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State Policy Issues
The Achieving the Dream initiative is producing a number of research reports and briefs on state policy topics related to community college success . Jobs for the Future publishes a series of issue briefs on particular policy topics. In addition, a “policy audit” has been completed in the first five Achieving the Dream states, detailing the range of policies in each state that relate to student access and success and drawing comparisons across the five states. Similar audits of policies in Connecticut and Ohio are underway.
Achieving the Dream Policy Briefs
Making Performance Accountability Work: English Lessons for U.S. Community Colleges 
Author: Ozan Jaquette
Date: February 2005
In the United States, efforts to use performance accountability as a way to drive improvement in public higher education institutions and systems have yielded mixed results. A more encouraging story has unfolded in England. There, a nationwide accountability system for further education colleges—England’s community-college counterparts—has led to impressive increases in student outcomes since it was implemented in 1992. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds have made particularly large gains. Making Performance Accountability Work takes a detailed look at the policy innovations in England. For U.S. policymakers, they provide both reason for caution and guidance for designing and implementing better performance measurement and funding systems.
State Systems of Performance Accountability for Community Colleges: Impact and Lessons for Policymakers
Author: Kevin Dougherty and Esther Hong of the Community College Research Center , Teachers College, Columbia University
Date: July 2005
This brief looks at trends in performance accountability in state higher education systems, focusing on the five Achieving the Dream states (Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia) and four other states (California, Illinois, New York and Washington). The brief describes three different types of performance accountability systems: performance funding; performance budgeting; and performance reporting. It assesses the reasons behind the modest impacts of performance accountability in the nine states. The authors document problematic unintended consequences as well. The report proposes a series of design changes that can help institutions and states avoid problems of current performance accountability systems.
State Data Systems and Privacy Concerns: Strategies for Balancing Public Interests
Author: Jack Mills, Jobs for the Future
Date: February 2005
Better institutional systems for collecting and reporting student outcome data could help institutional, state, and national policymakers improve student outcomes, yet the collection of data confronts a powerful public interest: individual privacy. This policy brief explores how states can balance the interests of accountability and privacy. It describes how states have addressed the collection and use of student record data within the limits and constraints set by federal privacy laws, with particular reference to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Some states stuck a good balance between preserving individual privacy and using individually identifiable data records to drive institutional improvement. Some states have created “data warehouses” and have the analytic capacity to identify inequities in educational outcomes for students from different population groups. The lessons from these states and their approaches can be helpful to other states as they try to address the need for more student outcome data in a time of great concern about individual privacy.
Access to Community College for Undocumented Immigrants: A Guide for State Policy Makers
Author: Radha Roy Biswas, Job for the Future
Date: January 2005
Faced with a growing number of undocumented immigrant students graduating from their high school, many states—including the first five Achieving the Dream states—are assessing and revising their policies related to access and affordability of higher education for undocumented students. Some states have passed laws to clarify policies on enrollment, tuition, and financial aid in order to expand opportunity for these students. Others have taken steps in the opposite direction, reducing access and opportunity in response to political opposition against granting public benefits to undocumented immigrants. In some states, community colleges have pre-empted state action and taken proactive steps to increase access. Others are waiting for clear federal and state guidance. This brief explores being taken by states and institutions, and provides guidelines for policymakers contemplating the politics and policy options around serving undocumented students.
Standardization vs. Flexibility: State Policy Options on Placement Testing for Developmental Education in Community Colleges
Author:Heath Prince, Jobs for the Future
Date:April 2005
Many students entering community colleges are academically unprepared to succeed in college-level courses, and about one-third of community college students nationally take at least one developmental education course. Given the importance of remediation—as well as its costs and often disappointing results—states are exploring ways to improve developmental education in community colleges. This policy brief describes some of the options and tradeoffs that states encounter as they try to systemize decisions about which students must enroll in developmental education courses. The brief documents variation in policies around mandatory testing, cut scores, and placement in the Achieving the Dream states and several other states.
Listening Tour
View Listening Tour Reports - In 2004, the Futures Project of Brown University led a Policy Listening Tour for Achieving the Dream in the five Round One states: Florida, Texas, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia. In each state, Achieving the Dream representatives met with leaders from community colleges, other educational institutions and systems, the legislative and executive branches of government, as well as business and advocacy groups, to kick off the initiative with a discussion of state policies and programs that promote student success and opportunities to advance new supportive policies in the state. While these meetings were held at the initial stage of the initiative, the reports identify key issues and opportunities across the five states.
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