Developmental Education in the MNSCU System

The following document is an attempt to re-cap the developmental education reform movement in our state system, and to offer an alternative viewpoint to the narrative embraced by the system, which is being used to eliminate stand-alone remedial coursework at all MinnState institutions.

Background

For the last decade, more and more colleges, and even entire state systems, have been “reforming” developmental education. Much of this reform focuses on eliminating standalone, remedial courses in English and Math that are meant to strengthen the academic skills of underprepared students. The dominant narrative regarding this elimination is that such classes are a barrier, largely affecting under-privileged students, because many students who begin in these classes fail to complete college-level courses. The push to eliminate these classes has now officially reached Minnesota.

In 2018 MinnState rolled out a Developmental Education Strategic Roadmap (DESR) for schools to implement by the beginning of 21-22 school year. This roadmap offered schools some leeway to decide what works best for their college and their student population—populations which differ widely across the state (not to mention the nation). To be sure, the roadmap laid out a variety of guiding principles, such as offering accelerated course options, aligning learning outcomes across the state, and implementing multiple measures p lacement.

In early January, an email from the system office trickled down to faculty, mandating, “All developmental education coursework will be in a corequisite format tied to a college level course by Fall 2026.” This means the outright elimination of standalone remedial courses in English and Math in favor of corequisite coursework (taking a college level Math/English class at the same time as a support course).

However, the process by which this decision was made is not entirely clear. Apparently, a “Leadership Action Team” was assembled, consisting of presidents from various MinnState colleges and universities. This team was given national and system-specific data to review, and then made recommendations to the Chancellor. A PPT presentation titled “Corequisites and the Future of Developmental Education in Minnesota” was delivered to the leadership council; however, the use of data on some slides was questionable.i The MinnState leadership took the presentation at face value in decision-making, and the Chancellor signed a directive to eliminate standalone developmental education courses and implement corequisite courses by Fall 2026.

A workgroup consisting of MinnState administrators, deans, faculty, advising staff, and students from MinnState colleges and universities was quickly assembled to develop a comprehensive plan by June 30, 2023 (Leadership Council, 2022). The workgroup is charged with the following responsibilities: defining the scope of the work, identifying groups or individuals responsible for the work, defining an infrastructure, identifying resources, and defining the timeline. The new initiative was purportedly built upon decade-long developmental education reforms in math, reading, and English: forming developmental education workgroup in 2016, implementing Developmental Education Strategic Roadmap (DESR) from 2017-2021, and implementing the math pathway co-requisite at community colleges.

Problems

This edict comes on the heels of another systemwide directive to identify and implement multiple measures placement practices by July 1, 2024 (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, 2022). Framed as another barrier, traditional placement practices have given way to various versions of “guided self-placement,” in which students have the right to place themselves in college-level classes.

DESR identified seven strategic goals, one of which is to “[i]mprove the accuracy of course placement by implementing a multiple measures placement program at all colleges and universities” (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, 2018). This strategic goal should have been achieved before MinnState took any drastic action on developmental education, let alone issuing a mandate to eliminate standalone courses and adopt the corequisite model on all campuses—for all students below college-level cutoffs regardless of students’ academic, professional, financial, and personal needs; the demographics of the student body; the location of the school and its connection to the community.

Both mandates have rendered the original DESR null and void, and an initial spirit of cooperation between system and college has given way to mandated actions. The expertise and experiences of educational practitioners are overlooked or purposely dismissed to meet MinnState’s demands, which are dictated by the board of trustees. The top-down management of education, evidenced by MinnState’s sudden decision to take a one-form-fits-all approach to developmental education, reflects the global trend of the emerging “new professionalism” across all public sectors—transferring business logics into the public sector and replacing the ideals of public service with market rationale (Anderson & Herr, 2015).

Proponents of eliminating standalone remedial courses and/or adopting the corequisite point to large increases in the numbers of students who take and pass college-level English and Math courses when they avoid standalone remedial courses. They often refer to Bailey et al. (2010)’s seminal work on traditional developmental education’s ineffectiveness to make this case. Although reformers now advocate to either eliminate standalone courses or adopt the co-requisite model, Bailey et al. (2013) explicitly stated, “We do not advocate—nor do we believe that the results of our research support—the elimination of developmental education, the placing of all students into college courses, or the wholesale conversion of developmental education into a corequisite model” (p. 2). However, recent research has shown that the initial positive impacts of corequisites dissipates or disappears beyond the first year (Jaggars and Bickerstaff, 2018; Kane, et al., 2020; Ran and Lin, 2022).

Standalone developmental education should still be part of the strategy because data exist that show those who are able to persist in, and complete, remedial coursework may graduate and transfer at higher rates than those who took corequisite classes alone (Saw, 2019). Chen (2016) did a study for National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) with a nationally representative sample of two-year public students and found:1) remedial students who completed remediation had higher graduation rates than nonremedial students; 2) weakly prepared remedial students had better academic outcomes; 3) well-prepared remedial students did not have reduced outcomes compared to nonremedial students. Therefore, we cannot conclude that remediation is a barrier, and the uniform approach to developmental education reform will inadvertently hurt students who could benefit the most from such a program (Goudas, 2021). Given this, the goal should be to offer students as much support as possible to persist and complete coursework, and not to eliminate standalone courses, which also eliminates sufficient time for students with dedicated developmental education faculty.

It has been widely reported that the pandemic has led to grim educational outcomes and significant learning loss (The Nation’s Report Card, n.d.; Education Policy Innovation Center, 2022). Preexisting educational disparities among students from under-resourced and marginalized communities have been exacerbated (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022). Researchers have pointed out the urgency to address the dire consequences of learning loss through recovery and intervention efforts (Anderson, 2022; Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2022). Given the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on community college students (Brock & Diwa, 2021), it is time for us to re-evaluate developmental education reforms so that we can re-envision models supported by sound research, centered on community needs, and validated by educators—in order to meet wide-ranging academic needs of students from diverse backgrounds.

Recommendations:

Nearly all of the states that have made drastic developmental education reforms by trying to either eliminate developmental education courses or enforcing the corequisite model were forced to do so by the legislature, such as Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, and California. MinnState is not under legislative pressure yet to take immediate action since HF 3252, which addresses multiple measures placement in developmental education, has been tabled in Minnesota State senate. Therefore, Minnesota State should consider the following recommendations.

First, MinnState should wait until Multiple Measures Course Placement Phase II is finished in spring 2024 to make the decision. According to Barnett et al. (2020)’s CAPR report, the multiple measures practice gave students of color and students from low-income backgrounds more access to college-level courses (more in English than in math). Nevertheless, there has been no evidence that it contributed to reducing equity gaps among subgroups. Gains in college-level enrollment and completion in math are insignificant and are diminished in the third semester. Magnitude of impacts on English were larger, but it diminished overtime. MinnState, therefore, should consider how to develop more equitable placement practices for minoritized students and then provide targeted, sustained academic and financial support.

Second, MinnState should address the true reasons that lead to dropout and incompletion among community college students, instead of focusing on blaming developmental education. Adult students, who constitute about 1/3 of community college population, often quote life responsibilities as the main reason for incompletion (Crosta, 2013). In a survey of more than 50,000 students from ten community college campuses from 2017 to 2018, researchers found that the top ten challenges community college students experience are as follows: work, paying expenses, family and friends, online expenses, parking on campus, developmental courses, faculty, health and disability, doing college-level course, and registering for courses (Porter & Umbach, 2018). Among the five principles of developmental education Bickherstaff et al. (2022) identified, the second principle is to “[p]rovide targeted and tiered supports to address students’ academic and nonacademic needs” (p. 2). CUNY’s Start and ASAP will be good examples on how to accomplish this goal (Azurdia & Galkin, 2020; Miller et al., 2020). Research should also be conducted to find out how to retain students, especially those who fail the first try of a corequisite class.

Third, instead of taking a “one-form-fits-all” approach by enforcing the uniform adoption of the corequisite model, MinnState should consider a holistic approach to address the most challenging issues faced by community college developmental students (Goudas, 2021). Colleges should have the freedom to choose the model and delivery method that best fit their students’ needs (Bickherstaff et al., 2022, p. 2). Florida, for example, not only provides students with extra support but also gives colleges the flexibility to choose from four developmental education models: corequisite, compressed, contextualized, and modulized. The law also mandates tailored programs. CUNY also has many forms of developmental program: corequisite, Start, CLIP, and workshops throughout the academic year.

Fourth, policymakers should seek broad collaboration with community organizations to provide support for students. Minnesota State has recently started collaborating with Adult Basic Education on more than two dozen community college campuses, a new corequisite model that has been successfully implemented (“Dev Ed/ABE Toolkit,” n.d.). MinnState should take a more proactive approach in coordinating the collaboration with ABE.

Call to Action

Educator practitioners should challenge broad policies that resulted in unfavorable social conditions for underachievement and education policies that led to inequities in education, especially the policies that further disenfranchised the poor and the marginalized students (Anyon, 2014). Educators must also pay attention to critical policy praxis by engaging in analysis and actions at the same time to counter neoliberal policies so that the paradigm could shift from data-driven policymaking to democracy-driven decision-making (Horsford et al., 2018). Therefore, educators should actively participate in policymaking instead of only passively resisting policies imposed on them. When education leaders engage in inequitable approaches to education reform or policymaking, they need to be called out and held accountable (Anderson, 2009). Only by doing this can education leaders move away from inequitable education reform and policymaking.

References

ABE Teaching & Learning Advancement System. (n.d.). Dev Ed/ABE Toolkit. ATLASABE. https://atlasabe.org/dev-ed-abe-toolkit/

Anderson, J. (2022, April 20). Harvard EdCast: The COVID catch -up challenge. Harvard Graduate School of Education. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/22/04/harvard -edcast- covid-catch-challenge

Anderson, G. & Herr, K. (2015). New public management and the new professional educator: Framing the issue. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 23(84).

Anyon, J. (2014). Radical possibilities: Public policy, poverty, and a new social movement. Routledge.

Bailey, T. R., Jeong, D. W., & Cho, S. W. (2010). Referral, enrollment and completion in developmental education sequences in community colleges. Economics of Education Review, 29(2), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2009.09.002

Bailey, T. R., Jaggars, S. S., & Scott-Clayton, J. (2013). Characterizing the effectiveness of developmental education: A response to recent criticism. Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED542142.pdf

Barnett, E. A., Kopko, E., and Cullinan, D. (2020). Who should take college-level courses? Impact findings from an evaluation of a multiple measures assessment strategy. Center of Assessment for Postsecondary Effectiveness. https://postsecondaryreadiness.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/10/multiple-measures-assessment-impact-findings.pdf

Bickerstaff, S., Beal, K., Raufman, J., Lewy, E. B., & Slaughter, A. (2022). Five principles for reforming developmental education: A review of the evidence. Center of Assessment for Postsecondary Effectiveness. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/capr- synthesis-report-final.pdf

Brock, T., & Diwa, C. (2021). Catastrophe or catalyst? Reflections on COVID’s impact on community colleges. Journal of Postsecondary Student Success, 1(2), 2–17. https://doi.org/10.33009/fsop_jpss129901

Brock, T., & Diwa, C. (2021). Catastrophe or catalyst? Reflections on COVID’s impact on community colleges. Journal of Postsecondary Student Success, 1(2), 2–17. https://doi.org/10.33009/fsop_jpss129901

Chen, X. (2016). Remedial coursetaking at U.S. public 2- and 4-Year institutions: Scope, experiences, and outcomes (NCES 2016-405). National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016405.pdf