving adults’ basic skills to prepare them to enter career pathways. To help other ABE programs undertake similar work, this manual, Adult Career Pathways: Providing a Second Chance in Public Education, provides an overview of career pathways and describes approaches used by the ABECC sites to align basic skills training and partnership efforts with local career pathways. <more>

  • Achieving the Dream

    Found In: Transition Initiatives

    Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count is a national initiative aimed to increase the success of community college students, particularly those in groups that have been underserved in higher education. This initiative targets students who traditionally have faced the most significant barriers to success, such as low-income students and minority student populations. <more>