Challenges and Potentials in Developmental Education: An Interview with Raymund A. Paredes

Nationally, educators and policy-makers have taken note of Texas. It served as a model for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB); also, in 2000, the state launched an aggressive effort called Closing the Gaps, a plan for increasing higher education access and quality in order to dramatically improve workforce readiness for international economic competition. The key surveyor of educational gaps in Texas is the Texas Commissioner for Higher Education-Raymund A. Paredes-the chief executive and visionary for the plan. As perhaps the singular educational authority on the P-16 movement in the state, his gaze seems fixed on transitions from high school to college and, in particular, on developmental education. In fact, he sees developmental education as the keystone for improving pedagogy and assessment throughout K-12 and college.Dr. Paredes was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. He received a B.A. in English and Ph.D. in American Civilization from The University of Texas at Austin. Although his research interests include Mexican American literature and culture and the effect of demographic changes on American culture and art, he has had long involvement in P-i6 education. He has unabashedly championed and criticized developmental education. In a Commissioners Report to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), he said, "We can not achieve our goals in terms of success for our undergraduate students unless we make significant improvement in developmental education which directly leads, of course, to our success in terms of graduation rates and time-to-degree" (Paredes, 2005, p. 1).Hansel Burley (H.B.): Commissioner Paredes, thank you for championing developmental education. From the opening of Harvard College and the realization that the children of New England farmers did not have the necessary Latin and Greek to succeed at the new institution, developmental education has been a feature of American higher education. It was a necessity at the founding of many land-grant and historically Black colleges and universities and became more prominent following the passage of the first GI Bill. Although developmental education has been linked with increased access to higher education by many more diverse groups, it remains controversial.Still, despite the storied history of developmental education, higher education is not producing enough college graduates to meet our current and future workforce needs. According to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education (2006), the root cause of barriers to access to higher education is "the complex interplay of inadequate preparation, lack of information about college opportunities, and persistent financial barriers" (p. 8). The Achieving the Dream (2005) initiative and, in Texas, Closing the Gaps (THECB, 2000) both seek to increase significantly degree attainment of students of color and low-income students in a relatively short period of time. What role do you see for developmental education in achieving these goals?Raymund A. Paredes (R.A.P.): Well, it is obvious that developmental education is key to achieving our Closing the Gaps goals in terms of the actual graduation of students. If it is true, and I believe that it is, that according to ACT less than 20% of Texas high school graduates are prepared to do rigorous college work across the board; clearly there is a large number of students who will require some form of developmental or remedial education. Until we do better in preparing students for college, developmental education is going to be very important for us.H.B.: Adelman (2004) has found that 40% of the students who get bachelors degrees have had at least one developmental course. What do you make of this finding? Whose success or failure is this?R.A.P.: This underscores that we have very high percentages of students who come to college underprepared to do college-level work. We have to do a better job of aligning high school exit standards and college readiness standards. …