The California Acceleration Project
The California Acceleration Project (CAP) was founded in 2010 by two community college teachers who wanted to do something about the poor outcomes of students placed into remediation. CAP is a faculty-led professional development network that supports the state’s 116 community colleges to implement reforms that substantially increase student completion of transferable, college-level English and math requirements, a critical milestone on the path to degrees and transfer. These include using high school grades in placement; replacing traditional remedial courses with corequisite models; tailoring math remediation to students’ program of study; and teaching with high-challenge, high-support pedagogy in English, math, and ESL. CAP is funded through grants from the James Irvine Foundation, the College Futures Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation for California Community Colleges is CAP’s fiscal sponsor.
CAP has received awards from the Association of California Community College Administrators, the Campaign for College Opportunity, and the Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges. CAP Co-Founders Katie Hern and Myra Snell were named to the “16 Most Innovative People in Higher Education” by the Washington Monthly. CAP efforts have been featured in the New York Times, Inside Higher Education, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Black Minds Matter, Diversity and Democracy, EdSource, the Sacramento Bee, and KQED’s California Report. CAP leaders have also addressed national audiences at events hosted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, Achieving the Dream, Complete College America, the Education Commission of the States, and the Public Policy Institute of California.