Guest Post: Levers for Change

Institutional change can be even more transformative (and sustainable) when it’s backed by supportive state policy. That’s why the Developmental Education Initiative—with leadership from Jobs for the Future (JFF)--also includes six state policy teams.They’re tackling questions like: In which policy areas should states concentrate their efforts to improve outcomes for students who test into developmental education? And how do those areas interact to accelerate change? They’re already well on their way to answering them, using the Developmental Education Initiative State Policy Framework and Strategy. 

The Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) builds on the foundation of Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count. After collaborating with DEI state leads, consulting the research literature, and receiving advice from national experts, JFF identified six priority state policy levers:

• Aligned expectations (P-16)
• Assessment and placement
• Data performance and measurement
• Developmental education innovation and redesign
• Integration of academic and student services,
• Finance

But developing consensus on policy levers is not sufficient to improve student success.  Thus, we developed the DEI State Policy Strategy, a state-level developmental education improvement strategy that incorporates the above levers into three innovation-focused action priorities:

• A Data-Driven Improvement Process that ensures the right conditions for innovation. This includes data and performance measurement activities, specifically identifying the right success measures (including intermediate measures that indicate if a student is on track for success) and protocols for systematic sharing of results as a part of state-level processes for continuous improvement.
• A State-Level Innovation Investment Strategy that helps states align and coordinate support from multiple sources to provide incentives for the development, testing, and scaling up of effective models for helping underprepared students succeed.
• Policy Supports that provide a foundation for improved outcomes for underprepared students, facilitate the implementation of effective and promising models, and encourage the spread of successful practices.

Here’s an example of how one state policy team is employing these strategy: The Connecticut Community College System (CCCS) has two DEI colleges, but has leveraged its support for improved outcomes across the other 10 community colleges in the system. CCCS secured resources to provide $50,000 seed money for innovation initiatives in all 12 of the System’s colleges. This investment in innovation, in combination with additional funding for performance, is designed to accelerate institutional innovation across the state.

When the elements of this framework are combined with support for a state-level network of institutional innovators, assisted by strong state-level technical assistance services, we believe states will accelerate the creation of solutions and pathways that improve outcomes for students who test into developmental education.

Michael Collins is a Program Director at Jobs for the Future

For more information see the DEI State Policy Framework and Strategy, available on the Resources page under "State Policy."