Increasing Access to College-Level Math: Early Outcomes Using the Virginia Placement Test

In fall 2009, the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) embarked on a redesign of developmental education that has begun to make significant changes to developmental math and English curricula, course structures, and placement instruments. One of the central goals of this statewide reform is to reduce the need for developmental education.1 This brief explores the progress toward meeting this goal by examining one aspect of the reform, the implementation of a diagnostic placement instrument for math known as the Virginia Placement Test–Math (hereafter, VPT).2 The VPT is intended to improve placement accuracy by better matching students with newly created developmental math modules or traditional college math courses based on their proficiency in competencies required for specific programs of study.3 In this brief, I compare the entry-level college math course placement rates of two cohorts—one comprised of students who took a placement exam and first enrolled in college before the VPT was introduced (the fall 2010 cohort) and another comprised of students who took a placement exam and first enrolled after the VPT was established (the fall 2012 cohort).4 Whereas all students in the fall 2010 cohort took the COMPASS