Advancing Racial Equity in Illinois Through Reforms to Developmental Education

• In Event: The Challenges and Opportunities of Implementing Equity Policies in Higher Education

Abstract

When colleges and universities place students in remedial math and English courses, they slow their time to degree (Bailey, 2009), drain their financial aid and tuition (Jimenez et al., 2018), and channel them away from STEM careers (Park & Ngo, 2021). Math remediation is particularly harmful, accounting for the single largest academic block to college student success (Attewell et al., 2006) and disproportionately affecting the college completion rates of Black and Latinx students (Jimenez et al., 2018). To improve college completion and address the systemic harms done to Black and Latinx students, colleges and universities need to change how they organize, deliver and teach these gateway math and English courses. The Illinois Developmental Education Reform Act (110 ILCS 175/100-1), signed into law March 8, 2021, is a state-level effort to shift how colleges and universities designate students as "underprepared."

Our research team, embedded in six Illinois colleges and universities and the non-profit that championed this legislation, examines the policy creation process and how policy actors make sense of and implement developmental education reform in real-time. We draw from interviews and observations with Illinois state legislators, lobbyists, college and university staff, administrators, and faculty involved in developmental education reform. We pair this with a qualitative analysis of the state, college, and university policy documents, documenting the variation in the approaches colleges and universities are taking to implement developmental education reform and alignment (and disjuncture) between policy makers intents and college and university policies. By highlighting roadblocks and successes, as well as the sensemaking among people differentially situated in the policymaking process, we create a roadmap for other states and university systems ready to address their outdated remedial education approaches and improve Black and Latinx student college completion.

Authors

• Johanna S Quinn, Fordham University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel C. Feldman, NORC at the University of Chicago
  Presenting Author