Community colleges serve as the gateway to career success for many people, allowing them to compe... more Community colleges serve as the gateway to career success for many people, allowing them to compete in an environment that increasingly demands higher skills and education beyond high school. Yet for many low-income students and students of color, financial and other barriers can derail their efforts to complete a postsecondary credential. In addition, students often have work and family responsibilities that compete with their educational goals. Although financial aid is widely available, other types of supports may also help such students succeed. In 2014, the Working Students Success Network (WSSN) was launched by a group of philanthropies-the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Lumina Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, MetLife Foundation, and Bank of America. WSSN is a consortium of 19 community colleges in Arkansas, California, Virginia, and Washington, led by the national reform network, Achieving the Dream. This innovative strategy seeks to support colleges as they create pathways and provide integrated services to improve students' academic, employment, and financial stability in the short term, while laying a foundation for long-term economic success. The colleges were charged with addressing low-income students' widespread needs by offering group-based and more intensive, one-on-one services in three pillars. (Figure
Lumina Foundation seeks to increase the proportion of Americans who hold a postsecondary credenti... more Lumina Foundation seeks to increase the proportion of Americans who hold a postsecondary credential to 60 percent by 2025, across all racial, ethnic, immigration, and income groups. Recognizing that this goal cannot be achieved through a focus on traditional-age college students alone, Lumina launched the Adult Promise initiative in 2017. Between 2017 and 2019, the foundation made multiyear grants to a total of 15 states to address adult postsecondary attainment through recruitment, supports, and financial commitments. The Adult Promise evaluation tracked progress in 11 states included in the 2017 and 2018 grant waves (California,
Character education programs are school-based programs that have as one of their objectives promo... more Character education programs are school-based programs that have as one of their objectives promoting the character development of students. This report systematically examines the outcomes that were measured in evaluations of a delimited set of character education programs and the research tools used for measuring the targeted outcomes. The multi-faceted nature of character development and many possible ways of conceptualizing it, the large and growing number of school-based programs to promote character development, and the relative newness of efforts to evaluate character education programs using rigorous research methods all combine to make the selection or development of measures relevant to the evaluation of these programs especially challenging. This report is a step toward creating a resource that can inform measure selection for conducting rigorous, cost effective studies of character education programs. The report, however, does not provide comprehensive information on all measures or types of measures, guidance on specific measures, or recommendations on specific measures.
Under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants prog... more Under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants program, the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration is funding an ambitious, multi-pronged effort encouraging community colleges and groups of institutions working as consortia to improve education, employment, and training outcomes for economically dislocated and low-skilled adult workers.
We investigate factors influencing student sign-ups for Washington State’s College Bound Scholars... more We investigate factors influencing student sign-ups for Washington State’s College Bound Scholarship (CBS) program and consider whether there is scope for the program to change college enrollment expectations. We find that student characteristics associated with signing the scholarship closely parallel characteristics of low-income students who attend 4-year colleges, suggesting that signing the pledge is driven largely by pre-existing expectations of college-going. We also find evidence that student sign-up rates are lower than has been previously reported, which is important given the perception among program administrators that nearly all eligible students sign up.
Illusions of opportunity? From college access to job access at two-year colleges: College access, racial equality, and social change
This report details how a group of three community colleges located in three states worked togeth... more This report details how a group of three community colleges located in three states worked together to develop and implement online, competency-based education models in information technology fields under a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants program. It examines the challenges and successes encountered by grantee colleges in curriculum development and delivery, student supports, and industry and workforce engagement, highlighting lessons learned from program implementation.
We investigate factors influencing student sign-ups for Washington State’s College Bound Scholars... more We investigate factors influencing student sign-ups for Washington State’s College Bound Scholarship (CBS) program. We find a substantial share of eligible middle school students fail to sign the CBS, forgoing college financial aid. Student characteristics associated with signing the scholarship parallel characteristics of low-income students who attend 4-year colleges. Simulations suggest the program may address college enrollment gaps, increasing college-going by some disadvantaged groups, it also would reinforce inequalities in college-going that exist between sub-groups of low-income students. Finally, student sign-up rates are lower than has been previously reported. Importantly, we find a perception among program administrators that nearly all eligible students sign up, which shifts attention away from sign-ups to encouraging pledgees to follow through with program requirements.
An explicit focus on equity issues may be especially important for programs that target adult lea... more An explicit focus on equity issues may be especially important for programs that target adult learners. Adult learners are more diverse than “traditional” students with respect to age and work and life experience. They are also a more diffuse group than traditional students, who can often be reached directly through their high schools and districts. Moreover, many adult learners have already had unsuccessful experiences with higher education. This may be especially true for Black, Latino, and Native American learners who have historically been less likely to enroll in college or to complete a credential when they do enroll.4 In recent years, a broad movement has coalesced around the need to increase educational attainment in the United States, driven in large part by concerns about the nation’s economic viability and the American people’s economic stability and mobility. A wide variety of education, workforce, and policy stakeholders have come together under what is often called the...
How would you describe the dynamics of the colleges in the consortium? Concrete: How often do sta... more How would you describe the dynamics of the colleges in the consortium? Concrete: How often do stakeholders from different colleges communicate about the program? Role Playing Role-playing disassociates the interviewer, and tends to elicit more details. Example: Suppose it’s my first time in the Workforce Readiness Center. What would it be like? Disposition When Interviewing Explain your purpose clearly. Be sure that interviewees and others understand: • Your role • The purpose of the research • What you hope to learn from them • If and how they will benefit from the research • How the results will be used Keep your promises. This may apply to: • Confidentiality: If you say you will not attribute statements to them, don’t. • Resources and follow-up: If you say you can provide resources or other information, be sure to do so. Maintain a neutral demeanor. Your primary job is to listen. • Strive to appear open and empathetic, but relatively neutral. • Do not express any judgments or opi...
This Stage 2 Early Assessment Report is the first implementation report on the Stage 2 evaluation... more This Stage 2 Early Assessment Report is the first implementation report on the Stage 2 evaluation of the Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND).
Comprend des références bibliographiques et un index.1. The Need for Comprehensive Reform: From A... more Comprend des références bibliographiques et un index.1. The Need for Comprehensive Reform: From Access to Completion Thomas Bailey The introduction to the special issue discusses the current challenges facing community colleges and describes why reform must be comprehensive if challenges are to be solved.2. Using Research and Evaluation to Support Comprehensive Reform Thomas Brock, Alexander K. Mayer, Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow Two comprehensive community college reform initiatives—Achieving the Dream and Completion by Design—encouraged colleges to use research and data to guide improvements that would lead to better student outcomes. The initiatives shed light on the opportunities and challenges of data-driven reform and underscore how evaluation methods may be used to support comprehensive reform efforts.3. The Redesign of Developmental Education in Virginia Nikki Edgecombe Developmental education reforms must, by definition, focus on students’ early college careers. Perhaps as a result, past efforts have not generated large and enduring positive effects. This chapter provides an overview of a comprehensive developmental education redesign in Virginia. It describes its planning and early implementation, presents preliminary descriptive findings on its outcomes, and highlights considerations for systems pursuing comprehensive efforts to more effectively assess and remediate academic underpreparedness.4. Addressing College Readiness Gaps at the College Door Elizabeth Friedmann, Michal Kurlaender, Alice van Ommeren California’s Early Assessment Program provides high school students with early signals about their college readiness in order to improve their skills in the 12th grade year and reduce the need for developmental course taking in college. The program affords an opportunity to describe how comprehensive efforts to adopt this program may have improved alignment between K–12 and community colleges, reduced developmental course taking across California’s community colleges, and facilitated tracking students from K–12 into college.5. Transforming the Community College Student Experience Through Comprehensive, Technology-Mediated Advising Shanna Smith Jaggars, Melinda Mechur Karp Seeking radically improved completion rates, colleges are increasingly turning to technology as a reform tool. Many, however, struggle to leverage technology in ways that lead to large-scale comprehensive change. Case study data on the use of “e-advising” systems in several community colleges help build an understanding of what happens when colleges implement technology to help transform academic advising.6. Using Career Pathways to Guide Students Through Programs of Study Debra D. Bragg, Marianne Krismer Pathways and programs of study provide an increasingly important perspective on college credentialing, completion, and employment. This chapter discusses their nature, structure, and centrality in a competency-based core curriculum developed under the Health Professions Pathways (H2P) consortium funded by Round 1 of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grants.7. Leveraging Technology to Create a Student Focused Environment Linda M. Thor, Joseph Moreau Community college educators recognize the need to improve online learner retention and success, which is significantly lower than in traditional face-to-face courses. Yet colleges continue to fail to coordinate with other institutions or to leverage shareable resources. The Online Education Initiative in the California Community Colleges, drawing on experiences of online pioneer Rio Salado College, illustrates how to enhance system efficiency and student success in online learning through coordination and collaboration.8. Competency-Based Programs as a Lever for Reforming Core Areas Jointly Ann E. Person, Nancy Thibeault Sinclair Community College’s efforts to adapt and adopt competencybased models in information technology programs provides an example of how colleges might improve student success in college and careers and transform the way the college creates and maintains career-relevant curricula.9. Using Data for Continuous Program Improvement Nan L. Maxwell, Ann E. Person Although community colleges operate in a constantly changing environment that requires up-to-date program learning goals that meet stakeholder needs, they often do not have the capacity to assess their programs within a continuous improvement framework. This chapter discusses challenges to using data in a continuous improvement framework and describes the approaches some community colleges have used to overcome those challenges.10. Implementing Comprehensive Reform: Implications for Practice Karen Stout Community colleges face challenges and practical impediments when implementing comprehensive reform. To drive reform, Montgomery County Community College developed a blended framework from Achieving the Dream and the American Association of Community…
Using Data for Continuous Program Improvement
New Directions for Community Colleges, 2016
Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates: Summary Report. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research
This brief summarizes the other briefs in this series and includes some additional material. It d... more This brief summarizes the other briefs in this series and includes some additional material. It describes four broad strategies: (1) new work opportunities for TANF recipients, (2) administrative strategies, (3) TANF policy changes, and (4) creation of new programs.
Uploads
Papers by Ann Person