What’s Up with DEI: North Carolina

During July and August, we’re sharing some of the DEI state policy team and college accomplishments from the last year of work. We’re making our way (alphabetically!) through the six DEI states, profiling the DEI colleges in those states as we go. This week, we’re focusing on North Carolina, the Tar Heel State.

The North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) serves as the state team lead for North Carolina’s ATD/DEI state policy work. One of the state’s 58 community colleges participates in DEI, Guilford Technical Community College. Five others are ATD colleges (Asheville-Buncombe Tech, Central Piedmont, Davidson County, Durham Tech, and Martin). In the last year, North Carolina has moved forward on all three DEI State Policy Framework levers:

Data-Driven Improvement

• NCCCS has created a Performance Measures Committee comprised of leaders from across the system. This committee will develop recommendations for new student success measures. They began by investigating national accountability frameworks from the National Governors Association, Complete College America, and the American Association of Community Colleges.
• NCCCS completed a statewide listening tour of each of the 58 North Carolina community colleges. Colleges identified gaps in developmental education offerings and barriers.

Investment in Innovation

• NCCCS is developing a statewide redesign of developmental math curricula and delivery. In October 2010, it approved design principles to steer developmental math redesign, as well as a process to identify 18 developmental and curriculum math faculty from across the state to carry out curriculum redesign. It has now formed a DEI Math Task Force comprised of faculty and administrators from across the state. The new math modules will be implemented in 2012; the courses will be paired with a custom diagnostic test (also in development) and revised placement policies. The eight modules are designed so they can be taken in a year, in contrast to the current three-semester sequence.

Policy Supports

• To support the developmental math redesign, a group of administrators is designing processes to address necessary changes in administration, including registration, tuition, data management systems, and financial aid disbursement practices.
• NCCCS has begun a validation study of Accuplacer and COMPASS, two placement exams used within the system. They are conducting a study of other possible placement measures.

For more details on DEI state policy accomplishments, check out Jobs For the Future’s latest DEI publication Driving Innovation: How Six States Are Organizing to Improve Outcomes in Developmental Education Outcomes.