State Policy Framework

An Achieving the Dream State Policy Framework describes the policies that each state should have in place to maximize student success. While every state context is unique, the states agreed that implementing as many of the listed policies as possible would equal success. Achieving the Dream then worked with each state team to develop priorities and workplans to address these areas of focus. Michigan and Arkansas, for example, recently launched new student success centers to support institutional innovation.  Washington launched a performance funding system that rewards institutions for student persistence and success at specified milestones, or “momentum points,” such as completion of a developmental education sequence.  After following Washington’s progress, Arkansas, Ohio and Hawaii also recently adopted new performance funding systems. For further discussion of Achieving the Dream's promising results, please click here.

Six of the original Achieving the Dream States went on to join the Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) in 2009, with the goal of focusing similar policy change strategies and capacity building on the issue of dramatically improving student outcomes for developmental education students.

When Achieving the Dream was launched in 2004, most states focused on college access as a central policy agenda for community colleges. Since then, Achieving the Dream has dramatically changed the policy environment in the 16 states that signed on. In each, community college student success particularly for low-income and underprepared students, is now a central priority.

Central to that priority, participating states and JFF (the initiative’s lead policy partner) have identified a student success policy framework that guides state planning and decision making. This report documents the state policy work that's been done in the context of this framework, which emphasizes:

1. A clear public policy commitment to student success
2. A strong performance measurement and data-driven accountability system
3. Assessment and placement policies that accelerate the progress of underprepared students
4. Incentives to promote student persistence and completion
5. Aligned expectations and transitions across educational sectors

Using this framework, Achieving the Dream states created detailed action plans to move their priorities. States have assessed their progress annually against their own baseline data and against other states’ progress on 57 distinct success policies that cluster under the framework's policy priorities.