Gates is the latest foundation to announce a big focus on community colleges. But many others came earlier- Hewlett , Lumina, Irvine, Hass, Nellie Mae to name some. But will this grant giving make a difference? Katy Haycock of Education Trust contends more money would be better spent in 4 year colleges where minorities have a much greater chance of college completion. But minorities are most concentrated in community colleges- where 80% of Latinos attend in Ca. So we need to evaluate carefully how successful these foundations are in improving community colleges.
All of this foundation interest means policy scholars need to pay more attention to this field. So do universities most of whom have scant interest in preparing community college leaders.

Education Trust and Achieve have published a useful guide and specific road map for improving state policy to enhance college and career readiness. It focuses upon neglected areas like better assessments and teacher support materials. It also prescribes moving beyond narrow punitive accountability measures. There is not much new here, but it is a useful collection of concepts and ideas that have been circulating in a fragmented manner. Go to www.achieve.org

I chaired a technical panel to recommend how to assess grade 12 state and national performance on college preparedness. Below is our summary from a report accepted by the National Assessment Governing Board on November 21. The recommended studies will help the Board set score scale ranges on NAEP reading and math that indicate college preparedness in the 2009 assessment. This college measure would supplement current achievement levels of basic, proficient, and advanced.



The Technical Panel on 12th Grade Preparedness Research, convened by the Governing Board, consists of 7 members with expertise in a variety of measurement and policy areas related to preparedness. The purpose of the Panel is to assist the National Assessment Governing Board in planning research and validity studies that will enable the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to report on the preparedness of 12th graders for postsecondary education and job training after they graduate from high school. The first round of studies will be conducted before and during the 2009 NAEP 12th grade assessments of reading and mathematics, and the Board plans to begin this new type of reporting with these NAEP 2009 results, scheduled for release in 2010.

The Panel’s deliberative process engaged each Panel member’s expertise to refine ideas; gather supplementary materials; convene testing companies and partner organizations; and review the advantages and disadvantages of various sources of data. At each step in the process, the Technical Panel considered a range of alternatives and feasibility issues and then made choices to advance to the next point in deliberations.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Use a variety of methodologies for NAEP preparedness studies in order to determine if mutually confirmatory evidence exists.
A multimethod approach is a sound and reasonable way to gain understanding of this complex set of issues and interrelationships. There is not a particular study that would comprehensively address the feasibility and validity issues for prospective NAEP preparedness reporting. As described above, the four recommended types of studies are:
 content alignment;
 statistical relationships with other assessments and postsecondary outcomes data;
 judgmental standard-setting; and
 national surveys.

Highlight the focus on reading and mathematics academic skills and avoid representing NAEP’s preparedness reporting as the single, authoritative definition of preparedness.
Several national conversations include capabilities beyond academics when addressing preparedness and readiness. A non-academic emphasis is not the function of NAEP, and it is important to clearly communicate the focus of NAEP preparedness research to avoid misrepresentation and overstatement.

Maximize the information produced from all studies.
In comparing NAEP with other assessment instruments used as indicators of preparedness, Panel members have noted there may be overlap and there may be non-overlap. The Panel sees equal importance in describing the characteristics of overlap and the characteristics of non-overlap. These sources of information should be used to provide context and rigor for NAEP preparedness research and reporting.

Be mindful of the evolving context of preparedness.
There has been a substantial increase in the development of policies and standards to promote preparedness of students transitioning from high school to postsecondary endeavors. The Panel recommends careful positioning with respect to this dynamic context. A contextual statement should be added to Report Cards to explain what NAEP can do and what NAEP cannot do in its reporting of 12th grade student preparedness. The statement should explain the definition that NAEP is using for preparedness. NAEP’s capabilities and definition of preparedness should be presented in the larger policy context.

Conduct preparedness validity research as an iterative process with additional studies for NAEP 2009 and beyond.
The Panel recommends additional studies be conducted to enable continued preparedness reporting beyond NAEP 2009. To build on the foundation set by the NAEP preparedness studies for NAEP 2009 Reading and Mathematics and to address the evolving national context of preparedness, the Panel has proposed specific additional studies for NAEP preparedness research. These studies represent an incremental approach, including study designs such as benchmarking studies to administer NAEP to groups of interest, studies with additional state databases, studies to examine additional occupations, and studies to develop composite college courses of the knowledge and skills needed to be prepared for entry.

RECOMMENDED STUDY DESIGNS
Content Alignment
The Technical Panel Recommends content alignment studies, as an essential step, to be conducted for each assessment used as an indicator for reporting preparedness on the 12th grade NAEP scale. In order to use other assessments as indicators of preparedness and capitalize on their preparedness research for interpretations of NAEP results related to preparedness, NAEP and the other assessments should measure similar content in a similar way. Content alignment studies will provide evidence of the extent to which the two assessments are aligned and provide a basis for interpreting the relationships of scores on the two assessments.
Statistical Relationships
The Panel recommends a series of studies aimed at statistically relating NAEP and performance on other assessments that serve as indicators of preparedness for higher education and for job training programs in the civilian and military sectors. The Technical Panel recommends that the strongest feasible form of linking should be used to establish statistical relationships between NAEP and the other assessments. It is important to note that the strongest form of linking, known as equating, will not be possible because equating involves relating scores between two tests built to the same specifications—same content, same difficulty, same reliability—which means that results are interchangeable. Because NAEP is a unique assessment with a different function and purpose, equating is not an option. Instead, statistical relationships, such as concordance or the use of equipercentile methods to establish a working relationship will be most likely between NAEP and other assessments.
Judgmental Standard Setting Studies with Subject Matter Expert Panels
The Technical Panel recommends studies involving judgments by subject matter experts (SMEs) for each type of postsecondary activity, relative to pre-existing sets of academic performance standards (or knowledge, skills, and abilities statements). For some studies, the performance standards would need to be developed if a particular occupation, for example, did not have an appropriate set available for SME panels’ use.
Survey of Postsecondary Education and Job Training Institutions
The Technical Panel recommends a survey to collect data from a nationally representative sample of two- and four-year postsecondary education institutions. The survey would collect information about the assessments used for course placement and the cut score(s) on widely used standardized tests for placement into college credit coursework, placement into remedial programs in reading and mathematics, and exemption from placement tests. The survey results will yield descriptive information related to results from other studies and provide a context for reporting NAEP preparedness research.

RECOMMENDED STUDIES FOR NAEP 12TH GRADE PREPAREDNESS REPORTING
HIGH PRIORITY
Content Alignment Studies for NAEP and Assessments of Postsecondary Preparedness
 College admissions and placement examinations (ACT, SAT, ACCUPLACER, COMPASS)
 Workplace eligibility and placement examinations (WorkKeys and ASVAB)
Statistical Relationship Studies for NAEP and Other Assessments of Postsecondary Preparedness
 Linking national NAEP scores with preparedness indicator scores from other assessments
 Linking 12th grade state NAEP samples with state longitudinal databases (Score data for college admission and course placement; transcript data; and workplace salary data)
Judgmental Studies to Set NAEP Cut Scores for Workplace Preparedness (Military and Civilian)
 Identification of 5 – 7 target jobs across all sectors
 Identification and development of eligibility criteria for target job training programs
 Set NAEP reading and mathematics job training program cut scores
National Survey of College Course Placement Assessments and Cut Scores

MEDIUM PRIORITY
Judgmental Studies to Set NAEP Cut Scores for College Preparedness
 Set NAEP reading and mathematics college preparedness cut scores using:
 ACT College Readiness Standards
 College Board Standards for College Success
 Standards Developed by subject matter experts for college course placement

Labels: College Testing

Integrating outside community services
and better teaching could lead to success


The on-going struggle to close the glaring gaps in student achievement remains an exercise in frustration. Where student performance is improving, the results are incremental. Where achievement remains low, educators and politicians, parents and students remain highly discouraged.
So what’s to be done?
Is there a better way to raise poor-performing k-12 students to higher levels?
The answer, while promising, must be grounded in caution. While the No Child Left Behind law set standards for student achievement, it is clear that setting education standards alone will not solve the problem.
Good schools offering good teaching of good courses in wholesome environments is a good starting point. Such schools tell students they can learn more and individual effort counts a lot. But for too many students, who come from neighborhoods with high concentration of poverty, poor health, insufficient nutrition, unstable homes and crime-ridden neighborhoods, outside forces beyond their control combine to frustrate if not defeat their attempts to get a good education. What is needed is an approach that improves systemic education reform and addresses children’s other needs simultaneously.
It is not enough for state and school districts to adopt performance standards and enact standardized tests. Teachers must identify students’ strengths and weaknesses and adapt their teaching methods to address each student. Teachers must undergo effective professional development training to target efforts to each child’s learning difficulties.
Fundamental to the success of any worthwhile enterprise is the intelligent allocation and deployment of resources sufficient to achieve the expected results. Too often, however, state and local school finance systems are disconnected from their standards-based reforms and a system of continual instructional improvement.
It is one thing to require teachers and students to meet high standards in reading, math and science. It is quite another to provide them with all the tools (computers, text books, up-to-date teacher training and properly-equipped laboratories) so they can perform and meet such requirements.
Moreover, if the best-paid, most experienced teachers are concentrated in the schools with high-performing students, and the least-experienced, lowest paid teachers are concentrated in the schools with low-performing students, odds are the low-performers will continue to perform below expectations. The point is many low-performing schools may require more resources and dramatically improved classroom instruction. Problems arise because a school district’s resources are not carefully distributed in ways to do the most good.
Even if the policies and practices inside school districts and schools go well, outside influences can work to undermine their best efforts. This is most likely in areas where residents live in fear of crime, have weak parental support, and high unemployment.
The hope may lie in connecting outside services for children and families to classroom instruction in a coordinated and interactive manner. This approach is a combination of community schools and school linked services, and is the basis for some cautious optimism for closing the student achievement gap. But we are just beginning to probe how to leverage out of school initiatives to improve school attainment. A period of intense experimentation is needed. For example, which family and children’s interventions are essential, and is a critical mass needed in different local contexts.
One experiment to start with is to bring state and local social and health services into or near the schools. The purpose is to co-locate and to integrate services (such as tutoring, nutrition, counseling, medical and dental, adult education, childcare) so they serve to reinforce students and parents in enhancing education.
For poor families especially, who often cannot travel to several locations to access various children’s services, combining them in one location at school or in adjacent facilities would be a major step-forward. For many, it may make the difference between seeing a doctor and dentist or not at all. It may mean the chance to have parents help their children with homework, get emergency child care, and afterschool education.
Connecting public and non-profit services with schools will require federal, state and local cooperation in an unprecedented way—for all to often these activities operate independently in “silos”, separate and out of touch with one another. No less important will be for educators and teachers to be integrated into such services delivery. Teachers should know how family needs and strengths affect class performance, and be able to adapt their instruction accordingly.
If the planning and set-up work for connecting outside services to schools requires some initial new funding, it would make sense to use existing program funds such as Medicaid, children’s protective services, in a new school-linked setting. This would eliminate the need to add, say social workers and nurses, to the school payroll. But all these added services will require more school staff to attract and integrate them within schools.
Connecting outside services to schools would also require educators, service providers, political and civic leaders, to park their narrower institutional interests away, and adopt a spirit of collegiality and cooperation. Such a change will require a new definition of professions like education and social work that span several children’s services.
The best way to begin connecting outside services to schools is on a trial basis. The federal and state governments could offer planning and start-up grants for districts and communities willing to organize and conduct experiments connecting outside services and communities to schools. Such experiments should be spread around in rural, urban and suburban settings. Various mixes of services and incentives should be tried ranging from the try it all approach of the Harlem Children’s Zone to paternalistic approaches that rely on improved behavior of children and education of parents.
Closing the achievement gap will not accelerate or get much better if we continue doing the same things in the same way. A hungry child, a kid with bad teeth, youths with single parents struggling to make ends meet, or who are out of work or fighting addictions cannot be expected to perform as well in school as their counterparts from stable living, and good health and nutrition situations.
If school financing were reframed into “children’s financing”, and family services across the spectrum were integrated at or near K-12 education, disadvantaged children would carry fewer handicaps to and inside their schools. This may become a “Rosetta Stone” that enables us to translate low achieving schools into more success.

Michael W. Kirst is Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University.
Prepared with support of the School Finance Redesign Project at the Center for Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington

Labels: academic preparation, Student Success

The Education Commission of the States-www.ecs.org has published a useful analysis of the 38 states that have created new structures to better integrate p-12 grades and postsecondary education. It features problems with council membership,vague agendas, lack of funds and staff, and politics among levels that can overwhelm the nascent units. But it also has policies and practices that can lead to some success. There are specific examples of how to overcome each obstacle. In short, p-16 councils should try harder and not give up.
These councils are often the only way for k-12 and postsecondary officials to deliberate on common problems. Many concrete actions have ensued. So they are well worth continuing to improve. Our p-16 governance units are fractured and need some new organization to improve policymaking.

Labels: State p-16 councils

The long awaited roll out of the new Gates funding strategy ( on their website) focuses on a major theme of this blog-low college completion rates particularly at 2 year colleges. Major investments are planned with a surprising focus on internal incentives for colleges to improve college completion. This is largely uncharted territory with little known about how to reward colleges for increasing student attainment of diplomas and vocational certificates. Moreover, Gates wants to change student aid so students get more money if they finish their college programs. Part of Gates strategy is to find ways to accelerate remediation ,so students do not give up.
All of these goals are good, but I am not sure about the techniques to attain them. An R&D strategy should be part of the package. Big money for community college is a new priority for Gates.

Labels: College Completion, two year colleges

In a recession more adults enroll in college, but almost all the selective sector does not grow much. Flagship state universities are expensive, so growth is funneled to nonselective 2 and 4 year colleges.Community colleges take the brunt of enrollment surges, but states and localities are cutting their budgets. So transition from high school suffers as counselors are reduced, class sizes enlarged, and adjunct professors hired. Lower percentages of students will complete college because of the reasons above, but also they cannot get the classes they need for their educational objectives. So the enrollment door is open, but not the path to college success.
The New york Times has a good summary of this on page A22 today with some vocations in New York city surging by 30% this year alone. Community college enrollment is up to 81,000 this year from 62,000 in 1999, but budgets have been cut twice this year and more coming.
Broad access colleges also have many strings on the public money they get, and are regulated similar to k12 state education codes. The most flexibility is in the selective college sector. These issues of finance and regulation in postsecondary to not receive the same attention as the equity and adequacy movement in k12.

Labels: College Completion, college costs

The Center on Education Policy published a report on end of course exams for high school graduation.Secondary courses are better aligned to end of course exams in algebra or world history than a cross cutting skills test. But only 4 states currently use end of course exams, and 11 may rely on them for graduation in 2015. Moreover, only a few states are thinking about how to link their end of course tests to college prepardness. Much more focus is needed on these issues, but I am not sure where the momentum will come from.see www.cep-dc.org

Labels: academic preparation, College Testing

The Baltimore Sun has published a report by the Maryland legislature that 4 year historically black colleges are underfunded and cannot provide sufficient student instruction and services. Science and tech labs are inadequate at Bowie ,Coppin, Morgan, and U Md- Eastern Shore. Graduation rates are 30% below Towson University. But SAT scores are also low at about 815. More money is needed for academic advising and remedial work.
Fewer than a third of black men who enter any 4 year college graduate within 6 years-see Chronicle of Higher Education-Oct 10, page A23.The Md report begins to explore some of the many reasons. Policy focus is on affirmative action in selective colleges, but the vast majority of black students attend broad access 4 year colleges.

Labels: academic preparation, College Completion