Promises and Pathways

Institution:

Cuyamaca College

State:

California

Academic Level:

Associate

Issue Area:

Retention

Program Focus:

Developmental Coursework

Website:

Key Personnel:

Contact Info:

Overview

The mission of Promises and Pathways is to annihilate the achievement gap, particularly for Latino students who represent 33% of students, through scaled developmental education reform efforts. The primary goals of Promises and Pathways includes: 1) To increase access to transfer-level math and English by employing multiple measures (high school performance such as grade point average and progress in coursework) and eliminating the use of standardized placement tests, and 2) Increase successful course completion of transfer-level math and English in the first year of college by employing a co-requisite model that provides concurrent support, contextualized learning, and culturally responsive teaching.

Program Description

Cuyamaca College opened the door to education’s promise for all students – including disproportionately impacted Latino students. Indeed, Cuyamaca College significantly improved throughput rates for all students and reduced equity gaps.

Cuyamaca College employed a few high impact practices to achieve positive results: 1) scaled the use of multiple measures for placement in math and English (using high school performance- namely GPA and coursework), 2) scaled the use of co-requisite math and English, using an activity-based classroom that employed culturally relevant teaching.

Outcome

Increased Latinx student access to transfer-level math and English: Elimination of standardized placement and use of multiple measures (like high school performance, including GPA and coursework) dramatically increased access to transfer-level courses for all first-time students, including Latinx students. In math, access to transfer-level increased from 24% to 100% for all first-time students and from 21% to 100% for Latinx students. In English, access to transfer-level increased from 12% to 100% for all first-time students and from 7% to 100% for Latinx students.
Increased Latinx student completion of transfer-level math and English: Scaling the use of a co-requisite model, activity-based learning, and culturally relevant teaching resulted in substantial increases in completion of transfer-level courses for all first-time students, including Latinx students. Transfer-level math completion for all first-time students increased from 23% to 67% and from 15% to 65% for Latinx students. In English, transfer-level completion for all first-time students increased from 38% to 79% and from 38% to 66% for Latinx students.