Most college readiness reforms in high school focus on academic preparation for college, while underprepared students who do not intend to enroll in college are often left underserved. Using a unique source of data from essays written by students, we examine the role that high schools play in supporting students who test below college-ready in…

This article explores challenges in starting, developing, and incorporating partnerships between the secondary and postsecondary education sectors. We use qualitative data from site visits at high schools, district offices, and state colleges across six Florida counties to identify the types of challenges educators faced in various phases of…

High school course selection can affect student outcomes in high school, college, and beyond. Policymakers therefore must consider whether policies affecting course selection may have unintended consequences for students with different levels of preparation. We use regression discontinuity analysis to examine the impact of Florida's College and…

In response to concerns about the additional costs and time-to-degree associated with traditional developmental education programs, several states and postsecondary systems have implemented corequisite reform where academically underprepared students take both a developmental education course and college-level course in the same subject area…

Community colleges may face challenges supporting the unique needs of language minority (LM) students whose primary language is not English. Florida provides a unique context for examining whether LM students who are considered underprepared for college-level coursework benefit more from traditional developmental education programs in reading and…

This paper explores challenges in starting, developing, and incorporating partnerships between secondary and postsecondary education sectors. Site visits data from high schools, districts, and colleges across six Florida counties is used to identify the types of challenges educators faced in various phases of partnerships. We provide empirical…

Since the 2000s, states have experimented with reforms to improve success among underprepared students traditionally assigned to developmental education (DE). Florida's reform under Senate Bill 1720 has been among the most comprehensive and wide-reaching. Recent public high school graduates and military personnel became exempt from DE, but nearly…

Since the 2000s, states have experimented with reforms to improve success among underprepared students traditionally assigned to developmental education (DE). Florida's reform under Senate Bill 1720 has been among the most comprehensive and wide-reaching. Recent public high school graduates and military personnel became exempt from DE, but nearly…

In 2011, under the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), Florida made college placement testing mandatory for 11th-grade students who had scored in the midrange of its standardized 10th-grade assessment. Those with placement test scores below college-ready were assigned in 12th grade to college readiness and success…

Background/Context: Accelerated instructional strategies for developmental education have been promoted as a way to help underprepared students to progress more quickly through college-level coursework. Yet, what remains unknown is whether certain accelerated strategies are more effective than others and whether this initial acceleration may lead…

We explore the impacts of a Consortium of rural high schools and colleges in Tennessee engaged in partnership activities to improve high school students' college and career readiness. These 29 Consortium schools received support from the federal Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) to scale up local promising practices, including distance and online…

Florida enacted legislation in 2008 for a statewide program known as the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), which was intended to reduce the need for postsecondary remediation. The FCCRI consisted of testing grade 11 students to determine their college readiness and offering math and English college readiness and success…

Florida enacted legislation in 2008 for a statewide program known as the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), which was intended to reduce the need for postsecondary remediation. The FCCRI consisted of testing grade 11 students to determine their college readiness and offering math and English college readiness and success…

The Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI) was a statewide policy requiring college readiness testing and participation in college readiness courses for high school students. We used regression discontinuity to compare outcomes for students scoring just above and below test score cutoffs for assignment to FCCRI. We also examined…

The Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative is a statewide policy that requires college readiness testing for grade 11 students and participation in college readiness and success courses for grade 12 students who do not test college-ready. During the first year of an evaluation of this initiative, data collection on program implementation…