President Obama wasn’t the first to recognize the importance of community colleges to the country’s education goals, but it seems lots of others are focusing on them as well.

This month’s “Progress of Education Reform” report from the Education Commission of the States delves into a big issue for this sector education, transfer and articulation. Articles address research on the effectiveness of transfer and articulation policies, factors that negatively impact successful transfer from a two –year to four-year institution, and strategies that smooth the transition for community college students into bachelor’s degree programs. As the author’s note, “these studies illustrate that the transfer process is more complicated than simply creating articulation agreements…the seeds are planted in high school with students taking a rigorous college preparatory curriculum.” One of the ECS policy recommendations is especially relevant to Carnegie’s work in developmental math in community colleges: “a focus on student academic competencies rather than courses can better prepare students for transfer.”

More information on these research papers can be found at: http://www.ecs.org/