Marty Brown on the Washington State Community College Success Story
In this editorial, Marty Brown, Executive Director of the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC), describes a recent study produced by the SBCTC (in cooperation with all Washington public four-year colleges and universities).
The study, which looked at 20,499 bachelor degree students who graduated in 2011, indicates that students who transfer from a two year college to a four year college perform just as well as students who start out as first year students, “with similar GPAs and credits earned upon graduation.”
Brown writes, “When the Legislature reinvested in community and technical colleges last session, it wrote a positive chapter in the community college success story, a story that plays out for all of us in Washington.”
It’s wonderful when research supports, quantitatively, a truth the faculty, students, and staff in our two year college system know qualitatively. As Brown writes, “Students who intend to transfer to a four-year university complete the first two years of college and . . . arrive well-prepared, having already studied in small classes taught by instructors passionate about teaching.”
Let us continue to tell our stories of success with both our qualitative and our quantitative data!
Assessment, Learning, Teaching 