CLP joined two recent convenings focused on the national landscape for dual enrollment and pathways. In the first, CLP Chief Program Officer Naomi Castro served as a discussant at the Dual Enrollment Research Fund community of practice convening, where six research teams from across the U.S. presented their initial findings on dual enrollment policy and practice.
The intent of the Dual Enrollment Research Fund is to seed high-quality research that advances the field’s understanding of how dual enrollment practice and policy can continue to support student access and success in college and career.
Hosted by Chibuzo Ezeigbo of the Joyce Foundation and facilitated by John Fink of the Community College Research Center, the event brought together top dual enrollment experts—including Alex Perry, Amy Williams, Nick Mathern, Emily Rusca, Emily Thomas, Megan Hougard, and CLP’s Castro—to discuss implications for the teams’ research. The goal? Ensuring these studies provide actionable insights to improve dual enrollment access and outcomes.
Accelerate ED: Pathways to College and Careers
The second event focused on pathways, where Linda Collins and Naomi Castro represented CLP at the Accelerate ED convening hosted by Education Strategies Group. Accelerate ED brings together 25 cross-sector partnership teams across the U.S. that are scaling innovative programs that propel high school students on a pathway to degrees with value in the workplace.
At the convening, Collins served on a panel discussing how state policy frameworks can create the conditions for scaling high-quality accelerated pathways. In that session, Building the Policy Foundation: State Conditions that Enable Pathway Success, Collins and representatives from Texas and Colorado shared examples of effective policies and explored different policy models and strategies for building support for policy change, with a focus on creating sustainable conditions for expanding pathway access and ensuring program quality.
In a short ED Talk, Degrees of Change: The Transformative Power of Dual Enrollment, Castro gave an eyewitness account (as a former teacher) of how one student’s experience with dual enrollment broadened her future horizons and helped her see more possibilities as attainable.
CLP is proud to contribute to these conversations, helping to bridge research and practice for students in California and nationwide.