An upcoming MDRC report, Building Learning Communities: Early Findings from the Opening Doors Project at Kingsborough Community College, by Dan Bloom and Colleen Sommo, was featured in a New York Times special education supplement on Sunday, April 24, 2005. In an article entitled "Promoting Class Consciousness," reporter Karen Arenson described Kingsborough’s efforts to create small learning communities for incoming freshman (in which students take integrated classes together) and previewed the findings of MDRC’s random assignment study of the intervention.

The upcoming report shows that students in the program substantially outperformed control group students during their first semester at Kingsborough, achieving higher course pass rates, particularly in English. One year after enrollment, Opening Doors students were more likely to have completed their remedial English requirements. Surprisingly, however, Opening Doors students were no more likely than control group students to be enrolled at Kingsborough (or elsewhere in the City University of New York).

The MDRC report will be published by early June. For more information about the Opening Doors project, visit the project description.