State Policy Update

Our colleagues at Jobs for the Future have been compiling newsletters, writing reports, and posting blogs, all about developmental education, state policy, and every good thing. We wanted to be sure that you had the latest links to all this great material:

• The March 2012 edition of Achieving Success is available here. Achieving Success is the state policy newsletter of Achieving the Dream and the Developmental Education Initiative, with features on all three elements of the DEI state policy framework. In data driven improvement, you'll find a synopsis of a recent convening on faculty engagement; in investment in innovation, there's a conversation with Shanna Smith Jaggers from CCRC discussing state policy implications of her recent work on the opposing forces that shape developmental education (she blogged about it here); and finally, in policy supports, you'll find viewpoints about placement polices from both SMARTER Balanced and PARCC common core assessment consortia.

•  JFF has also has released a new set of tools to help states design performance-based funding systems. You can download Tying Funding to Community College Outcomes: Models, Tools, and Recommendations for States here.

• Rachel Pleasants just completed a three-part series on the JFF blog about scaling up. The three posts, planning for scale, managing change, and ensuring that good programs make a strong impact, draw from a session at the recent ATD/DEI State Policy Meeting.