The ECS community colleges staff strives to keep policymakers on the leading edge of what's happening with state community colleges systems by gathering, analyzing and disseminating information about current and emerging issues, trends and innovations in state educational community colleges policy and system designs. Current projects are described below:

 Center for Community College Policy

ECS, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education, created the Center for Community College Policy in 1999 to promote the development of public policy that encourages the growth of effective and innovative community colleges. The center's primary functions are to:

• Provide information and technical assistance to states
  
  
• Conduct research and analysis on best practices and policies affecting community colleges, and disseminate the findings to policymakers and education leaders
  
  
• Facilitate state-level dialogue between policymakers and community college leaders
  
  
• Serve as a clearinghouse for state officials, college leaders and the media on issues of community college policy.
  

The center provides a wide array of services, products and information, including policy papers, briefs, handbooks and other publications; workshop sponsorship and facilitation; legislative testimony; and policy models to help guide decisionmaking and maximize states’ investment in community college programs.

Click here to access the Center for Community College Policy Web Site.

St. Paul Travelers College and Career Initiave

The Education Commission of the States worked with the St. Paul Travelers Insurance Corporation to devise a national strategy to leverage their philanthropic and corporate assets to promote college and career preparation for residents from cities where St. Paul Travelers has corporate and/or field offices. The final project was a project design and implementation strategy which resulted in St. Paul Travelers playing a leadership role in its corporate communities to create collaborative efforts with education, business, government and community leaders to positively to increase college preparation, college success and successful transitions into the workforce for low-income residents.

Project Contact:

Bruce Vandal, Director, Postsecondary Education and Workforce Development Institute

Community Colleges and Teacher Education: Roles, Issues and Opportunities

The Education Commission of the States (ECS), with support from and in collaboration with the National Center for Teacher Transformation (NCTT) convened a panel of experts in community colleges, teacher preparation and teacher quality in August, 2006 to explore the roles, issues and opportunities that exist for community colleges as key players in teacher education. The meeting discussed how community colleges are playing a key role in preparing new educators and providing critical professional development to schools and districts which are experiencing tremendous demand for qualified teachers.

The panel included representatives from national organizations dealing with community colleges and teacher education issues and community colleges that have taken an expanded role in teacher education. The initial invitation list includes:

• American Association of School Administrators.
• The League for Innovation in the Community College.
• National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs (NACTEPP).
• National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)
• National Center for Teacher Transformation (NCTT)
• State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO)
• Florida Department of Education Educator Preparation Institute
• Great Basin College, Nevada
• St. Petersburg College, Florida.
• Teacher representative chosen through St. Petersburg College.

The project produced a paper in early 2007, Community Colleges and Teacher Preparation: Roles, Issues and Opportunities, outlining the issues discussed and recommendations for states to consider as they explore the role that community colleges will play in teacher preparation.

U.S. Department of Education

 Closing the College Participation Gap

This project is designed to assist state leaders in their efforts to develop policies and practices that support the community college sector's role as the key player responsive to new demands for universal access to postsecondary education. Principal project objectives include:

• Describe and analyze the potential scope and magnitude of state-level demographic change in the decade ahead in terms of (a) its impact on postsecondary access and opportunity and (b) the capacity of current community college systems to respond to changing needs and expectations
  
  
• Examine the unique role and mission of community colleges in light of these changes and offer scenarios of the future that consider the broader educational, organizational and financial restructuring implications for states and their community college systems.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation

 Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers To Use Technology

ECS has joined with nine national, regional, state and local entities in an effort to change and improve public policies affecting teacher preparation. The PT3 Consortium, as it is called, will focus primarily on (1) exploring how community colleges can help ease the looming teacher shortage in K-12 schools and (2) strengthening the training of teachers in the effective use of technology.

The consortium includes ECS, State Higher Education Executive Officers, the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Academy for Educational Development and community college systems in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada and Texas.

U.S. Department of Education