Established in 1924, the Kresge Foundation is a $3.5 billion private, national foundation that works to expand opportunities in America's cities through grantmaking and investing in arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development in Detroit and many other of the nation’s cities.
With a $500,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation, CCBC launched an innovation in developmental writing in 2007 called the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP). Designed to improve the percentage of ENG 052 students who pass ENG 052 and ENG 101, CCBC contracted with the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City to measure the impact of its Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) model on student success and to operationalize its efforts. Today, evidence abounds at CCBC that this strategy is working.
Early data from the study demonstrated impressive results, showing that more than twice as many ALP students passed the college-level course compared to students who followed the traditional developmental sequence.
ALP has been highlighted as an example of a high-impact educational practice and Complete College America has recommended replacing traditional developmental education and making co-requisite models, including ALP, the default for students who place into developmental education. The program is being embraced by 180 community colleges around the nation.