Commentary: Accelerating Developmental Education Reforms During the Pandemic | Ascendium Education Group, Inc. Skip to main content

EDUCATION PHILANTHROPY DIVISION OF ASCENDIUM EDUCATION GROUP

Ascendium in the News July 01, 2020

Commentary: Accelerating Developmental Education Reforms During the Pandemic

Source: The Kresge Foundation
Author: Christopher M. Mullin

This guest commentary comes from Strong Start to Finish, an initiative at Education Commission of the States that aims to help colleges and universities increase the number and proportion of students from low-income households, students of color and returning adults who succeed in college math and English. Christopher M. Mullin serves as director of the Strong Start to Finish initiative.

The current pandemic, with its cascade of economic and health impacts, has put education leaders in an unprecedented maelstrom of uncertainty that touches nearly every facet of higher education. It would be easier right now to pull back on ambitious developmental education reforms until the storm passes.

But the easy thing is not always the right thing, especially when students’ college success is at stake.

This is why Strong Start to Finish (SSTF) continues to push through these difficult times to advance developmental education and support the 4.8 million students that this work now impacts.

Strong Start to Finish just announced a significant new investment that will further support states, institutions, students and its collective understanding of what works in developmental education. Thirteen systems of higher education in 12 states were awarded a total of $5.3 million from The Kresge Foundation and two other funders -- Ascendium Education Group and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- to achieve very clear and explicit goals.

Read the full article at The Kresge Foundation

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