TY - JOUR TI - Rising to the challenge DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3GQ6W7V PY - 2014 AB - Commitment to educational access for all students is the primary mission for many community colleges. Postsecondary developmental education is a path to achieve educational equity for many students not prepared for the rigor of college-level courses. In community colleges postsecondary developmental education gives incoming freshmen a place where they can obtain the necessary prerequisite proficiencies needed to achieve success in their college-level courses (Armstrong, 2000; Brothen & Wambach, 2004; McCabe 2000). This paper includes a literature review of developmental education reform initiatives throughout the country, as well as effective past studies regarding postsecondary developmental education in mathematics and its impact on postsecondary success. The primary research focus is to determine if community college students who require and successfully pass developmental mathematics exhibit similar academic outcomes as those not requiring any developmental mathematics. Since this is a clustered sample, students clustered by the high school from which they graduated, hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) is used to compare the long-term academic outcomes of traditional age (directly out of high school), first time in college (FTIC) students attending a New Jersey, Achieving the Dream (ATD) community college. Initial findings from the fall 2009 cohort show that students requiring developmental education in mathematics, once successfully remediated, experience comparable college-level mathematics course grades to those not requiring developmental mathematics; indicating that developmental mathematics programs can in effect repair initial educational deficiencies for those who pass all courses in the required developmental mathematics sequence with grade of C or better. Unfortunately, also found significant was that developmental mathematics students who started in the lowest level of developmental mathematics are the least likely to persist until successful remediation, thereby eliminating any aspirations of graduating and/or transferring. This study validates the initial findings from one freshmen cohort to another with regard to successful mathematics remediation, as well as expands predictors to include developmental English, financial aid and demographics such as ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, since many students in developmental mathematics do not complete their remediation in a timely manner and/or drop-out of college, this study also investigates what factors increase or decrease the likelihood of successful mathematics remediation, thereby enhancing or inhibiting persistence to graduation or transfer to a four-year institution. KW - Education KW - Mathematics--Study and teaching (Higher) KW - Educational change--United States KW - Community college students--United States LA - eng ER -