Lessons Learned from Breaking Through. In Brief

N

7

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Career Planning; Community Colleges; Student Participation; Adult Basic Education; College Credits; Technical Education; Remedial Instruction; Access to Education; College Attendance; Adult Students; Educational Assessment; Education Work Relationship; College Curriculum; Curriculum Design; Educational Finance; Professional Education; Interviews; Two Year College Students; Outcomes of Education; Developmental Studies Programs

Arkansas; California; Colorado; Florida; Kentucky; Maine; Massachusetts; Michigan; Nevada; New Mexico; New York; Ohio; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Texas; United States; Virginia

The Breaking Through (BT) initiative promotes an expanded and enhanced role for community colleges in providing access to college for low-skilled adults. BT is uniquely important in its systematic integration of adult education, developmental/remedial education, professional-technical education (PTE), and career planning and preparation in community colleges geographically distributed throughout the United States. Through the creation of a variety of models, BT envisions new, sequential curriculum and instruction to assist low-skilled adults to progress through adult basic education (ABE) and/or remedial/developmental education to college credit PTE course work that leads to family wage-sustaining careers. The evaluation of BT focused on the implementation of programs and practices, as well as student participation and outcomes. Identifying the ways the low-skilled adult target audience was impacted by BT programs was an important concern to funders as well as local program developers and their community colleges. The evaluation design, including one-on-one and small group interviews, site visits, surveys, and review of documents and reports yielded an extensive amount of information to assess the BT initiative. This report presents brief descriptions of the BT programs offered by six community colleges designated as leadership colleges and ten community colleges designated as learning colleges.

ERIC

19

2009

ED504473