Promising Practices

Achieving the Dream colleges are testing many strategies intended to increase student success. The colleges are committed to assessing the effectiveness of their strategies, institutionalizing approaches that prove successful, and sharing their findings widely. Long-term, Achieving the Dream hopes to see many more community colleges making decisions and setting priorities based on real evidence about the effectiveness of programs and policies.

The initiative expects to generate new knowledge about practices that can increase student success at community colleges. In doing so, it aims to raise the standards for labeling approaches “promising” or “effective.” Over the coming year, this section of the website will feature promising approaches taken by colleges as well as links to related research. In presenting practices at particular colleges, we will include information on the local circumstances, a clear description of the approach taken by the college, and the evidence that it works. This information should help other colleges make decisions about the potential replicability of the approach and how it might need to be modified to work in a different location.

RESEARCH ON PROMISING PRACTICES

Paths to Persistence: An Analysis of Research on Program Effectiveness at Community Colleges
Author: Thomas R. Bailey & Mariana Alfonso of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University
Date: January, 2005

This paper presents a critical analysis of the state of the research on the effectiveness of specific practices in increasing persistence and completion at community colleges.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION

Affirmation and Discovery: Learning from Successful Community College Developmental Programs in Texas
The report, Affirmation and Discovery: Learning from Successful Community College Developmental Programs in Texas, on developmental education best practices commissioned by The Texas Association of Community Colleges is now available.    

25 Steps to Effective Developmental Education 
Author: Byron McClenney, former community college president now at the Community College Leadership Program, University of Texas
Date: August, 2005
Byron McClenney has prepared a summary of 25 Steps to Effective Developmental Education based on his extensive experience and knowledge of research in the field. Byron manages the coaches who work with Achieving the Dream colleges; he also coaches three colleges himself.

Summaries from the August 2005 Achieving the Dream Policy Newsletter
Includes summaries of several recent studies on developmental education policies and practices by Dolores Perin, Eric Bettinger, Bridget Terry Long, and others.