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Thank you for your interest in EdReady. We will be in touch!
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Letters from the president of The NROC Project, Ahrash Bissell
Fall 2022
Equity Impacts, Readiness Gains, and Inspiration
This was one of those ‘blink and you might miss it’ summers. Is it really September already? The scope and scale of NROC’s activities have continued to expand such that we don’t experience a summer lull anymore. Indeed, our work has shifted in some meaningful ways.
Students across various grade levels, and in many different educational contexts, are effectively utilizing EdReady to improve their college and career readiness and outcomes.
Teachers and administrators are using EdReady to recruit more students, better retain those students, and help them achieve their college and career goals.
EdReady improves outcomes for most students, but is especially impactful for students of color and other historically underserved populations, proving that EdReady can and should be a key component of equity, diversity, and inclusion strategies.
EdReady works at any scale, from small programs to statewide initiatives. As such, we're doubling down on EdReady as a solution, as opposed to emphasizing its capabilities as a platform for experimentation.
EdReady solutions include near-turnkey options for college readiness and course placement in math and English as well as high-school math readiness.
EdReady also supports low-barrier solutions for adult educational programs (e.g., GED readiness) as well as co-requisite approaches.
Our solution goes beyond the EdReady platform, incorporating explicit time, attention, and human support for effective implementation, including addressing protocol changes, engineering technical integrations, and managing other institutional updates that are key to improving outcomes.
How We're Achieving Reach
With these points in mind, we're reorganizing our awareness-building activities, and our fulfillment processes, in a concerted effort to reach as many people as possible. We've proven that we can manage large and complex initiatives, such as Texas College Bridge, and North Carolina's College and Career Ready Graduate program, while simultaneously supporting partners' local efforts.
To give you a sense of the profound college readiness impact that we're collectively realizing, Texas College Bridge is being utilized by more than 300 school districts and 89% of two-year colleges within the state of Texas. Furthermore, a growing number of Texas universities accept Texas College Bridge completion certificates as indicators of students' college math and English readiness.
This past academic year alone, over 23,000 Texas College Bridge students earned an English certificate and nearly 35,000 students earned a math certificate.
What's more, early efficacy data indicate that students using EdReady who earned Texas College Bridge certificates outperformed students who were placed into credit-bearing courses with a high-stakes placement exam.
As we continue to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we've felt especially energized by the opportunity to reconnect with our colleagues and partners. In June, we held a productive pre-conference session at the GlobalMindED conference where we discussed some organizational shifts with a cross-section of our new and long-term partners.
Pictured (from left to right): Dr. Ahrash N. Bissell, President, The NROC Project; Dr. Henry Jackson, Executive Director of Academic Success, Ocean County College (NJ); and Jason Gipson-Nahman, Customer Success Manager, The NROC Project, convene at GlobalMindED.
We've enjoyed the stories and outcomes shared among our network, including this podcast from Tohono O'odham Community College in Arizona, featuring two students who used EdReady: Daniella James and Erica Kleinman. Here's how DJ Daniella described her experience with EdReady:
“EdReady is not a one-and-done platform. EdReady is an ongoing resource that helps students grow in math and English. Students are the drivers of EdReady. Students control their EdReady experience. Students have the opportunity to grow with EdReady to help remember math they learned a long time ago or gently learn new math skills to prepare for upcoming coursework. It is honestly such a gift. I used EdReady when I was nervous and scared to take pre-calculus. I enjoy this program because I did not feel like a failure during the entire experience.”
“EdReady is not a one-and-done platform. EdReady is an ongoing resource that helps students grow in math and English. Students are the drivers of EdReady. Students control their EdReady experience. Students have the opportunity to grow with EdReady to help remember math they learned a long time ago or gently learn new math skills to prepare for upcoming coursework. It is honestly such a gift. I used EdReady when I was nervous and scared to take pre-calculus. I enjoy this program because I did not feel like a failure during the entire experience.”
Listen to the entire episode for more, including why DJ Erica thinks EdReady as a low-stakes measure of college readiness is superior to Accuplacer.
Special thanks to Kristin Eberhardt (pictured), Title III Project Director at Tohono O'odham Community College (AZ), for her contributions to the podcast and her dedication to student success.
Do you have an institutional or student success story you want us to share with our broader community? If so, drop us a line.
This Fall, and ahead in 2023, we're planning to be at many events around the country, continuing to catch up with our existing partners, connecting with new partners, and helping everyone become aware of our community's work. Look for us at the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships conference next month. We're also working on ideas for additional EdReady and NROC-focused convenings: Stay tuned.
How We're Changing
For those of you who have long been a part of the NROC community, you may know that our Director of Community Engagement, Terri Rowenhorst, retired this year. Terri has been such a key part of NROC practically from the inception of our organization that it's been quite difficult to catalog the many ways she enabled our work, supported our community, and served as a global ambassador for our shared commitment to improving student outcomes.
We wish Terri nothing but the best in her future endeavors and consider ourselves lucky for having had her in the NROC family for so long.In the meantime, we're continuing to augment and reorganize our existing staff to better meet our new priorities. We'll keep you apprised of how our organization evolves. Thank you for your support as we transition to this next phase of our work.As always, don't hesitate to reply to this email or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you.
