Abstract
Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges: Inside and Outside of Classrooms by W. Norton Grubb with Robert Gabriner (2013) is a comprehensive, current, and creative examination of the challenges students and educators face in bridging the gap in skills common among entering college students. The authors’ primary intent is to shed light on the multitude of causes and effects of the system most often referred to as developmental or remedial education in community colleges. While the research reported in this book is specific to the California system, both the challenges and potential solutions can be generalized easily to community colleges in other parts of the country.
The authors are both education researchers from California universities. W. Norton Grubb is an Emeritus Professor and David Pierpont Gardner Chair in Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. He has researched and written extensively on schooling and economics, secondary and higher education systems, and student movement between systems. Robert Gabriner is Professor of Educational Leadership and Director of the Educational Leadership Doctoral Program for Schools and Community Colleges at San Francisco State University. He has researched and written on student success and systems leadership in higher education.
The authors present a straightforward interpretation of the problem of basic skills education referencing what they call “the triangle of instruction.” In this model, the content/curriculum, student, and instructor anchor the corners of a triangle mediated along the sides by the instructors’ knowledge of the content, knowledge of the student, and their context inside the framework of the institution. Validating this model in practice allows the authors to draw a set of related conclusions and recommendations for improving future education experiences for students struggling with college readiness.
Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges utilizes active research at 20 California colleges, including observations in 169 classes and interviews with 323 educators. This research explores the variety of needs of developmental students, quality of instruction, availability and quality of student services like tutoring and counseling, alignment of course sequence, and the instructional characteristics of institutions. Throughout, “the triangle of instruction” is applied as a framework for organizing findings and exploring contexts.
The initial portion of the book describes the problem of basic skills education as the authors see it from a classroom perspective. These issues include the “dominance of remedial pedagogy,” “innovations in Basic Skills Instruction,” the “possibilities and limits” of student services, and a case study exploring the problem of basic skills education in practice. The case study describes efforts one California community college undertook to address student needs for help with basic skills. The school chose to implement changes to the student services branch of the system by creating “student success centers” on each of their three campuses. These centers became the focal point for several services designed to address the most common student needs. Services included peer tutoring (drop in and scheduled), ongoing and frequent faculty-led skill building workshops, structured learning groups on specific skill development, and “directed learning activities” led by peer tutors, supervised by faculty, and customized to fill specific gaps in skills needed for course progression.
In the second portion of the book, the authors take a slightly broader view, choosing to focus on “institutional effects on classrooms.” In this section, special attention is given to “assessment and alignment,” the ever-present issue of funding, other institutional effects such as individualization of student support, instructor professional development, and the role of adjuncts, as well as a concluding set of recommendations.
The authors highlight an overdependence by community colleges on standardized placement testing as gatekeepers to the expected course progression. Too many students, the authors assert, are redirected to basic skills courses to address one or two small skill gaps at the cost of progress in credit-bearing, degree-building courses. Many students simply walk away from college when confronted with the added cost in time and money. The authors express doubt in the practical usefulness of off-the-shelf placement tests like ACT’s Compass and ACCUPLACER in offering students or faculty instructionally helpful data they can use to improve skills.
After describing the research and highlighting findings the authors conclude with a comprehensive list of suggested solutions. In all, 21 recommendations are listed and explained. Some are very practical and useful: “Assessments that direct students toward basic skills courses must be more carefully constructed” (p. 214), “All individuals teaching in developmental education should be well prepared in instructional methods” (p. 215), and “Colleges should work assiduously both to reduce the number of adjunct instructors and to incorporate such instructors in the college” (p. 216).
Other recommendations are far more idealistic and less practical to implement, such as “Innovations in basic skills instruction can borrow from other levels of education systems” (p. 212), “The alignment of adjacent levels of schooling requires much more attention” (p. 214), and “Educational institutions should strive to engage in activities that can effect change without requiring money” (p. 215). These recommendations have an idealistic tone and may not be easily applied. The history of separation among education levels and the differences in mission may make alignment with the other educational sectors a struggle. Doing more with less—specifically less money—is popular with policy makers but difficult to make real. If individualized, data responsive, and professionally directed learning is to become the norm, it is likely to be more expensive, not less.
Overall, Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges is a worthwhile contribution to a very important element of higher education improvement. The authors’ attention to assessment shortcomings, faculty professional development needs, and student support models currently showing success provide a welcome addition to the discussion of developmental studies. Some aspects of the recommendations suffer somewhat from an overly idealistic desire for change on a scale larger than can be controlled by community colleges; however, idealistic goals can be helpful. Even though community colleges are not able to force collaboration with sending and receiving school systems and must compete more often for less resources with more agencies, these goals serve to return the focus of planning and development to the needs of students. The authors offered 21 recommendations. All should be considered. It is likely that some can be applied with tangible positive results.