Shining the Spotlight on Those outside Florida’s Reform Limelight: The Impact of Developmental Education Reform for Nonexempt Students

Abstract

Since the 2000s, states have experimented with reforms to improve success among underprepared students traditionally assigned to developmental education (DE). Florida's reform under Senate Bill 1720 has been among the most comprehensive and wide-reaching. Recent public high school graduates and military personnel became exempt from DE, but nearly onethird of students, including those without a Florida standard high school diploma, were still required to take a placement test and enroll in DE if they scored below college-ready. The legislation also required colleges to offer accelerated instructional strategies for students remaining in DE, and provide enhanced advising and support services. Focusing specifically on nonexempt students, we use statewide data to conduct a difference-in-regression discontinuity analysis to examine differences in first-year math coursetaking outcomes for students on the margins of college readiness before and after the reform. While students narrowly assigned to DE tend to have a lower likelihood of taking and passing college-level courses relative to their college-ready peers, these students experienced larger gains after the reform when DE courses were offered in accelerated formats accompanied by support services. The reform also improved outcomes for students scoring above collegeready, which suggests that nonexempt students benefited from enhanced advising and support services too.

What Happened Following Comprehensive Developmental Education Reform in the Sunshine State? The Impact of Florida’s Developmental Education Reform on Introductory College-Level Course Completion

“…Although we argue that Florida’s reform functions as an interconnected set of three reform measures, and although we note that it may not be entirely possible to disentangle the impacts of specific components, we see a need for additional research that probes deeper into the components of the reform and how different students are impacted by the reform. For instance, although we found that gains in college-level passing rates were the greatest among nonexempt students who received the new DE instructional strategies and the enhanced support services (Mokher, Park-Gaghan, et al, 2020), we have not yet identified which instructional strategies are the most effective. And although we found that students who had the lowest levels of high school academic preparation tend to have the greatest gains in college-level course passing rates (Park-Gaghan et al, 2019), we have not yet studied the long-term educational trajectories of students who take, but do not pass, college-level courses.…”

Who Benefited More From the Developmental Education Reform in Florida? The Role of Exemption Status

“…A study that specifically focuses on nonexempt students scoring around the college-ready cutoff suggests that many nonexempt students should have benefited from the option to enroll directly in college-ready courses like their exempt peers (Mokher et al, 2021). Given that nonexempt students are still subject to a test-based placement policy following the reform, it could have limited the reform’s effects for this group.…”

“…Prior studies usually focused on the overall students, including exempt and nonexempt, and investigated the impacts of the reform as a whole. An exception is Mokher et al (2021), who conducted a RD study specifically focusing on nonexempt students. Their results suggest that first-year math-course outcomes tended to be worse for nonexempt students assigned to DE relative to similar students scoring just above college-ready.…”

Examining the Impacts of Florida’s Developmental Education Reform for Non-Exempt Students: The Case of First-Year English and Math Course Enrollment and Success

“…On the contrary, non-exempt students are still required to take the PERT and follow the existing placement guidelines. Many non-exempt students are adult students (usually above 25) who have been out of school for many years (Mokher et al, 2021). There are also students who are non-exempt because they attended private high schools or public schools in other states.…”