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Dr. Michael W. Kirst

Michael W. Kirst is Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration at Stanford University since 1969.
Dr. Kirst received his Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard. Before joining the Stanford University faculty, Dr. Kirst held several positions with the federal government, including Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Manpower, Employment and Poverty. He was a former president of the California State Board of Education. His book From High School to College with Andrea Venezia was published by Jossey Bass in 2004.

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

What IF We Doubled College Graduates

The book Minding the Gap edited by Andrea Venezia ( Harvard Press, 2007) includes varied strategies to increase college graduates at 2 and 4 year institutions. The goal is to double college graduation rates. But what if we did stimulate many more fully prepared students to go on to complete college. Would there be college places for all of them?
One view is pessimistic. States would not expand capacity and ration places in college the way California did 3 years ago. A more optimistic view is that more student demand will spur more college supply, and the supply will not precede the demand. I lean to the optimisitc view , but nobody is sure.
Another concern is how the economy would cope with all these new graduates at a 100% increase in output. The pessimistic view is that college grads will end up in low level and low paying jobs. The optimisitc view is that the baby boom retirees need to be replaced in the next few decades, and the labor market can handle the new grads

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Content/Skills Within A Secondary School Course Is What Counts

The California State Board of Education has required that all grade 8 students must be tested on a statewide high stakes exam in Algebra 1. Education Week has an article on how controversial all this is, but everyone agrees it is not the course label that counts for student achievement, but what is in the course. Algebra 1 is one gateway to college success, but Algerbra 2 is also necessary.ACT published a detailed prescription for Algebra 1 in its 2006 report, On Course for Success that has the specifics a good algebra 1 and 2 program needs- see pages 37ff. The whole publication has other college readiness attributes such as notetaking that math students need for college prep. View it on www.act.org

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Why is US Declining in World Rankings on Higher Education Access and Completion?

Professor John Aubrey Douglass has written a good analysis of trends in Us higher education in the magazine , California, June 2008. As the first nation to implement mass higher education US led in most in access and college completion. But we have held steady while other nations increased and surpassed USA. USA slipped from 1 to 14 in post secondary participation rates and from 1 to 16 in completion rates.
A major cause is better policies by our competitors over many years, but the major causes says Douglass is the breakdown in the k-12 pipeline to higher education, costs increases in postsecondary, immigration growth, and the high use of community colleges in US. The completion problem is focused in broad access US higher education which is the focus of this blog.

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Remediation Effectiveness Studies Do Not Include Most Students

The July 4 Chronicle of Higher Education has an article "3 New Studies Ouestion the Value of Remediatial College Courses". These studies all report little impact in terms of college completion upon students who took remedial courses, or any substantial impact upon college persistence of at least one year. One of the studies found that remediation did not extend how long it took students to complete college. But the article stresses the way these studies were designed means only a minority of students who are in college remediation are included. Specifically, the studies excluded first year college students who had no chance of going into regular academic courses, and focused only on students near the placement test cut point for needing remedial placement. Since between 65 and 80% of community college students who come from high school need remdiation, these studies do not include the bulk of remedial students.
The authors of the studies acknowledge their limitations and say only a random assignment study could begin to get at the students who were not close to the test cut point.

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

The Ideal State Postsecondary Data System

The state higher education executive officers {SHEEO} has published the best guide yet on how to design a postsecondary education system so that it links to k12 , and follows students through college. The 15 categories and functions are organized into four broad categories
-student data, course data, operational characteristics, and data governance
SHEOO provides crucial information elements for college persistence and college completion. It tracks students as they swirl from one college to another. See for yourself at www.sheoo.org

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Positive Research Study on Early College High Schools

Guest blogger Jamie Shkolnik, American Institutes for Research

The Early College High School Initiative (ECHSI) was started in 2002 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the goal of improving postsecondary access and success, particularly for student populations underrepresented in higher education. Schools in this initiative are characterized by partnerships with an institution of higher education (IHE) and the goal of having students earn up to two years of college credit concurrently with the high school diploma. AIR and SRI International have been contracted to conduct a national evaluation of the ECHSI.

On March 24, 2008, Jamie Shkolnik and Joel Knudson presented “Credit Where Credit is Due: An Examination of College Course-Taking at Early College High Schools,” at the American Educational Research Association conference in New York City. They presented data on Early College School (ECS) students’ college course-taking to assess the integration of college courses in high school. Data for this presentation came from a school survey administered to the population of ECSs and a student survey administered at a sample of 20 ECSs, both administered during the 2006-07 school year.

Shkolnik and Knudson found that the majority of ECSs (92%) offer college courses, and that most ECS students (65%) had taken a college class. This compared favorably to high schools nationwide, where only 5% of high school students took college classes in 2002-03 (Kleiner & Lewis, 2005). Students were increasingly likely to take college courses as they progressed through high school; 47% of ninth graders reported having taken a course, steadily increasing to 84% of twelfth graders. Students took college courses reported enrolling in an average of three courses per year.

Students also experienced greater integration with the college environment as they progressed through the grade levels. ECSs use variety of models for providing college courses to high school students, including: a) high school teachers with adjunct status teach the courses at the high school, b) college faculty teach high school students at the high school, c) college faculty teach a group of high school student on the college campus, and d) high school students, either individually or in small groups, attend traditional college courses. Shkolnik and Knudson reported that with each successive grade level, higher percentages of students took a course on a college campus, took a course with a college instructor, and took classes with traditional college students. Most students were satisfied with their ECHS experience: 80% said that if they could start over, they would choose the ECS again.

Jamie Shkolnik is a Senior Research Scientist at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). She can be contacted at JShkolnik@air.org. Joel Knudson is a Research Associate at AIR, jknudson@air.org.

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Incentives and Signals Can Improve College Success

We need to reformulate the college access issue to focus more on “access to preparation and success,” rather than the more traditional issue of access to a slot in postsecondary education.Student incentives and signals to students are important concepts to increase college completion.

Examples of incentives could be admission policies that reward students for completing numerous college preparation courses, or teacher professional development that helps increase the probability of students meeting college placement test standards. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are important components of motivating prospective college student behavior.

Signaling theory suggests that streamlined and aligned high quality and appropriate content messages have a positive impact on students’ learning and achievement, and that mixed and conflicting signals—the current state of affairs—have the opposite effect. School site educators, including but not limited to counselors, can be purveyors of information (e.g. signals) about what students need to know and be able to do in order to succeed at postsecondary education. Many secondary school teachers play a large role in providing signals, especially for high achieving students, but teachers do not know much about college placement exams at non selective colleges. Moreover, students get clearer signals if colleges communicate more about placement tests and not just how easy it is to get into their college. For more put "the bridge project" in Google and go to publications.

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Understanding College Placement Exams: A Crucial Part of College Preparation

Understanding College Placement Exams: A Crucial Part of College Success

At broad access two and four year colleges, placement exams are the crucial standard that students confront when they enter, and are the pathway to credit-level courses. Many students in broad access colleges work many hours while attending postsecondary education, and receive weak and confusing signals about necessary academic preparation to pass placement exams. But secondary school students know they will be admitted if they meet minimum GPA and course requirements, or are over 18. Consequently, they are not prepared for placement exams, and end up in remedial courses. Remediation for first semester community college students is over 60%.

Research on the content, reliability, and necessary preparation for placement exams is scant, and placement standards are not well publicized to prospective students or secondary school teachers. The content, cognitive demands, and psychometric quality of placement exams are a “dark continent” in terms of the assessment research literature. Students are admitted to the postsecondary institution under a low standard, but placed in credit courses or remediation on another higher standard. Secondary school students wrongly believe that their high school graduation requirements are sufficient to be placed in postsecondary credit-level work, and rarely know about the possibility of placement exam failure that leads to starting college in remedial, non-credit courses. Students who begin in remedial reading and math courses have a lower probability of finishing their desired academic program (including vocational education certificates) (Adelman, 2006). In sum, remediation is a poor pathway from highs school to college, while being able to enter credit-level courses leads to college completion

Revision of college placement exams have not been part of the K-12 standards movement that has swept across the U.S. Indeed, placement exams are rarely part of the discussion because standards policies are made in separate K-12 and higher education orbits that rarely intersect.



Sources
David T. Conley, College Readiness (Eugene, Oregon; Educational Policy Improvement Center, 2007).

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Using College Entrance Exams for Accountability: A Caution from Chicago

Guest Blogger
Christopher Mazzeo
Associate Director for Policy and Outreach
Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR)
University of Chicago

One of Mike's major concerns is with the alignment of K12 curriculum and standards and college expectations. A increasingly popular way for states to address alignment is to require all students to take the ACT ot SAT while in high school, and to build scores from these tests into their accountability system. According to Achieve, 6 states now incorporate the ACT or SAT in their state assessment system. Yet, a new study by my colleagues Elaine Allensworth and Macarena Correa (w/ Steve Ponicsiak) at the Consortium of Chicago School Research (CCSR) calls into question the effectiveness of such strategies. The report From High School to the Future: ACT Preparation—Too Much, Too Late shows that eleventh-grade students and teachers in Chicago are spending extraordinary amounts of class time preparing for ACT, but the intense focus on test strategies and item practice is hurting, not helping, performance on this high-skills accountability exam. According to the study, Chicago teachers commonly spend about one month of instructional time on ACT practice during eleventh grade core classes. Yet ACT scores were actually slightly lower in schools where eleventh-grade teachers reported spending at least 40 percent of their time on test prep, compared to those schools where teachers devoted less than 20 percent of their class time to test preparation, even after controlling for multiple factors—from student income and incoming test scores to teacher qualifications and school composition. The focus on test prep also means students are not making a connection between the work they do in their classes and their ACT scores.

While intending to promote rigor, such efforts may have the unintended effect of negatively impacting students preparation for college. Part of the problem: the poor alignment in Illinois (and elsewhere) of performance standards from K-8 to high school and from high school to college. Many students appear to be prepared for high school when they enter ninth grade—64 percent of students who took the ACT in 2005 had met the ISAT eighth-grade standards in reading three years earlier. Yet of these students who met state standards, only 30 percent met the ACT reading benchmark three years later. Only those students who exceeded standards in eighth grade were highly likely to meet the ACT reading benchmark, but in Chicago that represents only 855 students.

These findings should be sobering to policy makers and educators from states who are incorporating the ACT and SAT into their high school testing programs, or those thinking of doing so. The bottom line: incorporating the ACT into high school accountability cannot be an effective strategy for high school reform by itself, without accompanying strategies to build the capacity of schools and districts to improve instructional practice.


My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Regular College Prep Curriculum Has Weak Content/Skills

I spoke at the Education Commision of the States meeting in Austin July 2 and attended several sessions. One theme that emerged is that there is a huge drop off in course content and academic challenge below honors or AP courses. This is the so called "regular college prep" track that leads to broad access higher ed. Content varies enormously for courses with the same label like algebra 2 and social studies.High schools do not know how many students take which college prep courses.
Schools in states with a default college prep curriculum are all over the place in terms of quality and intensity of courses that count for the college prep label. For a good overview of this issue see Education Beyond Rhetoric at www.wiche.edu/statescholars

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My blog discusses the important and complex subjects of college completion, college success, student risk factors (for failing), college readiness, and academic preparation. I will explore the pieces of the college puzzle that heavily influence, if not determine, college success rates.

Secondary Students Lack Engagement in Their Courses

Student Engagement in Secondary School
Even if components of college readiness policies and practices are implemented, high school students need to respond and be interested in college preparation. A new study of high school student engagement reveals some major concerns about college readiness (see http://ceep.indiana.edu/hssse/pdf/HSSSE_2006_Report.pdf). Engagement within a high school context is about a student’s relationship with the school community (adults, peers, curriculum, facilities, etc). HSEE uses a national sample of grades 9-12 to find that:

• Fewer than half of the students go to high school because of what happens within the classroom environment
• A great majority of students are bored every day, if not in every class
• 43% spend 0-1 hour doing written homework, 83% spend 5 hours or less
• 55% spend 0 or 1 hour per week reading and studying for class, 90% spend 5 hours or fewer
• Students want more active learning such as peer working groups and presentations
• Girls report being more engaged across all dimensions of high school engagement than boys. (Girls were 58% of 4 year college graduates in 2006).

Engagement is needed for college success and college completion.


Copyright 2006 My College Puzzle