High-structure course designs have reduced achievement gaps for low-income and underrepresented minority students at research universities. But do community college students have time to do the preclass preparation required for intensive active learning, given their work and family commitments? We asked introductory majors biology students at two…

The Student Achievement Initiative (SAI) is the guiding framework for the Washington state community and technical college system's goals for student success. SAI emphasizes student momentum for college success by both building college readiness (such as basic skills gains and completion of precollege education, sometimes known as developmental…

Using a dataset containing nearly 500,000 courses taken by over 40,000 community and technical college students in Washington State, this study examines the performance gap between online and face-to-face courses and how the size of that gap differs across student subgroups and academic subject areas. While all types of students in the study…

Concerns over the United States' global standing have spurred a national focus on improving postsecondary attainment. At the same time, many sectors of the economy find they have difficulty recruiting highly trained individuals to fill the good jobs that exist; jobs like nursing, respiratory care, dental hygiene, and various mid-level management…

Achieving the Dream (ATD) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving outcomes among community college students, especially low-income students and students of color. A central ATD strategy is to promote a "culture of evidence," in which colleges collect, analyze, and make decisions based on information about students in…

In September 2006, the State Board approved a new System Direction to guide the two-year-college system for the next ten years. One of three primary goals for the system is to increase educational attainment for the economic development of the state and the economic well-being of Washingtonians. Since 2000, State Board staff has provided periodic…