Pearson, College Board Join Forces on Remedial Ed Front

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 06/27/11

A non-profit and an education sector company are teaming up to tackle the plight of the remedial student. The College Board, the half-billion-dollar non-profit association that delivers the SAT assessment exam, and Pearson, which produces textbooks, digital education products, and testing and assessment services, will soon be piloting Accuplacer//MyFoundationsLab, a joint solution that offers targeted assessment and remediation for struggling students.

The College Board will be supplying Accuplacer Diagnostics, its adaptive program for assessing skills. Pearson is supplying all remediation materials via MyFoundationsLab, an online service that delivers personalized lessons in reading, writing, and math. Once the student has been appraised for areas of strengths and weaknesses, the program will build a unique learning path to link the student to appropriate tutorials, interactive instruction, and practice exercises with instant feedback. The service is designed for use in both high school and college programs.

The combined offering will be available for pilots at the end of August 2011 and will be fully available in December. The announcement was made at the College Board's 2011 Accuplacer National Conference in Denver.

"Billions of dollars are being spent to support students who lack the basic developmental skills needed to handle college-level work, which necessitates enrollment in remedial programs that cost time and money at a time when institutions and students can least afford it," said Bill Barke, chief executive officer of Pearson Arts and Sciences. "Our collaboration with the College Board is designed to support institutions and instructors in their efforts to improve student achievement and retention and get students moving quickly into a successful college experience."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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