My research with other colleagues shows that states must create reforms in four key policy areas as well as connect elementary and secondary education with postsecondary education across them all: curricula and assessment, finance, data collection, and the public reporting of student progress and success.

Governance mechanisms must reinforce and sustain those efforts (see http://bridgeproject.stanford.edu publications 19 and 20). Specifically, state governments can make substantial gains toward improving college readiness and college completion.
I have discussed the first of the four key policy areas within the two prior posts to the Blog. Let’s conclude the series with my discussion of data collection and public reporting.

Create data systems to track student progress across educational levels and institutions. Currently most states are unable to determine if their efforts to improve academic readiness for college are having any impact. Although many states are working to improve their ability to gather information—Florida, for example, already has a model system up and running that links K–12 and postsecondary education, along with other public data—few, if any, currently link information from schools and colleges. Some states do not even collect data on the course-taking patterns of their high school students.

Consequently, in those states, it is impossible to determine the relationships between the courses that high school students take and students' persistence and college success. Likewise, it is impossible to identify and analyze success rates for students who enter college from the workforce, students who attend part time, or students who attend multiple institutions. In short, the lack of reliable facts and figures that connect different levels of education makes it difficult to assess needs accurately, identify the worst problems, work toward finding solutions, and evaluate reforms.

States should be able to use their data systems to answer questions such as:

How do students who take college-preparatory courses in high school perform in postsecondary education?
Of those students who require remediation in college, what percentage took a college-preparatory curriculum in high school?
How do students who earn a proficient score on a state’s K–12 assessment perform in college?
What pedagogical approaches are common among high school teachers who consistently send well-prepared students to college?
Given their students' performance in college, how can high schools change their curricula and instruction to improve college readiness?

Publicly report on student progress and success from high school to postsecondary education. To be effective in improving college readiness, states should establish student-achievement objectives that require the education systems to collaborate on reaching them. Determining how to use the information to improve teaching and learning is an ideal area in which high schools and colleges should collaborate. For example, high schools should use data about their graduates' performance in college to improve their curricula, instruction, and grading practices.

Labels: College Completion, College Success, ready for college

My research with other colleagues shows that states must create reforms in four key policy areas as well as connect elementary and secondary education with postsecondary education across them all: curricula and assessment, finance, data collection, and the public reporting of student progress and success.

Governance mechanisms must reinforce and sustain those efforts (see http://bridgeproject.stanford.edu publications 19 and 20). Specifically, state governments can make substantial gains toward improving college readiness and completion if they:

I discussed the first of the four (curricula and assessment) key policy areas in my last post. This post will discuss finance.

Provide incentives in state budgets for increasing the proportion of students who complete high school and enroll in college. Most state systems perpetuate the divide between K–12 and higher education by creating separate, aggregated, streams of financial support for each sector. State budgets lack any incentives to promote college-readiness reforms. For example, states could offer financial incentives to both systems to offer dual enrollment or to reduce remediation.

While no state has fully established an integrated K–16 finance model, Oregon may be moving in that direction. The Oregon Business Council analyzed state expenditures in 2002–03 for both schools and colleges as though they came from one budget, and found that the per student level of investment varied by grade and degree—with community colleges receiving the least state aid and K–12 special education receiving the most. It recommended to the governor that Oregon reform its system so that, among other things, budgets would explicitly decide the level of support per student for different services and the measurable outcomes anticipated. The governor of Oregon and a joint board that includes members from both the state board of education and the board of higher education have called for the establishment of a unified education system with curriculum alignment and a budget that connects all sectors. More states should follow a similar path.

State financial aid, a traditional means for broadening access to college, can also be used to leverage college-readiness reforms. Indiana’s Twenty-first Century Scholars Program is an excellent model for how a state can both broaden access to college and improve college readiness. The Scholars Program promises the future payment of college tuition for middle school students who qualify for the federal free and reduced lunch program. It targets low-income students in the 8th grade and requires each participating student to complete a pledge to finish high school, maintain at least a C average, remain drug- and alcohol-free, apply for college and financial aid, and enroll in an Indiana postsecondary institution within two years of completing high school. In return, Indiana (1) encourages the Scholars to pursue a college preparatory curriculum; (2) provides support services for them and for those who fulfill the pledge; and (3) pays their tuition and fees (after other financial aid awards) at a public institution in Indiana or contributes a similar portion for tuition at an independent college. The program pays for 80% of the approved tuition and fees for students completing a regular high school diploma; 90% of tuition and fees for students completing a more rigorous high school diploma, called a Core 40 diploma; and 100% of tuition and fees for students completing the most rigorous diploma, the Academic Honors Diploma.

Through these incentives, the program sends clear signals to students regarding academic preparation for college. And the results are encouraging. In 1992, Indiana was 34th in the nation in terms of the percent of high school graduates that enrolled in college immediately after graduation; in 2002, it was 10th.

In the next post, I will discuss DATA COLLECTION.

Labels: College Completion, College Success, ready for college

State governments can make substantial gains toward improving college readiness and completion. My research with other colleagues shows that states must create reforms in four key policy areas as well as connect elementary and secondary education with postsecondary education across them all: (1) curricula and assessment; (2) finance; (3) data collection; and (4) the public reporting of student progress and success.

Then, governance mechanisms must reinforce and sustain those efforts (see Bridge publications 19 and 20). I will discuss each of these four key policy areas within my next few posts to the Blog. Let’s start with curricula and assessment.

State government must stimulate high schools and colleges to align courses and assessments in order to improve college readiness. Right now, the standards movement in K–12 education and efforts to improve higher education are operating on different tracks.

For example, a widespread strategy to improve college preparedness has been to increase enrollment in college-preparatory courses. Yet despite some successes, remediation rates in colleges have been estimated to be more than 60 percent at two-year institutions and approximately 30 percent at four-year institutions nationally.

As a nation, we are learning that the number of courses that high school students take, and the units and names assigned to those courses, are often inadequate proxies for whether or not high school graduates are ready for success in college. The quality and level of the coursework and instruction, and their degree of alignment with postsecondary expectations, are the key elements of effective reform.

Ideally, exit standards from one education sector would equal the entrance and placement standards of the next, while ensuring that there are multiple paths of study for high school students, since one size does not fit all. For example, some students might wish to follow a purely academic path while others might desire a more applied course of study; both pathways would lead toward the development of the same set of knowledge and skills.

In the next post, I will discuss FINANCE.

Labels: College Preparation, College Success, ready for college

Howard Block writes equity research on education companies for Banc of America Securities. He is one of my former PhD students.

Block’s prior work under me has lent him a somewhat unique perspective on education equities. He recently wrote a lengthy report on the dangerous combination of search advertising and college admission. Its theme dovetails quite nicely with my work on K16. I may reference Block’s report in a few of my entries, such as this one:

The process of deciding whether to attend college, let alone selecting the proper institution, is a complex process that should not be mediated by a search engine or directory site. Nonetheless, students, particularly non-traditional students, are increasingly relying on search engines in order to make these decisions. As an unfortunate consequence, Block does not expect graduation rates to improve from the current low levels.

The availability of public graduation rate data is extremely limited, and there is typically a lag of six to eight years between the time a cohort group enters school and when their graduation rate data is made available. However, Department of Education (DOE) data from 2004, which was made available one year ago, provides some helpful insight.

The graduation rate for students who completed their Bachelors degrees within 150% of the normal time was 57% for the 1998 cohort year. (Knapp, L.G., Kelly-Reid, J.E., and Whitmore, R.W. (2006). Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2004; Graduation Rates, 1998 & 2001 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2004 (NCES 2006-155). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.)

However, further examination of the data indicates that graduation rates by institution type were
53% at public schools,
64% at private non-profits, and
a disappointing 25% at private for-profit institutions.

The reasons for low graduation rates are myriad, as are the many ways of classifying them. Students who are:
ill-prepared academically or are considered not ready for college,
ill-prepared financially or lack the support for college,
Ill-prepared socially or lack the skills to prosper away from home.

Another less-cited factor is that too many students are in the wrong schools – schools that may not offer the preferred or most suitable academic program, social setting or environment. And that is one of Block’s primary points – increasing use of search engines to select a college is going to result in more flawed selections and ultimately more dropouts. More on this topic later.

Labels: College Success, ready for college, support for college

Across the nation, high percentages of high school graduates are entering college, but increasingly they need remediation to ensure college success there. As a result, colleges are expending a great deal of resources on remediation instead of college-level education, while large numbers of students are not persisting in college, let alone completing college.

The California State University system has 408,000 students on 23 campuses. About 25,000 out of 40,000 first-time CSU students need some form of remediation. The university must absorb the cost of providing classes not offered for college credit. Parents and students bear additional expenses because remedial courses do not count toward graduation; consequently, college completion is taking a lot longer.

CSU is the first statewide system to adopt a K-12 state assessment as its own placement test for first-year students. This is an important breakthrough in K-16 assessment policy, and it promises to provide clearer signals to high school students who have been uninformed about the discrepancy in standards between their high school grades, tests, and CSU placement. This may have a large impact on academic preparation for college, college readiness and, ultimately, college success.

Rather than administer another exam to high school students, in the late 1990s, CSU decided to negotiate directly with K-12 policymakers to merge CSU placement standards into the existing California Standards Tests, which are given to all students in eleventh grade. A new policy and test design group was formed, representing CSU and the California State Education Department (an advisory group to the California State Board of Education and the CSU Trustees). This group examined test items from several K-12 tests for their relationship to CSU standards, as well as for similarities between K-12 and CSU standards.

The State Board of Education negotiated with CSU to enhance existing K-12 standards-based test to meet CSU placement standards. For example, as CSU requested, a writing sample was added to the existing K-12 multiple choice language arts test, as was an increased focus on Algebra 2 in the math test.

To develop this K-12 early assessment program, CSU gained support from the legislature, the California State Board of Education, the CSU Department of Education, the University of California, California Community Colleges, CSU faculty, and organizations of K-12 teachers and administrators. The development of an augmented eleventh-grade state assessment proceeded with these multiple stakeholders in mind.

In 2003, CSU set the scores that high school juniors would need in order to be exempt from its placement exams. The state sent test results to rising seniors by August 1. Low-scoring students can now use the senior year for intensive academic preparation to meet CSU placement standards.

Common K-16 Standards
The CSU merged K-12 assessments strategy has many advantages and makes this new K-16 collaboration deserving of close scrutiny by other states with high remediation rates. First, it gives a timely, targeted signal to students and schools of the need for added K-12 academic preparation. Moreover, by coordinating K-16 standards, it reduces the total testing time for students in high school and at CSU. In fact, it raises the stakes for statewide high school tests. Previously, students saw no purpose for the eleventh-grade test because the SAT was used for admission and CSU had a separate placement test. The new assessment system increases the academic focus during the senior year of high school for students who are not meeting CSU’s placement standards.

Just as important, the strategy reforms and consolidates multiple K-16 school assessments, while providing better data for K-16 accountability concerning K-12 student academic preparation and college readiness for CSU. Instead of the previous lack of alignment between the standards for exiting high school and those for entering CSU, there are now common standards and performance levels across secondary and postsecondary education.

Labels: College Completion, College Readiness, College Success

Admissions literature focuses upon what is most beneficial to postsecondary education without contemplating the impact of admissions tests upon secondary schools, K-12 students, and teachers. Admissions tests send powerful and clear signals to all K-12 groups about what knowledge is most worth knowing and college preparation.

One of the biggest issues is the proliferation of tests in grades 9 through 11 that occurs because of the postsecondary assessments for admission, and the new statewide tests created by the K-12 standards movement. For example, California tests all students grades 9 through 11 with a cross-cutting mathematics and language arts assessment, and has state-mandated end-of-course exams in most academic subjects, such as biology, U.S. history, and English literature.

As of 2007, none of these K-12 tests are used as an admissions factor by the University of California or California State University. The California State University placement exam includes more advanced mathematics than SAT I During the Spring of the 11th grade, there is a particularly onerous amount of testing for UC applicants that includes: the SAT I, SAT II, Advanced Placement tests, and at least five state K-12 tests that have no admissions or placement stakes for students.

Education standards and tests are set in different K-12 and postsecondary orbits that only intersect for students in Advanced Placement courses. How else could 49 states (all but Iowa) set K-12 standards and assessments without talking with higher education institutions and state boards for higher education? The huge disjuncture between K-12 and postsecondary school standards results in a lack of K-16 understanding, collaborative design, and knowledge about the assessments used by each education level.

Higher education is concerned with the upward trajectory of pupils, for example, admissions test’s purported ability to not only determine academic readiness but also predict student performance in the first year of college. Secondary education is concerned with high school graduation and the attainment of annual state and federal growth goals for K-12 state assessments.

Secondary educators rarely discuss or consider the impact upon postsecondary education that new and expanding assessment policies might create. Moreover, there is no K-16 accountability system that might cause the two levels to work together on common assessment goals in order to reduce postsecondary remediation and increase chances for college completion and college success. (See Andrea Venezia, Michael W. Kirst, and Anthony Antonio, Betraying the College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations, Stanford, CA: Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, 2003).

Universities provide some good arguments to explain why they pay little attention to K–12 standards or assessments. First, the universities emphasize that they are not involved in the creation or refinement of the K–12 standards. Second, the universities observe that both politics and technical problems effect frequent changes in state K–12 standards. Third, they note that the K–12 assessments have not been evaluated to see how well they predict freshman grades (although such evaluations are not difficult to conduct). The result is a K-16 babble of education standards that leads to unclear signals for students (particularly those from low-SES families), high remediation rates, and much misdirected energy by students caught between conflicting standards.

For 80% of students who do not go to selective four-year schools, a crucial standard is an institutionally administered placement exam which is often not very well aligned with the ACT or SAT I. Yet placement exams are essential for channeling students into non-credit postsecondary remedial courses.

Labels: College Completion, College Preparation, College Readiness, College Success

The following post can be read in its entirety at CrossTalk:

What does "remedial" mean? While a term that is used so frequently, and so freely, might seem to call for a clear definition, when applied to postsecondary education, its meaning is murky at best.

Standard dictionary definitions cannot provide sufficient guidance to understand college remediation, a complicated multi-disciplinary "process" that differs among institutions all across the country. At most broad-access open enrollment colleges, two- and four-year students take placement tests at the start of their first year to determine who can be placed in regular, credit-bearing courses, and who requires special remedial courses.

Most colleges consider course work that is below college-level to be remedial. But definitions of what constitutes "college-level" can vary dramatically. On one hand, this makes sense, given differing institutional missions, but the current situation is confusing for everyone involved, and students cannot be well informed about what knowledge and skills will be required in order to avoid remediation.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of different tests are used to evaluate entering students, so it can be difficult for students to understand what is expected of them. California community colleges, for example, use more than 100 different tests. Texas has a required statewide placement exam, but many colleges in Texas also use their own exam for placement. The most widely used placement tests are constructed by ETS and ACT, but many others are designed by higher education departments or faculty at individual campuses.

There is a wide range of acceptable student-performance levels, and tracking the proportion of students who need remedial education is virtually impossible. Indeed, estimates of the number and percent of remedial students are all over the place. None of the experts are comfortable with the current definitions.

The most widely cited remedial rates from the U.S. Department of Education, Condition of Education, 2001, are among the lowest: 42 percent of students in two-year institutions, and 20 percent in four-year institutions. Other indicators are much higher. The Academic Senate for the 109 California Community Colleges found far more than half of their entering students were placed at a "level below college readiness." The U.S. Education Department's "Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary Education, 1972-2000" reports that 12th graders in 1992 had a remediation rate of 61.1 percent for community colleges and 25.3 percent at four-year colleges.

In 2005, only 51 percent of high school graduates who were tested met ACT's "college readiness benchmarks" for reading. Another ACT study concluded that only 22 percent of 1.2 million high school seniors who took ACT in 2004 met their college benchmarks in college biology, algebra and English composition. These ACT data suggest remediation rates at four-year colleges could be much higher than the 25.3 percent reported by the U.S. Department's Study of Student Academic Histories.

It appears that, in addition to those who are labeled remedial, there are many more students ages 17 to 20 who are not ready for college. The Southern Regional Education Board declared that "the college-readiness problem is perhaps twice as large as the current remedial program statistics suggest." Most states have not set a student academic readiness standard for the various segments of public higher education. Moreover, my examination of college course catalogs in six states indicates that many non-remedial regular-credit courses, such as "intermediate algebra," involve subject matter that should be mastered in high school.

After synthesizing data from many sources, I estimate that 60 percent of students ages 17 to 20 in two-year colleges, and 30 percent in four-year institutions, need remedial courses. But I am not confident that this is correct, because, in sum, we do not accurately know—at the national and state levels—how many students need remedial education, what it costs, how many take it, how many complete it successfully, and what happens to those students after they complete those courses. And students can not prepare for college-level work ahead of time, because remedial and college-level standards are not connected to high school expectations, nor are they advertised to K—12 educators, students or parents. A first step is to separate adults from recent high school graduates, because their educational backgrounds are so different.

There are problems with all the technical calculations of remediation. Some U.S. Department of Education methods probably underestimate it. At the national level, the U.S. Department of Education's Postsecondary Education Quick Information System is a survey of two- and four-year schools. But the unit of analysis is the institution, not the student. It is very doubtful that college officials include all remedial students in their survey answers, because it is not in their interest to tell the public about high remediation rates. Remediation rates are also derived from the department's Beginning Postsecondary Education Student surveys, but remediation is self-reported by students, and all ages are mixed together. Aside from a mere reluctance to categorize themselves as remedial, some students might not know, for instance, that an algebra class they are taking is considered remedial or developmental.

Another approach is to analyze transcripts from databases like the National Education Longitudinal Studies (NELS). The U.S. Department of Education's staff must make decisions about which course titles on transcripts are classified as remedial. Although there are multiple checks in place to increase accuracy, this is a judgment game. The federal Department of Education excludes students below a minimum number of courses or credits, but some community college students drop out after taking only one or two remedial courses. Moreover, NELS is more than a decade old, and a number of indications suggest remediation has increased since 1995.

Remediation rates are very murky at the institutional level as well. While researching these issues, I found that the remediation rate at Southern Illinois University (SIU) at Carbondale was just 5.6 percent, much lower than San Jose State's 51 percent. Yet the entering students at these two institutions did not seem all that different. On closer examination I discovered that SIU outsources most remedial education to a nearby community college, so the remedial students show up in the community college reports. And this is a common practice. All analysts agree that there has been remedial outsourcing by four-year institutions in the last decade.

For students, there are risks attendant to remediation and the burden of taking extra non-credit courses, lengthening the time it takes to complete a degree or certificate, adding to the expense, and increasing the probability of dropping out. Students, for their part, do not seem aware of their position: In UCLA's 2001 survey of freshmen at the nation's four-year colleges, only nine percent reported they would need special tutoring or remedial work in English, but, of course, many more students require remedial education once they start at a four-year college.

But how many? The lack of definitive standards leaves it up to question, or even to semantics. For instance, while the University of Wyoming publicizes a new scholarship program for secondary students with a 2.5 grade point average and an ACT score of 17, many other institutions would consider such students to be in need of remedial education.

In sum, we have very little reliable data on remedial or developmental course-taking other than the NELS high school cohort studies. Variations in institutional remedial practices and definitions inhibit the ability to develop a standard definition of what counts as remedial education. So even solid numbers from a particular higher education institution or system cannot be aggregated. All of this makes it difficult for students to assess their own readiness for college.

What can be done about the need for more consistent, reliable and valid remediation rate data? Secondary and postsecondary education systems need to create a process to define and measure remediation based on curriculum content and assessment standards for specific subjects. Remediation standards need to be communicated clearly to secondary students, and linked to K-12 assessments that indicate whether high school students are ready for college. These K–16 standards need to be embedded in college placement tests that are aligned with K–12 tests.

Finally, students need to understand that admission to college does not mean that they will be able to take non-remedial courses; in most postsecondary institutions, the de facto high-stakes exams are the course placement tests.

Labels: College Testing