We Could Be Heroes: The Moral of the Policy Story of Florida SB 1720

With the developmental education (DE) reform movement at postsecondary still apace, this qualitative study seeks to understand the policy impacts of Florida Senate Bill 1720, major legislation mandating developmental education reform in the state of Florida. The body of literature thus far has focused on quantitative analyses of secondary data compiled and mandatorily reported to the state by Florida's 28 state and community colleges. Developmental reading and writing instructors engaged in teaching during the DE reform era at a state college in northwest Florida were interviewed to explore a deeper understanding of corequisite/co-enrollment developmental instruction alongside the gateway English composition course, and to expand and fill a gap in the current literature via qualitative analysis. Narrative inquiry of educator experiences and stories prior to implementation, during implementation of the provision mandates, and post Florida Senate Bill 1720 implementation to the present were captured and analyzed towards a re-telling of the SB 1720 change process. A narrative policy framework (NPF), a rare approach to education policy research, was used to analyze the experiences and stories shared during semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study yielded rich insights that can be used to support Florida's state and community colleges as they continue to adapt to meet the expectations of the Florida SB 1720 mandates, while prioritizing the needs of developmental reading and writing students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]