Happy Birthday, Accelerating Achievement!

This week, Accelerating Achievement turns one. According to What to Expect the First Year, we should have nail-trimming, sleep schedules, and solid foods all figured out. In addition to those milestones, we’ve had more than 100 posts ranging from explanations of how successful bridge programs work, to ways that data can be used to influence state policy, to an invitation for skeptics to change the way they think about developmental education. Forty-two of those were guest posts written by community college faculty, higher education researchers, workforce development experts, state policy leaders, and other friends from across the education sector. Over the next few days, we’re going to do some birthday reflecting, looking back at some of the year’s highlights and thinking about where the next year will take us.


Our Talking About Dev Ed section features posts that explore the varied definitions and passionate opinions that can make conversations about developmental education tricky. In What's in a Name?, we introduced some developmental education messaging tools and general advice for discussing developmental education with any audience. The tools include talking points tailored to key audiences, an economic appeal for supporting the success of underprepared students, and a way to talk about the essential coordination of institutional innovation and state policy. You can find all of these docs in the Resources section of our website under “Communications.” As we move into an election year, there will—we hope!—be more meaningful dialogue about the connections among educational success, employment security, and civil society. These resources could be useful as you participate in these conversations.


In Tales of Technical Assistance, we turned the spotlight on our DEI colleges that are making taking advantage of expert consultation to overcome barriers to expanding effective programs. One success story on the continuous improvement loop came from El Paso Community College (EPCC), as recorded in What Do Students Really Think? EPCC invited Arleen Arnsparger, consultant for the University of Texas at Austin’s Community College Leadership Program, to come to campus and lead a workshop about creating student focus groups. “We’re all getting better at making decisions by looking at institutional data and survey data, rather than just anecdotal information,” says Arleen. “Colleges have a lot of numbers to point them in the right direction, but student focus groups help them dig a little deeper into what they’re seeing in the data.” El Paso has continued to incorporate students into their decision-making process and as peer mentors. You can see a recap of their DEI progress here.

Guest Post: It's All in How You Say a Thing

Today, Pamela Henney, an adjunct faculty member in the English department at DEI college North Central State College in Mansfield, Ohio, shares her perspective on how perception, language, and expectations can influence faculty-student interactions—and results in the classroom.

Higher education is increasingly focused on developmental education initiatives, and definitely should be with 40 to 69 percent of high school graduates requiring at least one developmental course in college. We fund new developmental programs, devise new pedagogies, share our secrets of success, and warn of failures with others, encourage more studies of our students, and target varied groups of students for extra attention—all highly worthy endeavors. However, we might be missing one crucial point: perception.

Several speakers noted this perception issue almost in passing at this year’s Community College of Baltimore County Accelerated Learning Project’s 3rd Annual Conference on Acceleration in Developmental Education. Perception is vital to student success. If our students see themselves as capable of passing they tend to succeed. We may believe ourselves to be helpful, empathetic, and encouraging with our students, but then we fall into our academic jargon forgetting we are conversing with students. 

We often find ourselves so entrenched in the new teaching approaches and prospects for students that we find ourselves believing students will understand the underlying philosophy and pedagogy exactly as we do. They do not often recognize this educational opportunity with the same vigor we offer it. Think about it: How often do we hear cries of glee from a student being told “You’ve placed in Basic Writing, a program to help you progress,” when the student confidently believed himself to be starting out in First Year Composition. How persuasive is it to tell our students this non-transferrable credit course will help “address deficiencies,” “relearn skills,” or even “catch up?”

In addition to creating effective developmental programs and devising new pedagogies all aimed at supporting student success, we need to consider how each element of a student success plan is perceived.  If we want our students to have a successful, confident mindset, then we have to seamlessly illustrate our support. The phrase “we are placing you in Basic Writing” is often heard as “You aren’t ready for college English,” “You aren’t ready for college,” or simply “You can’t do this.” For some of our students, it is the same negative rhetoric they have been hearing all of their lives.

The rebuttal for this downward psychological spiral is inherent in accelerated developmental programs. Hearing “Your test score gives you the opportunity to take advantage of our accelerated program” right away translates in a student’s mind into “You can do this” – and not only do it, but do it faster and more efficiently than other students. It also connotes our expectation of student success.

True, this issue seems very simple and much like a sales technique, but students who recognize that other people—especially advisers and professors—believe they can succeed often tend to try to live up to those expectations, even internalizing a “can do” mindset. This apparently minor change should impact student perception of developmental programs and create a positive foundation which meets the criteria for continued success.

So You Want to Publish that Op-Ed

We look for timeliness, ingenuity, strength of argument, freshness of opinion, clear writing and newsworthiness. Personal experiences and first-person narrative can be great, particularly when they’re in service to a larger idea. So is humor, when it’s funny. Does it help to be famous? Not really.
                --David Shipley, The New York Times

If the op-ed template from yesterday’s post were the nail, today’s offering is the hammer. If you’ve got something to say about your college’s innovative approach to helping more students get through developmental education and on to completion, we want to be sure people hear it.

Op-ed refers to the opinion page--that’s Opposite the Editorial page--in most newspapers. It’s a great way to bring attention to an issue that’s important to you, especially when it’s suddenly in the news. It can help reshape public debate and affect policy while bringing attention to your organization.

In the DEI Online Resources section, under “Communications,” you’ll find two documents that can increase your chances of placing that brilliant op-ed:

• “How to Write an Op-Ed” is chock full of tips for writing a great piece and getting it published.
• Once you’ve got your piece ready, check out “Press Pointers” from our ATD communications colleagues for instructions on developing relationships with reporters in your area.

Richard Hart is MDC’s Communications Director.

A Stepstool to a Dev Ed Soapbox

Given current resource constraints, adequate funding for community colleges is becoming more tenuous.  As enrollment grows and tax bases shrink, policymakers are examining budgets with a fine-toothed comb and college leaders are struggling to do more with less. In many circles, there is concern that the growing burden of funding and teaching developmental education is distracting community colleges from their core mission. This fear is noted in a recent New York Times article about remediation programs in New York City, which we blogged about earlier this month.

One of our DEI priorities is to stimulate a positive public conversation about developmental education. We want to make sure that effective developmental education is recognized for the life-changing impact it has on students. Inspired by the great stories and opinion pieces some of our DEI colleges have written for local news outlets (like this one by Madeline Barillo, Norwalk Community College’s director of public relations), we’ve constructed a sample op-ed that can be adapted by any college for local use. You can download the op-ed from the Resources section of the DEI website; it’s under the “Communications” tab.

Plug in your data and send it off, or draw on it to inspire an original piece. Whether you use this template or not ,we’d love to know about any op-eds that your college submits to your local paper that address your college response to dev ed work. Have you already started this conversation in your community? Share the link in the comments section below.

Richard Hart is MDC's Communications Director.

Dev Ed is Good for Business

In the community college world, the connection between education and economic security is obvious. But that doesn’t mean it is always easy to gain the support of policy makers and business leaders. Sometimes, don’t you just want to slap these numbers up on a billboard? 

We haven’t got a billboard, but we have done some thinking about the economic imperative of getting more students to complete a college credential. In the “Communications” section of the Resources page, you’ll find “Dev Ed is Good for Business,” a brief piece that can help you become a walking billboard. Think of this document as a set of talking points to use in conversations with people who want to know why developmental education is good for our communities and workforce, not just individuals.

The good news: we certainly aren’t the only ones calling attention to this. In mid-January, Jamie Merisotis, president of Lumina Foundation for Education, spoke at the Economic Club of Indiana (you can read the full transcript or watch the video on Lumina’s website):

“It has become clear, not just to economists, but to millions of Americans, that completing some form of higher education is the best unemployment insurance you can find. Now, a college degree is a prerequisite. There’s no guarantee that a student who obtains a college degree is going to get a good job and have a middle-class life. But in the future, you almost certainly will be poor without some kind of postsecondary credential.”

As private companies begin reinvesting and rehiring, community college students can fill those slots, but they’ve got to be ready with credentials and additional skills—like the ones Jeffrey Jorres, CEO of Manpower Inc, outlines:

“Employers have gotten more specific about the combination of skill sets that they are looking for, not only seeking technical capabilities in a job match, but holding out for the person that possesses the additional qualities above and beyond that will help drive their organization forward. This conundrum is upsetting to the ubiquitous job seeker, who will need to take more responsibility for his/her skills development in order to find ways to remain relevant to the market.”

Well-designed training and college-readiness support can give students the foundation and these “additional qualities” that are required in the 21st century workforce. College students who have managed their time in self-paced math emporiums, have simultaneously improved writing skills while in a college-level course, or learned to work as part of a team in learning communities will be better prepared for this workforce. How do you make this case for the business leaders in your community? Tell us what your billboard would say in the comments section!

Alyson Zandt is a Program Associate at MDC.

What's in a Name?

Ever wish you had a ready-made elevator speech for talking about developmental education? Something simple, straightforward, and conversational that anyone would understand? Talking about developmental ed can be challenging. So to help, we’ve assembled some general advice and messaging for discussing developmental education with any audience. It’s our goal to provide you with the basics for getting the word out whether you’re at a board meeting with trustees or in line at the grocery store.  (Because we really want to spread the good word everywhere, people.)

While these documents were developed with DEI colleges in mind as the users, we think they will be useful to a broader audience. The messages draw on research from our funders, Public Agenda, and some trusty communications consultants. Here’s a brief rundown of the four pieces we’ve prepared to help you meet the challenge. Future blog posts will delve into the content and utility of each:  

1. Talking Points –special messages for key audiences and four main themes: 
• The problem: Half the new jobs created in the next 10 years will require some college education. Yet right now, students who need a developmental course are much less likely to finish college than those who don’t need one. 
• The conventional one-size-fits-all approach to developmental education doesn’t work for many students. 
• Developmental education can work for students who need it. 
• It’s just a matter of offering motivated Americans at all stages of life and from every background a fair chance at a good-paying career and a better future. 
2. Dev Ed is Good for Business & the Economy—an economic appeal for propelling under-prepared students toward rewarding careers. 
3. Promising Examples from DEI Colleges—a quick look at the types of innovation that are changing students’ lives. 
4. Institutional Innovation & State Policy Change—how coordination of these two important efforts is essential to sustainable success.

You can find all of these in the Resources section of our website under “Communications.” In the coming weeks, we’ll be blogging about specific messaging problems that all of us encounter, including students’ negative perceptions of developmental education and the search for a name and definition for these courses that is both representative and accessible. This blog can be a forum to test and share new ways of talking about developmental education. Let’s get started: click on the “comments” link below and give us your most successful dev ed elevator speech.

Richard Hart is MDC's Communications Director.