The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has awarded a five-year, $10-million grant to MDRC, the Community College Research Center (CCRC), and scholars at Stanford, U.C. Davis, and Vanderbilt to create a center focused on rigorously assessing the effects of new approaches to remedial assessment, placement, and instruction.

Named the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR) and housed at CCRC, it will use findings from this research to assist states and colleges in crafting policies and programs in developmental education that lead to improved outcomes for struggling students. CAPR will be led by Thomas Bailey, CCRC’s Director, and Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, the Director of MDRC’s Young Adult and Postsecondary Education policy area.

CAPR will conduct three major studies:

• A national study to survey the characteristics of developmental students, the dominant remedial practices across two- and four-year colleges, and the nature and extent of reforms that have been recently implemented or are in process.
• A randomized control trial in partnership with the State University of New York’s community college system to test the effectiveness of a “data analytics” assessment and placement system that relies on more information, including high school records, than the traditional method of placing students into remedial education.
• A randomized control trial study at several Texas community colleges comparing The New Mathways Project — a program, developed by The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas-Austin, to engage students in more active learning of math curricula that are tailored to specific academic pathways — with the traditional remedial and introductory college math sequence.

In addition to the above studies, CAPR will carry out smaller-scale quasi-experimental studies of innovative approaches to remediation. CAPR will share findings from all its studies at national policy forums and a national conference and will work with states and colleges to implement and scale up policies and practices informed by the research.