College Success Blog by Dr. Michael Kirst

Blog is Moving!

2009-02-10T12:34:00.000-08:00

As of Wednesday, February 11th, this blog will move to a new improved website which you can access by the link below:

http://collegepuzzle.stanford.edu

The new format permits interactive features including RSS feeds, links, and other related blogs.

Thank you for reading this blog!

Blog That Has Some Similar Goals As The College Puzzle

2009-02-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

Readers of this blog will find eduoptimist.blogspot.com has some content that is complimentary to this blog. For example, a recent post on the need to include community colleges in the stimulus package is identical to my own views.
The college transition parts of this blog are prepared by Sara Goldrick-Rab who is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin and follows new research quite closely.

New Evidence That Part Time Faculty Produce Fewer Successful College Students

2009-02-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

Several studies suggest a negative impact from high percentages of part time community college faculty upon student transfer rates, student advising,faculty class preparation, active teaching techniques, and participation in teaching workshops. Scholars suggest part timers be assigned to students least likely to need extra help. The research is a start on exploring this vital issue because community college teachers are 67% part time. There are other concerns that part time adjunct faculty cannot participate in academic departmental improvement because they commute to several campuses.
See website of Association for the Study of Higher Education- 2008 meeting.

Book Explores Why Males Lag Females In College Success

2009-02-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Peg Tyre has written a book, The Trouble With Boys published by Crown, 2008. It is written primarily for parents rather than educators or policy makers, but is useful journalism.It is provactive and suggestive of future research in a field where so little is known. Why are boys reciving only 42% of four year degrees, and lag on almost all indicators of college preparation? She has numerous interviews with scholars and practioners, and offers some a way to move away from a boys versus girls analysis.

New Studies On College Remediation Show Short term But Not Long Term Effect

2009-02-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

Bridget Long has published with a co-author a new study on remediation that merits notice. The summary is below -get copy from bridget long@gse.harvard.edu
A recent study by Tom Bailey at Teachers College raise another isuue- it is not just one remdial course that makes a difference but the proper sequence for many students. The remedial education issue gets more complex as we find out more. The cost issues must be rethought given these new findings.

Remedial or developmental courses are the most common instruments used to assist postsecondary students who are not ready for college-level coursework. However, despite its important role in higher education and substantial costs, there is little rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of college remediation on the outcomes of students. This study uses a detailed dataset to identify the causal effect of remediation on the outcomes of nearly 100,000 college students in Florida. Using a Regression Discontinuity design, we provide causal estimates while also investigating possible endogenous sorting around the policy cutoff. The results suggest math and reading remedial courses have mixed benefits. Being assigned to remediation appears to increase persistence to the second year and the total number of credits completed for students on the margin of passing out of the requirement, but it does not increase the completion of college-level credits or eventual degree completion. Taken together, the results suggest that remediation might promote early persistence in college, but it does not necessarily help students on the margin of passing the placement cutoff make long-term progress toward earning a degree.

Arizona Study Demonstrates High School Exit Test Does Not Measure College Readiness

2009-01-30T08:38:00.000-08:00

The Arizona Republic
7:25 am | 55°
January 30, 2009 |
News

New way urged for gauging schools
Lawmakers: Measure using college-readiness

Half of Maricopa County’s high-school graduates who enter Arizona universities or colleges must take a remedial math class. And just under a quarter must take a remedial English class.

The new findings are helping legislators push for a change in how Arizona decides if its high schools are excelling or failing, a move that would topple AIMS test scores as the main measurement.

Two key House leaders are proposing a pilot program that could lead to making the percentage of students who graduate “college-ready” the prime indicator of how well a high school performs.

Rating schools by AIMS scores sets the bar too low because the state’s standardized student tests are based on 10th-grade skills, said Reps. Rich Crandall, a Mesa Republican, and David Lujan, a Phoenix Democrat.

Some educators fear that the new approach would put too much emphasis on college-bound students and not enough on marginal students who need extra help or students who don’t want to attend college.

The findings come from an Arizona Community Foundation study released this week that aimed to measure how well high schools prepared their college-bound students.

The College Readiness Report calculated how many 2006 high-school graduates could directly enter freshman-level English and algebra classes and how many had to take remedial classes first.

The study tracked graduates at each of 115 Maricopa County districts and charter high schools who entered one of the three state universities or Maricopa Community Colleges. Those students accounted for 55 percent of the county's 2006 graduates, or about 17,400 students.

The results: Seventy-seven percent were prepared to enter a college-level English course without extra help; half were ready for college algebra.

“The glass is half-full or half-empty, depending on how you look at it,” said Arizona State University’s David Garcia, who conducted the research. All the students in the study had passed Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, passed their high-school courses and earned diplomas, he said.

“After that, the burning question is: ‘What did that mean?’. . . Are we aiming at the right place?” Garcia said. “My primary interest in doing this is to put something else out there for public discussion other than AIMS.”

The study is the first to track such data for individual high schools. Garcia said he is preparing to conduct the research statewide and include students who attend colleges and universities out of state. He also is working on tracking students who attend trade schools.

The College Readiness Report caught the attention of Crandall and Lujan, who plan to introduce a bill this week that would establish a pilot program using the report’s data as the primary measurement of a high school’s performance.

The schools would be measured on improvement in the percentage of graduates who entered college without needing remedial classes.

“When you use AIMS as your total measurement, you get 10th-grade results, and that’s not good enough,” said Crandall, chairman of the House Education Committee. Crandall, once president of the Mesa Unified District governing board, who has already established a legislative task force to examine the future of AIMS. Its recommendations are due in June, and it could suggest changing the AIMS exam, killing it as a graduation requirement, replacing it or adding a college-entrance or another test.

The bill, drafted by Lujan, would keep AIMS scores and graduation rates as part of a new formula to evaluate school instruction, but College Readiness Report data would play the key role. Lujan said it’s easier for parents to understand.

In all measures, schools would have to show progress in the percentage of students meeting the new goals.

The AIMS reading, writing and math exam is taken each year by students in third through eighth grades and in 10th grade. It measures how well students are achieving grade-level learning goals, and high-school students must pass the exam to graduate. Test scores are used to rate schools on a six-level scale that ranges from excelling to failing.

“People really don’t know what the AIMS test measures,” Lujan said. “Looking at how many students have to take remedial classes when they get to college, I think that’s a really good indicator.”

Schools participating in the pilot would include all the high schools in one district, most likely Phoenix Union High School District, where Lujan still sits on the board, and five charter high schools.

The schools would develop the new formula and use it to determine their rankings by September 2010.

State officials would track and report on the progress of students in schools using the new formula.

Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction, said he, too, wants to push all high schools to improve learning for college-bound students. College-readiness numbers could become a small part of the current formula, but AIMS scores should remain the key indicator, he said.

“I worked very hard to make sure the formula, as a whole, is fair,” Horne said. “We must be sure the kids who don’t go to college are still well prepared for life.”

Stimulus Bill Intensifies But Does Not Change Federal Role

2009-01-29T07:18:00.000-08:00

While the stimulus will be helpful for college success, it does not include many new concepts for funding. It increases Pell grants dramatically, has a new tax credit plan, 3.5 billion for construction,.5 billion for work study, and other indirect aid through state government allocations. Other than yet another tax credit scheme , it breaks little new ground. I am skeptical that tax credits up to $160,000 per couple will create more low income enrollment in college. The Clinton tax credits went to the middle class who would have attended college anyway.
Another concern is wether this new money will be temporary or part of the future federal base. But the stimulus will provide much more money than postsecondary education would have received through the regular appropriation process. Will more students complete college because of this bill? No one knows.

College Presidents MIA In Discussion About College Preparation And Completion

2009-01-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

David Breneman , former Dean of the University of Virginia Education School, wrote this for Measuring Up:2008. He has followed the decline of college presidents in the problems of transition from k-12 to college.

Facing the Nation: The Role of College Leaders in Higher Education Policy
By David W. Breneman

Measuring Up 2008, the fifth edition of the National Center's biennial reports on state performance in higher education, arrives at a time of great uncertainty and concern about the nation's economy, as the financial credit crisis has spawned bank failings not seen since the Great Depression. As the country lurches toward recession, most state and local budgets are in serious deficit, families continue to lose homes to foreclosure, jobs are being lost by the thousands, and a massive $700 billion federal rescue plan has yet to demonstrate its success. The luxury we may have had in prior years to ignore the warning signs of current problems has now expired. We have no choice but to focus intently on solving these economic problems, casting aside the behaviors that helped bring us to this critical moment.

That higher education is central to future economic progress is beyond dispute, but a decade of Measuring Up reports paints a worrisome picture about how well this vital sector is performing: participation in higher education remains flat at best, affordability has declined sharply, and graduation rates continue to be a disgrace. Whatever lead we enjoyed over other countries in the last half of the 20th Century has been lost, as both our participation and completion rates have declined relative to other advanced nations. Far too much effort and too many resources have been devoted to enhancing institutional prestige, at the cost of balanced development of a high-performing system of colleges and universities able to serve the diverse educational needs of the next generation. We have increasingly relied on market forces to shape higher education, and the result has been a vastly widening resource gap between a small number of exceedingly wealthy institutions and a much larger number of poor ones. In a sense, the Measuring Up reports can be read as assessing the average performance of our colleges as a whole.

In earlier reports, Robert Atwell, Jane Wellman, and I have remarked on the absence of college and university leaders from the national policy debates about higher education. One result has been an unfortunate, if understandable, tendency for state and national political leaders to dominate the discussion. Let me be clear in what I am saying; college and university leaders have certainly worked hard on issues of institutional self-interest, as they must, but few have provided strong voices on policy matters that transcend the local campus. To default to those outside higher education on such substantive issues as academic preparation for college-level work, access for the poor and disadvantaged, success in retention and graduation, and the serious and growing problem of affordability is to limit the nation's ability to make headway in improving the performance of our system as a system. One result, as external parties have criticized and advocated for changes, has been a growing defensiveness on the part of higher education leaders rather than an active engagement with legislators and policy analysts in seeking solutions. We are all the poorer for this failed conversation, and as noted earlier, such failure is a luxury the nation can no longer afford.

One concrete example from the National Center's experience may clarify this point. The Measuring Up series has been criticized by numerous college leaders for reporting failing grades for virtually all states in making higher education affordable for students and their families. In private conversations, university leaders have told me that these failing grades have made it more difficult for their institutions to achieve tuition increases. Another response has been to attack the methodology used in Measuring Up to assess the affordability of higher education. In short, many university administrators, rather than addressing the state and national challenges that Measuring Up emphasizes, perceive the reports themselves as the problem.

None of us associated with Measuring Up would argue that we have the perfect instrument for measuring the complex issue of affordability in higher education. However, we all agree that keeping college affordable is a serious and growing problem, potentially much worse for the next generation of aspiring college students. We also agree that there are limits to the share of educational cost that can be shifted to students and families. Furthermore, if state and national leaders fail to improve upon this situation, the economic prospects for the United States will be grim. Yet, so far, we are failing as a nation to address this issue squarely and honestly.

The National Center is committed to developing a forum in which college and university leaders can meet with political leaders and knowledgeable policy professionals to advance a conversation about the enduring challenges of preparation, participation, affordability, completion, and accountability in higher education. The problems are now so serious and the stakes so high that the most experienced educators and political leaders must work together for policies that will enable higher education to continue to serve the millions of Americans whose well-being depends upon it.

http://measuringup2008

College Data on Student Preparation and Success Is Getting Worse

2009-01-24T18:16:00.000-08:00

Dennis Jones of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems wrote this analysis of college data weaknesses as part of the report Measuring Up: 2008 by the National Center for Higher Education and Public Policy
The Information Gap: Much Talk, Little Progress
By Dennis P. Jones

Over the past decade, states have used Measuring Up to evaluate and compare their performance in higher education. Policymakers and the public have tracked their state's progress and setbacks in preparing students for education beyond high school, enrolling them in college, trying to keep college affordable, and conferring degrees. During this time, one trend has held constant: not all the information needed by policymakers is available to them.

When first published in 2000, Measuring Up identified the key areas where comparative, objective information was not available across states. Most of the deficiencies noted at that time persist today (see table). In fact, in many areas there is less information available now. In some cases, states have not participated in national assessments that would have provided important state-level data; in other cases, national groups have not collected sufficient data from each of the states. The result is a failing grade-an F-for the nation's performance in developing data resources for state-by-state comparisons in higher education.

Preparation
There has been some improvement in assessing how well states prepare students for college. The Census Bureau's new American Communities Survey (ACS) now provides more timely and accurate data about high school completion. However, this improvement does not affect two important areas: advanced course taking and student achievement.

Advanced K-12 Course Taking. Enrollment levels in advanced courses can help to indicate preparedness for college. Since 2000, substantially fewer states participate in national surveys that indicate how many eighth graders take algebra and how many high school students enroll in advanced math and science.

Student Achievement in the 12th Grade. Most states-but not all-continue to participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for eighth graders. For high school seniors, there is a comparable national assessment but it does not provide data at the state level. Information about the "stock of learning" that students acquire in high school and carry into college continues to be missing in the states.

Participation
There has been no progress in assessing the extent to which states provide opportunities for residents to enroll in higher education.

College Enrollment Rates for Recent High School Graduates, by Income. At the national level, rates of college enrollment are available by racial group and by income. At the state level, these rates are available by racial group, but not by income. Data about student financial aid packages for college freshmen have improved, but nothing is known at the state level about the family incomes of students who do not apply for (or receive) such aid. Given the changing demographics of college students, information about the family incomes of college-eligible individuals and those who actually enroll is crucial for effective state policymaking. Its absence represents one of the most notable of all the information gaps.

Migration of Students Across States. Information about the state of origin of college freshmen continues to be available. As a result, state-to-state migration of entering students can be determined. Once students enroll, however, federal data collection does not offer a way to track their progress or geographic location. The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) could be used for this purpose if the protocols for use could be agreed upon nationally. Matching records from multiple state-level record systems has proven possible but arduous. At a time when workforce development is particularly important to state policymakers, the inability to assess migration patterns beyond the freshman year represents a severe handicap.

Affordability
There has been some progress in tracking the affordability of higher education for students and families, but this progress has not gone nearly far enough.

Unmet Financial Need for Eligible and Qualified Students. The available data estimate unmet financial need on a national basis, but not at the state level. As a consequence, there is still no state-by-state assessment of the extent to which financial factors affect college participation.

Distribution of Student Aid. Since 2000, some progress has been made in calculating financial aid patterns, though the improvements are far from adequate. Data on the amounts of different kinds of aid distributed to freshmen is now available by campus. Still missing, however, are data about the economic circumstances of aid recipients and the extent to which aid packages change as students advance in their college careers. For example, do loans supplant grants after the freshman year in some states more than others? An oversample of 12 states by the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey in 2004 provided this kind of in-depth information. Until this information is available for all 50 states, however, policymakers will not be able to have a clear picture of college affordability.

Undergraduate Student Loans. In 2000, data about borrowing by graduate and undergraduate students were combined, making it impossible to determine levels of undergraduate borrowing. This problem has been remedied-one of the few areas of clear progress.

Completion
Problems remain in assessing whether students are completing their educational programs in a timely manner.

Progression of Individual Students Across Systems and States. Since many students transfer among colleges, it is important to track students across institutions. Many states have data systems that allow such tracking across public institutions in-state, but not across state lines. Data from the National Student Clearinghouse have been analyzed through a pilot effort. While this resource has limitations, it has proven capable of yielding good information for most states. Not all institutions participate, although a majority in most states do. Key data elements have not been available, such as whether a student is enrolled for the first time in college. Since protocols have not been agreed upon nationally to continue the pilot analysis, it must be concluded that no lasting progress has been made in this area.

Degree Completion in Six and Ten Years. Unlike in 2000, all institutions of higher education now report information on the proportion of full-time, first-time students who complete their programs within 150% of program length (six years for bachelor's degrees). Completion rates are also provided for students after four and five years. This is clearly an improvement, but there are still major shortcomings. Six years is too short a time period for many students, particularly working adults. The data cannot track students who transfer between institutions, both in-state and out-of-state. And the data are particularly flawed for community colleges because they fail to account for students who start part-time (the majority of enrollments at many community colleges) and students who transfer to four-year institutions. This is an area where most of the data are available in many states, but not in a way that allows national comparisons. In sum, progress has been made but remains inadequate.

Benefits
There has been some improvement in tracking the benefits that accrue to states as a result of having an educated population.

Educational Attainment. Two improvements have occurred in assessing whether state residents have a bachelor's degree. First, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) now provides much more accurate data about the educational attainment of adults. Secondly, it is now possible to calculate the percentage of college degree holders who were born in the state in which they are living. This provides a basis for comparing states in developing home-grown talent.

Civic Engagement. New information about volunteerism is now available, including comparisons of volunteerism for college graduates and for those without college degrees. Although these data have rather large sampling errors at the state level, some progress has been made.

Learning
As in 2000, there are still no common benchmarks that would permit state comparisons of the knowledge and skills of college students. There are isolated instances in which learning outcomes are assessed, such as South Dakota's mandatory exam of rising college juniors. There are assessments that cover portions of the population, such as Graduate Record Examinations (GREs), which test those pursuing graduate study. And there are assessments in selected fields, such as licensure exams in nursing or WorkKeys in selected vocational fields. But there is no nationwide approach to assessing learning that would allow state-to-state comparisons. What energy was available for state assessments in 2000 has been directed to campus-level assessments in 2008, such as the Voluntary System of Accountability. This represents a step backward, not forward.

Adult Skill Levels. In assessing adult skills in the states, there has also been a large step backward. In 1992, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) provided a sufficient survey base to estimate the mastery of higher-level skills among the adult populations of most states. That assessment was re-administered in 2003. In 1992, 13 states participated in an oversample; in 2003, only six states did so. And almost five years later, the data have not been released for secondary analysis. National results indicate lower literacy levels for adults in 2003, but data are unavailable for all but a limited number of states. If states are to improve workforce preparedness, it is crucial that policymakers have access to information about the skill levels of state residents.

Cost Effectiveness
Over the past decade, there has been little progress in assessing state performance in higher education relative to the resources committed to the endeavor. An approach to calculating cost effectiveness was developed by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS). However, until learning outcomes are available by state, calculating the cost effectiveness of higher education will continue to rely on proxy measures that leave much to be desired.

Conclusion
State leaders and the public need access to objective information to assess and improve higher education. No single entity is at fault for the absence of information about one of the most critical problems facing the nation today; there is plenty of blame to go around. In some areas the states-in others the nation-must provide leadership in developing the data resources for state-by-state analysis. It is time for every state-and the nation-to commit to getting the information needed to advance the educational attainment of the citizenry, and to halt the worrisome slide of the United States vis-à-vis other developed nations in this area.

http://measuringup2008.highereducation.org/commentary/jones.p

New Report By Jane Wellman of Delta Project Critiques College Spending For Student Success

2009-01-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

>
>
>Jan. 15
>More for Less
>Most college students are carrying a greater
>share of the cost of their education, even as
>institutions spend less on teaching them,
>according to a
>report released today.
>The report, published by the Delta Project on
>Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and
>Accountability, gives a potentially troubling
>picture of spending and revenue trends in higher
>education. Spanning from 2002 to 2006, the
>report indicates that tuition hikes have
>resulted in little if any new spending on
>classroom instruction at public research universities.
>"The public's got it exactly right," said Jane
>Wellman, head of the Delta Project. "They are
>jacking up tuition, and they're not re-investing it in quality."
>There's plenty of blame to go around, however,
>for this predicament. With state support waning
>for public colleges, rising tuition dollars are
>merely being used to make up for lost revenue
>not for hiring more faculty or taking other
>steps that would arguably improve classroom
>instruction, the report asserts. On the other
>hand, the Delta Project suggests that colleges
>haven't made the hard choices required for
>adapting to lower subsidies, as evidenced by
>relatively small changes in spending levels.
>"The data tell us that the spending patterns are
>not changing, we're just shifting revenue
>sources," Wellman said. "So what this tells us
>is we're not dealing with our cost structures, we're just shifting revenues."
>There's not much evidence to suggest that
>students at public universities are getting more
>for paying more. Between 2002 and 2006, average
>tuition at public research universities
>increased by nearly 27 percent or $1,419, but
>the spending on each student only went up by 1
>percent, or $149. In calculating "education and
>related" spending the dollars spent directly
>on students the Delta Project included
>expenses on instruction and student services.
>Also included in that figure is the per-student
>share of administrative functions tied to
>academics, academic support and operations and maintenance.
>Tuition increases outpaced per-student spending
>even more dramatically at public master's institutions and community colleges.
>Private institutions, on the other hand, are
>charging students more and putting more money
>into instruction at the same time, according to
>the report. At private research institutions,
>for instance, tuition went up by $985, but
>per-student spending actually rose by $1,453.
>Whether that spending translated into a higher
>quality education, however, remains to be seen.
>"This [report] tells us how we spend our money,
>but it doesn't tell us about effectiveness," Wellman said.
>The report does note that community colleges,
>for instance, are able to spend less money per
>student on the path toward graduation. Wellman
>concedes, however, that there's no way to
>determine whether what's gained in savings isn't lost in quality.
>Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio
>University, applauded the report for shining a
>light on how universities do business. At the
>same time, Vedder lamented that no one has been
>able to demonstrate effectively whether spending
>increases are helping colleges to better educate students.
>"What they have not done [in the report],
>because it's almost impossible to do, is measure
>performance, measure outcomes," said Vedder,
>director of the Center for College Affordability
>and Productivity. "Are the students learning? We
>have very limited almost no measure of outcomes."
>So where is all the money going? At most types
>of institutions, an increasing share of
>"education and related" spending goes toward
>administrative support and student services,
>while instruction including faculty salaries
>is falling as a percentage of those expenses.
>Administrative expenses made up the most
>significant share of "education and related"
>expenses at private bachelor's institutions,
>where 44.2 percent of the cost of educating
>students was devoted to administration in 2006, according to the report.
>Data Brings Sunshine
>The greatest value of the Delta Project's report
>may yet to be realized. Leaders of the project,
>which is funded by the Lumina Foundation for
>Education, plan to create a Web-based function
>that will allow users to look at the spending
>and revenue data of individual institutions.
>While the raw data is already public through the
>federal data clearinghouse for higher education,
>known as the Integrated Postsecondary Education
>Data System (IPEDS), the Delta Project hopes to
>create a function that adds context and meaning
>to the often dizzying IPEDS numbers.
>Charles Miller, who chaired the U.S. Secretary
>of Education's Commission on the Future of
>Higher Education, said he welcomes the greater
>sunshine that the Delta Project is bringing to postsecondary education.
>"Unless you have data that's in this kind of
>form, it's very hard to make decisions and
>policy judgments that are objective," he said.
>After reviewing the report, Miller said the
>Delta Project had made a data-driven case for
>reform, without having to use the sometimes
>tough language that's found in many such
>reports, including the one Miller's own commission presented.
>"It doesn't say 'Here are the failings of the
>system,' and a lot of the report is going to
>avoid doing that, but [Wellman] implies it," he said.
>In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Wellman
>noted that the lack of transparency in higher
>education is a problem in and of itself.
>Institutions are reluctant to engage in much
>introspection about costs, because it raises
>"uncomfortable questions," she said. At a time
>when state support and private giving are sure
>to keep declining, however, it would behoove
>college leaders to closely examine exactly where
>they're getting money and spending money, Wellman said.
>"We're robbing Peter to pay Paul," she said. "We
>better find out who Peter and Paul are.
>viewed online at
>http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/15/delta.
>

Tips For College Sucess and Completion

2009-01-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

Essential Tools for College Success :Guest Blogger Holly McCarthy

Over the last several decades, college has become less of an option and more of a necessity in the eyes of high school students around the country. Even reluctant learners know the importance of getting a college education. However, as retention rates continue to be examined, it is clear that many entering freshmen are not up for the rigors of collegiate life. What follows is a brief list of essential tools for college success.

Study Skills

Studying isn’t just something that people do; it is a skill that is developed over time through a variety of avenues. Some study skills are taught in school, while others are tailored to the individual student’s needs through trial and error. The important thing for the student is that he or she has a method for studying materials that will ultimately help them to be successful.

Time Management Skills

The ability to manage time effectively is another thing that many college students haven’t been taught before setting foot on a college campus. Many times, students are accustomed to bells throughout the day to make sure they are on time for classes, as well as constant reminders by teachers about deadlines, homework, etc. For many college students, it is a rude awakening indeed when they are asked to rely on a syllabus (many don’t even know what a syllabus is) for pertinent information regarding a course.

Note-Taking Skills

Similar to study skills, the ability to effectively and efficiently take notes in class is a foreign notion to many entering freshmen. Students need to learn a variety of shorthand or come up with their own set of symbols and abbreviations in order to keep up with the pace of lectures. Knowing what is important to write down and what can be looked up after class is another distinction ill-prepared student are unable to make on their own.

Writing Skills

In the current collegiate environment, many classes are writing intensive; writing skills hold many students back at the college level. Often, entering freshmen operate under the assumption that writing is just for English or literature classes, but nothing could be further than the truth. Writing is used in most college classes because it proves that the students have a working knowledge of information and are able to use this knowledge to analyze and then express their thoughts in an original manner.

Networking Skills

Many modern students will consider this somewhat simple, given their widespread use of social media. However, the ability to talk with others, make contacts, and communicate effectively in-person are all necessary skills that can make or break a college career. While the ability to use technology for networking purposes is a good skill to have, it is not the preferred mode of communication for many professors on campus.

By-line:
This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of a college degree. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com

Part 2 Of Interview With NEA President Dennis Van Roekel

2009-01-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

NEA President has made an important statement on the need for a union role in forging closer relationships between k-12 and postsecondary education. He signals a change in NEA activities to link members from k-12 and postsecondary to obtain better outcomes for students. Part 1 was on his strategy and goals. This part has a deeper look at tactics.
NEA: Will K-12 members be interested in NEA playing a larger role in higher
education policy nationally?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: Is it possible for higher education to survive and thrive
in America and have K-12 collapse? The answer is no, I don’t belie
possible. Can K-12 flourish and succeed if higher education doesn’t? No, of course
not. Once you start seeing the relationship, that we’re in this together, I think it’s
much easier.
Making connections between higher education and K-12 is not such a new
idea. Think of the National Defense Education Act of 1958. A lot of that
investment was in creating ways for higher education to interact with K-12. The
science institutes are one example. These were six-week sessions held in the
summer, in which higher education faculty in science and math helped K-12
teachers keep up to date with developments in their disciplines, which of course
helped them do a better job in their classrooms. So it really was, again, an example
of this natural connection.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Are there legitimate differences in the interest of K-12
NEA members and higher education members? And, at the same time, are there
areas where our interests coincide?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I think the one thing that is fundamentally different is
how we’re funded. This affects a lot of things, and in some cases puts us in
competition with one another.
Without going into a lot of detail, the Reagan policies in the 1980s of cutting
federal aid to the states left the states in a serious financial bind. The cutbacks
made it tough for them to balance their budgets. It’s another thing that drove
higher ed and K-12 apart. As the states took care of the required funding of K-12,
higher education saw double-digit cuts in state funding and, consequently, higher
tuition.What you ended up with in a number of states is higher education and K-
12 going to the governors and legislatures and battling over scarce resources.
We also ended up with a college affordability problem, which remains a huge
issue right now. At the very time when we’re saying more and more students need
to have access to training and education beyond high school, higher education is
becoming less and less affordable to more and more students.
On the other hand, I think our members in higher education and K-12 agree
on the importance of providing quality education to all students at all levels. I used
to talk about the American Dream with my students. Sometimes they would act
as if I was corny or old-fashioned—but I did it anyway. I believe in the American
Dream. And our members believe that the foundation of that dream is education.
They also know that quality education from birth through graduate school is what
our students will need to reach that dream in the future. So, K-12 and higher
education interests definitely are aligned. How we accomplish what we’re all trying
to do may vary because of different systems a
THOUGHT & ACTION: Do you have any advice for higher ed members on how
to work more effectively with their K-12 colleagues in their state associations?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: Yes, get involved. Provide support. Take action. The
model of the Advisory Committee on Membership that we formed back in 1992,
when the organization went through what we called the streamlining process, is a
wonderful concept. The committee is made up of seven higher education
members, seven education support professionals, and seven K-12 members, as well
as one retired and one student representative. The idea is, instead of always having
separate committees or different constituency groups, or (in this group) levels of
education, there’s a point where you have to be in the same room—not
proportionally, but all with the same voice—saying, “How do we make this one
organization?” I think we need to make that happen in more places.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Are there specific ways that someone at, say, a
community college in a particular place might connect with the local school
district members?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: In any state where they’re forming these P-16 or P-20
councils, I think there’s a natural place for the leadership of both higher education
and K-12 to work together and collaborate in the interests of improving education
for students in their states. Another thing—we always want someone else to
understand our issues. And, as an organization, we do that a lot. It’s just as
important to understand the other person’s issues. K-12 must reach out and
understand the issues from the higher education perspective, and vice versa. The
only way you can really advocate effectively is when you know each other’s
interests. That takes communication and collaboration, and getting together and
supporting each other.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Moving from the general to a more specific issue that
our members are dealing with in some places, how do we, within the
Association, resolve competition between K-12 members and higher education
members on such things as dual enrollment courses?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: One of the things that gets us in that situation is we’re
reacting to someone else’s idea. A better way of dealing with that kind of issue is
to get out in front of it. Let’s work together and figure out together how to make
this work, both for students and for us. And then, we can go advocate with a
common voice and also respond to other agendas.
But if we don’t take the time to say what makes sense from each of of

perspectives on a particular issue, we end up reacting to someone else’s proposal.
This is one more reason it makes sense for us to come together.
These dual-enrollment initiatives are happening everywhere. I often wonder
whether the right questions are being asked as these initiatives are taking place. As a
math teacher, the example I always use is, for years there was a debate about whether
students should be allowed to use calculators in the classroom. I think it was the
wrong question. Would any one of us balance our checkbook without a calculator?
The right question should have been, when do you want students to use calculators
and when not? So, as we face these changes, are we asking the right questions?
THOUGHT & ACTION: What are some of the questions we should be asking?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: Where does the money flow, and who gets it? Should a
college offer online courses free to a high school student and charge a college
student? And what are the standards? If you’re the college faculty member
teaching a course, you have academic freedom. But someone else—a high school
teacher, for example—doesn’t. Can this work?
I’ve read enough on systems change to know that it’s far more important to ask
the right questions than it is to try and get the right answers. Because if you have
the wrong questions, it really doesn’t make any difference what your answers are.
A sea change is underway in how the nation educates its students. Higher
education and K-12 need to ask, how do we see this transformation working for
us, for students, and for the country as a whole?
THOUGHT & ACTION: To move to our final topic, how does the Association
address questions in the larger society? What role do you see the Association
playing nationally in the creation of this pre-K to graduate school seamless web?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I would hope that we play a much bigger role than we
have in the past, and to do this, we have to be willing to reach beyond our own
“borders.” Sometimes we talk among ourselves and think we have an answer. Then
we expect the rest of the world to just accept it. That model doesn’t work.We have
to go out and talk to people who don’t necessarily agree with us. And we have to
reach out and build a common understanding with people who see the world
differently than we do. I think that’s a critical area for us in the future.
THOUGHT & ACTION: You mentioned college affordability as a critical issue,
would you elaborate on that.
INTERVIEW: DENNIS VAN ROEKEL
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I don’t know where I saw this, but the picture remains
in my head: It was a chart listing low, medium, and high academic achievement
for various socioeconomic groupings.What the chart showed was that the highest
academic achievers in the low-income group had the same probability of going to
college as the lowest academic achievers in the wealthiest group. Affordability is
the main reason we’re not giving these bright kids an opportunity to go to college.
THOUGHT & ACTION: At different times in history, NEA had a tremendous
influence on educational policy at all levels in the United States. Are we still
influential in terms of influencing policy? And, if we’re not, how do we get there?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I’m not satisfied with the level of influence NEA has on
educational policy. How we get there, I think, is through our collective voice. And,
there’s not just one way to do that. Part of it is through bargaining. Part of it is
through political action. Part of it is building partnerships. Those are the routes to
securing influence and shaping outcomes.
We have to have influence at the federal level because so much could be
accomplished there, and that’s what NEA can do for higher education, as well as
K-12.
I loved it, the first time I heard someone say, “We have the National Institutes
of Health. What if we had the National Institutes of Educational Research?”
States don’t have the capacity or the resources to do all of their own research in
educational practice.Wouldn’t it be great if the federal government did that? Sixty
million dollars a year in the federal budget is nothing. With a
10-year commitment, we could really do some incredible work. We could, for
example, delve into the scholarship of teaching and develop authentic assessments,
so we really do know if students are learning.
THOUGHT & ACTION: I think you’ve answered this question in various ways,
but I’ll ask it specifically:What do you see in the future for the relationship of
K-12 and higher education within NEA?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I think it’s going to get much stronger. We’ve made
progress in identifying how best to organize in the higher ed community. But we’ll
have to do more.We need to ask what do we change as an institution in order to
organize and service higher education most effectively, at the same time we’re
providing for K-12? Maybe there are more connections than we realize. But, the
way the world is changing, there’s a need for all of us—pre-K, K-12, higher
education—to be working together. So we’re going to have to do it well.
THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL: THOUGHT INTO ACTION

New NEA President Charts New Direction For Connecting K12 With Higher Education

2009-01-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

New NEA President Dennis Van Roekel in the latest edition of the journal Thought Into Action has an interview that indicates a major change in NEA effort to link the two levels of education. Part 1 of the interview is below. Part 2 is in next blog.

Dennis Van Roekel, a 23-year teaching veteran and
longtime activist and advocate for quality education,
became president of the 3.2 million-member
National Education Association in September.
Prior to his election at this year’s Representative Assembly, the high school math teacher
from Paradise Valley High School in Phoenix, Arizona, served two terms each as NEA Vice
President and NEA Secretary-Treasurer and has held key positions in all levels of the Association.
During his time as an NEA leader, Van Roekel showed a keen awareness of higher education issues
and an ongoing interest in enhancing the role of higher education within the Association.
An Interview with
NEA President
Dennis Van Roe
THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL
SPECIAL FOCUS: The Seamless Web of Education: Pre-K to Graduate School
THOUGHT & ACTION: The pre-K to graduate school concept, the seamless
web of education.What does it mean?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL To many practitioners, it means starting with pre-school
and creating one interrelated educational experience for a student, all the way
through graduate school. I think much of the research on learning that’s been going
on now suggests we should think of education as a lifelong process—from birth
through graduate school and beyond. All of those committed to this principle must
work to strengthen the linkages between pre-K-12 and higher education.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Is education different now than it was, say, 50 years ago,
so that we have to look at it differently?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: The world has changed, and we have to change.When
you think about what our system of education was designed to do, 50 years ago or
100 years ago, compared to now, we’re preparing students for a very different world.
For example, look at the number of new jobs that are going to require education
and training beyond high school. Fifty years ago, if you finished high school, you
were done. Your education was completed, and you went to work. Only a small
percentage of high school graduates went on to college. Now it’s much different.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Are we talking about a complete restructuring of
education in the United States?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: The word I like to use is transformation. Education is
moving into its next natural phase. It’s not that someone has done anything wrong.
The world has changed, and we need to think how we—educators—can also
change, to serve the needs of students. Sometimes, people focus on the system,
rather than who it’s designed to serve.When you think about education from the
point of a student, it makes a great deal of sense to have a seamless process, instead
of the disconnected systems we have now.
THOUGHT & ACTION: What role are educators, actual educators, playing in
this restructuring, and is it a prominent enough role?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: It’s not prominent enough. We’re not invited to the
table, in many instances, and we should be. But, it’s also our responsibility to talk
about what is needed from our professional point of view.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, in which NEA plays a prominent
role, is an affirmative movement to articulate a vision for 21st century learning,
with authentic standards in learning and, just as important, systems that will
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FALL 2008 THOUGHT & ACTION 93
INTERVIEW: DENNIS VAN ROEKEL
enable students to meet those standards. Standards-based education is not a good
solution when you have the wrong standards in place. So we need to get these
things right in the formative stages. And as we look forward, we as educators
should have a clear idea about what we are preparing our students to do in 10
years. Not only must we be invited to these discussions, we should advocate our
own solutions about what kind of educational transformation is needed, based on
how we see the world changing around us.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Some see the move to align higher education and K-12
as an attempt to bring the standardization and teach-to-the-test mentality of
the No Child Left Behind Act to higher education. Is there a danger that the
seamless web of education will mean higher education develops the undesirable
standardization that plagues K-12?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I know that fear exists. And there are moves to
standardize certain aspects of higher education. Our affiliates in Wisconsin,
Wyoming, and South Dakota are currently struggling with standardization efforts
in terms of curriculum and academics.Obviously, we must pay careful attention to
anything that moves us in that direction. The best way for faculty to respond to
decisions that threaten their traditional responsibilities is to get involved in P-16
or P-21 initiatives and be part of the decision-making that’s taking place.
Ultimately, I believe the potential to maximize student success by aligning higher
education and K-12 should outweigh the fears.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Are there examples of where this seamless web venture
is working for students?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: Currently, the pre-K to G initiative is not a well-defined
concept. You have to look at the programs state by state. It’s not fair to assume
they’re all the same and then try to assign a value of either good or bad to them.
You have to evaluate them individually and promote the good ones and oppose the
ones that won’t work so well.
One initiative I’ve come across that intrigues me is in Connecticut. It’s called
the CommPACT, and it’s a partnership of parents, the community, teachers
unions, the College of Education at the University of Connecticut, and the NEA
Foundation focused on closing the achievement gaps in eight inner-city schools.
This kind of effort is an important component of the seamless web.We often
think of the pre-K to G movement as the transition of students from high school
to college. Maybe you go to college a year earlier or you earn credit while you’re
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94 THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL
SPECIAL FOCUS: The Seamless Web of Education: Pre-K to Graduate School
still in high school. But I think of it as much more than that.
In the CommPACT initiative, faculty from the University of Connecticut will
work side by side with teachers. And the most critical component is that the
decision-making takes place at the building level. So the College of Education
comes in and says, “Here are the three programs or curricula that we found, based
on our research, have a positive impact on closing achievement gaps at the early
ages. Which of these do you want to use?” Then the university faculty, the
teachers, and the community work together to make the programs effective. That’s
a very different way of working proactively and viewing how the pieces all fit
together. And I think that’s exciting.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Why should NEA higher ed members be concerned
about pre-K to graduate school initiatives?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: The vast majority of our K-12 members were trained in
those colleges and universities where our higher education members teach.That’s one
big connection. The vast majority of students our higher education members are
teaching come through our K-12 system. The interdependence just seems so obvious.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Some of our NEA members in higher education feel
that they will not be at the table when NEA makes decisions about the seamless
web. Are these fears justified?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: No, higher education members will be at the table
within our organization. One of the things that I think works against NEA being
seen as a pre-K to G organization is that the largest concentration of our higher
education members are in very few states. More than 80 percent of NEA’s higher
education members are in 10 states. That leaves a whole lot of states that don’t
have higher education members and, consequently, just aren’t aware of higher
education issues. Somehow, we have to increase the awareness in those states of
the importance of higher education.
Last year, the Advisory Committee on Membership dealt with the
question: What would NEA have to do to really be seen as an organization that
speaks for pre-K to G? We need to keep working at that. As we talk about a
seamless web of education, we need to make sure our higher ed members are
involved. I would love for the outside world to see NEA as an organization of all
educators, representing all levels, including universities and colleges.
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FALL 2008 THOUGHT & ACTION 95
INTERVIEW: DENNIS VAN ROEKEL
THOUGHT & ACTION: Could you talk more about the charge you gave to the
Advisory Committee on Membership, to help define NEA as the voice of
higher education. How do you see that progressing?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: The subcommittee on higher education members
completed the first draft, and they were ready to take it to the next draft. I know
they could have done it in another two or three meetings. But I said, please don’t.
What we need to do is to find a way to build this conversation with others beyond
the advisory committee.
I don’t believe the way NEA becomes an organization that is truly pre-K
to G is by someone defining the answer and giving it to everyone else. That’s how
it works now. There needs to be a process that actually engages people. Through
engagement, we need to enable states that don’t have members in higher education
to understand how NEA becoming a pre-K to G organization affects them, and
vice versa. Everyone needs to understand that we—pre-K, K-12, higher
education—are in this together. But that understanding comes through engaging
people—you can’t just tell them.
THOUGHT & ACTION: Do you see a possibility of the entire organization
engaging or taking part in this discussion?
DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: Absolutely. The only way it will ever become an
organizational issue is if the whole organization talks about it. But this presents
challenges. I have to find ways to get into conversations with the Board of
Directors about seeing ourselves as a pre-K through G organization. There have
to be conversations between K-12 and higher education. We don’t do enough of
that. Regional conferences, for example, have very little in the area of higher
education programming. How do you change that? And, if you’re in a region that
has very few higher education members, who would go to a session if it’s seen only
as higher education? We’ve got to find a way around that. In addition, NEA will
have to do more in the policy area of higher education if we’re to be taken seriously
as a pre-K to G organization. Our voice needs to be heard dealing with policy
issues and other questions for higher education on a national level. This is a key
role of the national organization.

California Middle Grades Study Will Examine College Preparation And Much More

2009-01-11T16:45:00.000-08:00

Last blog featured an ACT study that found a profound impact of middle grade education upon college preparation and student success in college. Edsource in California is conducting a large study of middle grades schools as described below. I am part of the research team along with study director Trish Williams of Edsource and Stanford Professor Ed Haertel
Research Questions and Purpose
• What school-wide middle grades practices and policies exist in California schools?
• How do these practices and policies differ between K–8, 7–8, and 6–8 school configurations?
• How do they differ between schools serving low income versus middle income students?
• What district/school-wide and subject area practices and policies appear to differentiate higher from lower performing middle grades serving similar student populations?

One strength of this study is that it will survey schools with differing grade configurations at the middle grades level, as well as schools serving primarily low income families as well as those serving primarily middle income families. The study will be large scale, gathering survey responses from hundreds of principals and thousands of teachers in hundreds of different school districts across California. In addition to large total numbers, we will have survey responses from the district to the principal to the classroom teacher (ELA and math). Survey responses from teachers within a school, between teachers and the principal, and between the school and the district can be examined. Another strength is that where possible the survey items have response scales that will measure intensity. There are, however, many limitations to this kind of study. Although the analysis may find strong correlations between some practices and student outcomes on California’s Standards Tests, it is not a best practices or case study. Also, because the survey will cover a broad range of middle grades approaches and practices, it won’t delve deeply and narrowly into any one particular practice area.

We hope the study will generate interest in improving middle grades instruction and will help inform discussion among educators and policymakers who are working to improve the educational attainment of middle grades students. We also hope the study reveals areas worthy of more in-depth examination.

Research Sample and Methodology
The research team will survey K-8, 6-8, and 7-8 schools in two different bands of the School’s Characteristics Index: the 20th-35th percentile band (schools serving predominantly students from low income families) and the 70-85th percentile band (schools serving predominantly students from middle income families). The two samples combined include 525 schools housed in over 300 different districts across California. Over two dozen of these schools are charters. We are soliciting the participation of all the schools within these two samples with a goal of getting 50% or more of schools in both samples to agree to complete and return the principal, teacher, and district surveys.

We will ask every participating school to return a completed principal survey. We also ask that a minimum of 60% of each school’s English Language Arts and Math teachers return completed surveys. A small number of questions about English learner instruction will be folded into all surveys. Later in the spring, district superintendents (or CEOs of charter management organizations) of participating schools will also be asked to complete a short survey.

EdSource will utilize a survey administration process that ensures that schools can keep survey responses confidential from other staff at the school or district. In addition, EdSource will ensure that at no time will the names of participating individuals or the names of participating districts and schools be released publicly.

This study will focus on concrete practices, policies, and actions at the school level, but it will also gather information about district and classroom variables. The research team has conducted a review of available literature on middle grades issues, as well as of reports issued by various California and national organizations, and model programs, articulating various effective middle grades approaches. The survey questions are framed by this literature, but have been further operationalized to be relevant to the current standards-based K–12 education policy context and expectations in California.

The middle grades conceptual domains framing the surveys, and the survey questions themselves, have been reviewed by consultants and volunteer advisors: middle grades knowledgeable researchers (both national and in California), K–12 educators, and state policymakers.

In addition to surveying superintendents, principals, and ELA and math teachers at the middle grades level, the research team may follow-up the surveys with a more limited number of interviews for the primary purpose of adding clarity, rich context, or deeper understanding to the survey results.

Plan of Analysis
By conducting a large-scale survey of schools across California serving 7th and 8th graders, the research team seeks to document the variety of middle grades approaches, practices, and policies, and the status and intensity of their implementation, currently in place in the state.
Further, we will use regression and other analyses, and other statistical methods, to identify middle grades practices and policies that are most strongly correlated with stronger student performance (overall, and for student subgroups) on the California Standards Tests after controlling for demographic and other student differences. We may also look at other middle grades student outcomes depending upon the availability of the data. The surveys and sampe have been designed to enable various sub-analyses if they appear fruitful. If useful longitudinal student data is available we will develop a plan for its use.

Survey data responses will be keyed in by hand by research and evaluation staff at WestEd (under contract with EdSource), who will create a data file for the research team. The data file of the survey responses will be merged with student outcome, school performance and other data from the California Department of Education.

The research team will construct composite school-level variables to capture critical aspects of schools' policies and practices; and the team will examine correlations of both individual survey items and composites with a school's student achievement on the various middle grades California Standards Tests (mean scale scores) and other measures. Next steps will involve multivariate modeling to identify broad factors predicting school success, for middle grades schools in general and also for important subsets of schools (e.g., schools with different grade configurations, charter schools, schools serving students from differing socio-economic backgrounds, and others).
The full analysis plan will be developed, with input from a variety of technical and other research advisors, in the spring of 2009 as the completed surveys are being retrieved.
Financial Support for the Study
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, is funding this large-scale survey of California middle grades schools.

Preliminary Study Timeline 2008–10
September–October 2008–09
Organize core research team, recruit consultants and advisors, review middle grades research and reform reports, develop survey framework.
November – January 2008-09
Send Survey Framework to consultants and advisors for review and input; develop survey items and get practitioner input on questions for ELA, Math, and ELD instruction; finalize and format survey; contact districts and schools to request participation in study.
January–March 2009
Confirm participating schools and districts; print, mail, and retrieve school-level teacher and principal surveys; input responses into data file. Develop more detailed analysis plan based upon survey composites and items and student outcome data available from the state. Start survey for superintendents.
April–June 2009
Finalize superintendent survey, mail and retrieve.
Begin analysis of data with input from technical advisors.
July–October 2009
Continue analysis. Convene stakeholder and consultants advisory group for feedback on initial findings. Begin to draft sections of research report and appendices.
Early November 2009
Report of study’s initial general findings released to the media, policymakers, and general public; also mailed to all participating schools and districts.
January–May 2010

Performance in Middle Grades Strong Predictor Of College Success

2009-01-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

A 2008 ACT report, "The Forgotten Middle" (www.act.org) finds that under current conditions the level of achievement that students attain by eight grade has a larger impact on their college and career readiness by the time they graduated from high school than anything that happens academically in high school. This includes family background, high school course work , and high school grade point average. ACT uses its 8th grade explore test for grade 8 and follows up with its grade 10 and 11 tests. Students who fall off the college prep track in middle school have a hard time recovering, but there are some student behaviors in high school that ACt finds can help.
I am part of a team doing a large scale survey of middle schools in California. More on this study in next blog, but our inital finding is how shallow the research base is on middle grades. Researchers have much more work completed on elementary and high schools, but there is no educational reason for this.

Accountability Weak For High School Transition To College

2009-01-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

K-12 schools are loaded with testing and federal and state accountability, but not for post high school outcomes. According to Achieve Inc only 7 states hold high schools acountable for completing a college or career ready curriculum. Student Attainment of a statewide college and career ready test score is not used in any state, but Texas is implementing this soon. Only 2 states have any high school accountability for placemnt in college remediation.
Many states are working on k-16 aligned curriculum content standards , but these will have little impact if there is no accountability to back them up.

Data Gaps Hinder Measurement of College Prep and Success

2009-01-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

A recent blog summarized the findings of Measuring Up by the National Center For Public Policy and Higher Education. Each state receives grades on key indicators of college success such as college preparation In an interview the prime author Pat Callan pointed out that much of the information the government collects is about a diminishing part of the college population - first time, full time students who remain at the same institution throughout their college careers. Moreover, the federal government cannot track a students academic, enrollment , or financial aid history as they progress or change colleges.Fewer states participate in government surveys of high school course taking patterns.
This is an urgent issue for the incoming Obama administration. Less than half of college enrollment from high school is full time.

How To Spend College Money To Increase Student Success

2009-01-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

This is a follow up to the last blog and the Change Magazine article by Jane Wellman,"Spending More, Getting Less''. Her recommendations are :1.set sharp edged goals for degree attainment 2.look at college spending allocations and student services to align with goals. 3.reduce excess student credits and shorten the time to degree 4.improve public accountability for costs 5. improve governing board oversight of spending for student success.www.changemag.org

New Studies Indicate College Spending Increases Not Related to College Success For Students

2008-12-30T09:59:00.000-08:00

Change Magazine issue of November 2008 has an article by Peter T. Ewell that demonstrates there is no relationship between college spending in similar institutions and student performance. The key is how the money is spent If more money is spent on academic support for students- tutors, counselors, faculty development, teaching centers etc. then students in similar colleges do better than their peers. But most of the spending increases in recent years is for functions outside of instruction such as federal research, hospitals,public service , and auxiliary operations says Jane Wellman in another related article in Change. Why are expenditures that do not stress student instruction growing so fast? See for yourself at www.changemag.org

Boston Study: 7 out of 10 Graduates Start College, But Few Complete College

2008-12-27T07:19:00.000-08:00

>Globe Editorial
>The Boston Globe
>In college, but only marginally
>December 23, 2008
>
>
>MUCH SOUL-SEARCHING is taking place on local
>college campuses after a recent study showing
>that college was a bust for almost two-thirds of
>Boston high school graduates in the class of
>2000. Students attending two-year community
>colleges-the least-expensive option-fared the
>worst in the survey by the Center for Labor
>Market Studies at Northeastern University, with
>an abysmal 12 percent graduation rate.
>
>Specific results for all public and private
>colleges in the study should be available
>shortly after Christmas. But some figures are
>trickling in. Roxbury Community College fell
>flat. Of the 101 students from the high school
>class of 2000 who enrolled in RCC shortly after
>high school, only 6 percent would go on to earn
>a diploma there-or anywhere else-by June 2007.
>Quincy College, a low-profile, two-year college
>on the South Shore, did comparatively well (but
>not good enough) by its 62 Boston students,
>posting a 19 percent graduation rate. Bunker
>Hill Community College, which drew 155 enrollees
>from Boston's class of 2000, yielded a 14 percent graduation rate.
>
>The study, which was funded by the Boston
>Foundation, strips away some of the hype about
>college attendance rates in Boston. Seven out of
>10 public school graduates may get into college,
>but many lack the preparation to succeed. At
>Bunker Hill, for example, more than 80 percent
>of the Boston students from the class of 2000
>required a remedial math course. Wisely, Bunker
>Hill and Boston school officials are now
>introducing students at some city high schools
>to the placement exams they will face on campus in the coming year.
>
>The study should put an end to common claims by
>community college officials that their
>graduation rates don't reveal much because many
>of their students transfer to four-year colleges
>before earning associate degrees. In this study,
>a student merely needed to earn a diploma or
>certificate from any institution of higher
>education, not just the original college. And by
>providing at least a six-year window, the study
>made allowances for students who often juggle
>college with work or family obligations.
>Rationalizations are now off the table.
>
>Bad numbers as motivation
>
>There will be more than a few red-faced college
>officials when the final statistics are
>released. Only about one-third of students at
>four-year state colleges pulled through.
>Students at four-year, private colleges fared
>best, with a 56 percent graduation rate. Still,
>the study is proving to be a good motivator.
>UMass-Boston, which struggles with graduation
>rates, is expected to take a lead role in
>crafting solutions. And the Boston Private
>Industry Council, a co-author of the study, is
>keeping up the pressure with plans to publish
>graduation data for future Boston public school classes.
>
>The stakes are highest at the community
>colleges, a traditional choice for students who
>struggled in high school. Mary Fifield, Bunker
>Hill Community College president, has launched a
>program that pairs remedial courses with
>college-level classes for incoming full-time
>students. Students are grouped by ability or
>academic interest and placed with handpicked
>professors who take an interest in their
>academic achievement and social adjustment. The
>college is also planning a "survival skills"
>class for freshmen, focusing on everything from
>reading class schedules to maximizing financial aid.
>
>At Roxbury Community College, officials say they
>are also launching initiatives with the help of
>a Lumina Foundation grant to provide more
>intensive advising and tutoring, as well as a
>mandatory course on study skills for
>first-semester students. Impending cuts in the
>state budget, however, threaten these offerings.
>
>Progress on the South Shore
>
>Self-supporting Quincy College, a public
>community college operated under the auspices of
>the South Shore city, may have a lot to teach in
>tough times. Although the college offers few
>formal retention programs and no on-site day
>care for its roughly 4,000 students, it manages
>to outperform some of its state-operated
>counterparts. College president Sue Harris says
>that student advisers are widely available in the evening.
>
>The college also offers so-called "nested
>semesters" that allow students to take
>accelerated courses over 10- or even 5-week
>periods in addition to the traditional 15-week
>schedule. The faster pace creates a sense of
>urgency missing on many campuses. Minority
>students, who make up 42 percent of the student
>body, appear to fare especially well at Quincy
>College. Black and Hispanic graduation rates for
>a recent class, says Harris, outstripped that of Asian students.
>
>No one believes that ill-prepared urban students
>will suddenly cruise through college. But any
>college that can't help at least half to the
>finish line needs to reexamine what value it is
>adding to the educational experience.
>
>
>© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
>

New Report Is Guide To Better College Student Outcomes and Accountability

2008-12-24T09:28:00.000-08:00

Education Sector is an independent DC think tank with an outside the box approach. Their new report on higher education accountability is well worth reading for those interested in improving college completion and better student outcomes. Below is the Education Sector press release.

Today's colleges and universities are plagued by
>a host of problems: low graduation rates, high
>tuition rates, and poor student performance. But
>higher education has surprisingly few incentives
>to address these problems and to provide an
>affordable, high-quality education to all
>students. Funding is based on how many students
>enroll, not how many graduate. Prestige is tied
>to how smart students are when they begin as
>freshmen, not how much they learn before they
>leave. As a result, policymakers who want to fix
>the problems of American higher education need
>to create stronger accountability systems.
>
>Aldeman and Carey describe the current state of the art in
>state higher education accountability and
>provide a set of guidelines for designing a
>model system. The authors examined thousands of
>documents and analyzed Web sites, laws, and
>policies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the
>District of Columbia to make their recommendations.
>
>States are accumulating more information about
>more things in higher education than ever
>before, say Carey and Aldeman, but no state is
>gathering all the information that is
>potentially available. Yet if each state simply
>used the best metrics available elsewhere, the
>authors argue, it would be able to paint a
>comprehensive, multidimensional picture of how
>well its colleges and universities are succeeding.
>
>Read:
>Ready
>to Assemble: A Model State Higher Education
>Accountability
>System.
>
>
>
>
>Stacey E. Jordan
>
>EDUCATIONSECTOR
>Independent Analysis, Innovative Ideas
>www.educationsector.org
>
>1201 Connecticut Ave., NW, Ste. 850, Washington, DC 20036
>[t] 202.552.2849 . [f] 202.775.5877 . [e]

Achieve Perspectives News Letter Is Valuable Source

2008-12-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

In this period of slow news I am featuring useful websites and email newsletters for college preparation and college completion. Last post was Lumina Foundation at www.luminafoundation.org. This time I reproduce the Achieve Perspectives email news that includes their own initiatives and links to many other reports and books.

Commentary

Measures that Matter
Measures tha Matter

Meaningful standards-based reform is about more than standards. It's about ensuring that the standards are embedded in curriculum, assessments, data and accountability systems so that all students graduate from high school ready for the real world. That means that many of the "traditional" assumptions and ways of thinking about testing and accountability must change. We need to move past the notion that testing means only large-scale multiple-choice assessments and that accountability is inherently punitive. States want�and need�guidance on how to create a next generation assessment and accountability system that moves past these divisive notions.

In an effort to spur state progress and provide guidance to states in these areas, Achieve and the Education Trust have developed a new series of publications and tools that help define the next generation of standards, assessment and accountability reforms. Our new series, Measures that Matter, is the result of a year-long process of research, tool and model development that was guided by an advisory group of state and national experts.

Measures That Matter identifies guiding principles for the development of next generation assessment, data and accountability systems including:

* Curriculum matters—States need to take responsibility for ensuring that all students have access to a quality curriculum in high school; standards are not enough.
* "Proficient" should mean "prepared"—High school tests should measure whether students are college- and career-ready, which means most states need new and better assessments. Those tests should not become "exit" exams but rather open doors for students to higher education and good jobs.
* More testing is not the goal; smarter testing is—If states add new tests, they should also take others away. Students and schools are already feeling over-tested.
* Schools should be held accountable for more than test results—While assessments should remain a central measurement tool, accountability indicators need to be expanded to reflect whether students are progressing toward achieving and exceeding college and career readiness.
* Accountability should be more about supporting improvement than punishing failure—Too often accountability systems have been heavy on sanctions, light on supports and even lighter on positive incentives; that balance needs to change.

This new vision represents an evolution, not a revolution. We are keenly aware of how much work has gone into states' current systems of standards, assessments and accountability, and we appreciate the challenges involved in making changes to those systems. At the same time, states know there are great risks in maintaining the status quo since most state systems have not kept pace with the expectations students face when they graduate from high school and enter the world.

As they have done on common college- and career-ready standards and increased graduation requirements, states are poised to lead on creating next generation assessment and accountability systems. These new tools should prove helpful to them. We also hope they will also be helpful to the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress as they consider how the federal government can best support states in their efforts to ensure that all students succeed.

Download PDFs of the Measures that Matter Executive Summary, the full guide, and the Assessment report. For more information, go to www.achieve.org/measuresthatmatter.

New from Achieve

Postsecondary Connection

Achieve has long advocated that postsecondary leadership is critical to advancing state efforts to prepare all high school graduates for success in higher education and careers. Whether high school graduates are entering public or private institutions, pursuing two-and four-year degrees or entering training programs that will prepare them for the workforce, they all must be prepared for college and careers. The postsecondary community—from faculty to presidents—must, therefore, identify what students need to know to be successful in higher education. Communicating these requirements with the K-12 community, policymakers and the public and clearly making the connection between high school preparation and postsecondary success are fundamental to ensuring that students arrive at institutions ready to succeed.

With support from the Lumina Foundation, Achieve created its newest Web-based toolkit, Postsecondary Connection (www.postsecconnect.org). The toolkit provides tools, data and strategies that higher education leaders need to help link high school preparation and college success. Postsecondary Connection was created and is maintained by Achieve in collaboration with our co-sponsors: American Council on Education (ACE), Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), Data Quality Campaign (DQC), The Education Trust, National Association of System Heads (NASH) and State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO).

Achieve is seeking your input, ideas, materials and links as it works to ensure that the Web site is an essential resource for postsecondary leaders, their institutions and systems. Contact Nevin Brown, Achieve's Director of Postsecondary Initiatives, at nbrown@achieve.org with your questions and ideas.

Aligning Expectations: Using the American Diploma Project Algebra II Exam in Higher Education

ACE, Achieve and the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, Austin held the second annual meeting on "Advancing College Readiness: Higher Education's Role in Improving America's High Schools" on December 8-9 in Washington, DC. The goal of this series of meetings is to bring higher education and K-12 leaders together to explore how the Algebra II exam can serve as a catalyst for greater alignment between secondary and higher education and to drive improvement in student mathematics achievement. At the first meeting, held in October 2007, states had the opportunity to introduce the exam to key higher education leaders and discuss strategies for eventually using this test as an assessment of readiness for first-year, credit-bearing college mathematics courses. At this year's meeting, states were able to review student performance on the initial administration of the exam, examine the content of a form of the exam and strategize about how leaders can use this assessment to drive improved student performance.

Teams of K-12 and higher education leaders in states that are participating in the American Diploma Project (ADP) Assessment Consortium's Algebra II end-of-course exam attended. In addition to these state teams, representatives at this year's meeting included a range of national higher education associations as well as associations representing the mathematics discipline. The association representatives added a new dimension to the discussion and offered suggestions about ways in which the ADP Algebra II assessment initiative could reach mathematics faculty members, department chairs and other key institutional administrators more effectively.

More information about the ADP Assessment Consortium and the Algebra I and II exams is at: www.achieve.org/ADPAssessmentConsortium.

Math Works

Achieve recently launched the Math Works advocacy kit, a collection of materials that make the case for why all students�regardless of their plans after graduation�should engage in rigorous math course-taking throughout their high school experiences. Since the release, Achieve has continued to add new materials to this kit, including the addition this month of a new fact sheet and PowerPoint presentation on "The Value of the Fourth Year of Mathematics," a new fact sheet on "Math's Double Standard," and the Math Works resource bank with an annotated bibliography, overview of Achieve's other math-related resources and links to national math organizations. The double standard fact sheet is featured on The Washington Post's x=why? blog.

In January, Achieve will release two additional Math at Work brochures presenting case studies drawn from civil engineering technology and semiconductor manufacturing to illustrate the advanced mathematics knowledge and skills embedded in jobs that offer opportunities for advancement and are accessible to high school graduates. Find all of the Math Works resources at: www.achieve.org/MathWorks.

New Mathematics Benchmarks Alignment Tool

Achieve has launched the Mathematics Benchmarks Alignment Tool, designed to be a user-friendly method for schools, districts and states to perform their own simple alignment analyses against the ADP Benchmarks or the Achieve model course standards for Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II. By uploading standards, the tool can create an alignment report that may be either printed or saved in an Excel format. While not as complete as an Achieve review, the Mathematics Benchmarks Tool helps users get a basic sense of the extent to which objectives for their selected mathematics courses actually address the full range of content needed for success after high school. This tool is especially helpful to those in the early stages of their standards review processes. More...

In the Spotlight: Hawaii's Efforts to Improve Math Outcomes

Hawaii administered the ADP Algebra II end-of-course exam in high schools last May to establish a baseline level of student achievement in mathematics; University of Hawaii campuses also administered the exam to student volunteers. Subsequently, Hawaii held a Mathematics Summit in October where math faculty from higher education and the Hawaii Department of Education shared information from the test administration and brainstormed about possible ways to address K-16 math issues. Hawaii is also planning future meetings where participants will examine how the ADP Algebra II end-of-course exam can be leveraged to upgrade high school Algebra I and II standards, improve the math course sequence between the Department of Education and the higher education system, and identify implications for teacher training.

Hawaii's efforts to improve students' success in mathematics and strengthen the alignment between K-12 and higher education mathematics courses were featured at the "Advancing College Readiness" meeting held December 8-9 in Washington, D.C. John Morton, University of Hawaii Vice-President for Community Colleges, and Wesley Yuu, Hawaii P-20 Partnerships for Education Senior Associate, discussed how the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Department of Education are working together to prepare high school graduates for credit-bearing postsecondary mathematics. More...

News Clips

1.

Math Gains Reported for US Students

The 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) results provide the latest snapshot of how U.S. students in 4th and 8th grade rank against their international counterparts on mathematics and science education assessments. U.S. students improved in mathematics while performance in science was flat or lower, indicating that there is much work to be done to improve student achievement in science. The results include scores from students in two states—Massachusetts and Minnesota—that have proved themselves to be internationally competitive, earning scores that rank them among the best in the world. More�.
2.

Linking NAEP to College and Career Readiness

Education Week reports that the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB)—the board that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—has voted to study ways to link NAEP to college and career readiness. This important step strongly aligns with the ADP agenda and assures states that building their own assessments to measure college and career readiness will keep them in step with NAEP. The ADP benchmarks were used by NAGB in their efforts to align NAEP with college and career readiness, and the resulting NAEP assessment frameworks are well-aligned with ADP. More...
3.

Tennessee Works to Prepare College Students

The Tennessean reports that Tennessee's Board of Regents is overhauling remedial courses at the state's colleges and universities with the aim of boosting postsecondary graduation rates. Deborah Woolley, president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, writes in an opinion piece that students need to understand clearly and early the high expectations postsecondary institutions and 21st century workplaces will demand from them. She writes: "Tennessee is boldly marching down that road. Under the leadership of Gov. Phil Bredesen, the Tennessee Diploma Project aligns college- and career-ready standards with high school graduation exit requirements."

New Resources

* Policies to Improve Instruction and Learning in High Schools

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) published "Policies to Improve Instruction and Learning in High Schools," which highlights a pilot project that NGA conducted in partnership with ACT. To improve the consistency and rigor of high school instruction, ACT trained 98 teachers in 18 high schools in three states—Mississippi, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania—on how to use state-of-the-art curriculum units and instructional methods that were integrated with a system of assessments. The project focused on 10th grade courses in English language arts, geometry and biology and aimed to prepare more high school graduates for the demands of higher education and careers. The results of the pilot project strongly suggest that when high school courses are well-aligned to rigorous standards, growth in achievement occurs. More...
* High Schools as Launch Pads: How College-Going Culture Improves Graduation Rates in Low-Income High Schools

The College Summit published a white paper, "High Schools as Launch Pads: How College-Going Culture Improves Graduation Rates in Low-Income High Schools." A growing body of research suggests that students who work hard in high school do so because they connect their efforts with the rewards available in college and careers after high school. The paper uses lessons from College Summit's work in schools and districts around the country to encourage state and national policymakers to support college readiness for all students. More...

* The Forgotten Middle: Ensuring that All Students Are on Target for College and Career Readiness before High School

ACT's newest report, "The Forgotten Middle: Ensuring that All Students Are on Target for College and Career Readiness before High School," suggests that the end of eighth grade is a critical defining point for students on the path towards college and career readiness. ACT finds that if students are not on target for college and career readiness by the eighth grade, the impact on their future success may be nearly irreversible. More...

* Counting on Graduation: An Agenda for State Leadership

The Education Trust published "Counting on Graduation: An Agenda for State Leadership." The report underscores that, among industrialized nations, the U.S. is the only country in which young people are now less likely than their parents to have earned a high school diploma. Reversing this trend is critical. More...

* Grad Nation

America's Promise Alliance launched Grad Nation, a resource designed to help communities develop tailored plans for keeping students on track to graduate from high school and prepare for college, careers and life. It provides research-based guidance for addressing the dropout crisis, offering ready-to-print tools and links to online resources. Achieve is an America's Promise Alliance Partner. More...

* En Route to Seamless Statewide Education Data Systems: Addressing Five Cross-Cutting Concerns

The State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) published "En Route to Seamless Statewide Education Data Systems: Addressing Five Cross-Cutting Concerns." The paper suggests key processes that can help states develop successful longitudinal data systems. The report is a result of a 2007 SHEEO workshop, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that brought together cross-sector, data-focused leadership teams from eleven states (including seven ADP Network states), along with prominent content experts. More...

Perspective is sent to you by Achieve, Inc., a bipartisan, non-profit organization founded by the nation’s governors and CEOs to help states raise standards, improve assessments and strengthen accountability to prepare all young people for postsecondary education, careers and citizenship. Please feel free to circulate this e-newsletter to your colleagues.

If you received this e-mail from a friend and would like to subscribe, click here.
If you would like to comment, click here.

Copyright © 2008 Achieve, Inc.

Lumina Website Very Useful on College Success

2008-12-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

Lumina Foundation has a periodic email blast that is filled with useful information on college preparation and completion. See sample below:
Research » Lumina relies on research to advance student success-www.Luminafoundation.org

*
The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk About Costs, Access and Quality

Cost, quality and access have a reciprocal relationship, contend college presidents in a report from the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. This publication examines the views of more than 30 college presidents and highlights the gap in perceptions between the public/business sector and college presidents. More »

Related Topics: 2008, Accountability, College Access, College Costs, Institutional Quality, Research
*
Tuition Equity Legislation: Investing in Colorado High School Graduates Through Equal Opportunity to Postsecondary Education

Each year, 65,000 students who graduate from U.S. high schools share something in common: They are among undocumented students from immigrant families who cannot afford to pay nonresident or out-of-state tuition and fees for college. This publication from the Higher Education Access Alliance calls on Colorado lawmakers to prohibit discrimination against undocumented students by modifying the state's ban on public benefits to include a higher education exception. More »

Related Topics: 2008, College Access, Research, Undocumented Immigrant Students
*
High Expectations, High Support

Many community college students say their coursework is challenging, but evidence suggests institutions can do more to promote student success. Findings from this publication, the 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement, show that 67 percent of full-time students spend 10 or fewer hours preparing for class in an average week. Similarly, 39 percent of students say peer or other tutoring is "very important," but only 7 percent say they often use tutors. More »

Related Topics: 2008, Community Colleges, Engagement, Raw Data, Research
*
Trends in College Pricing 2008

This report provides detailed, updated information on prices for tuition and fees and room and board at colleges and universities in the United States, as well as other expenses postsecondary students incur. In addition, it includes information on enrollment patterns, other aspects of higher education finance, and the net prices students pay after taking grant aid into consideration. More »

Related Topics: 2008, College Board, College Costs, College Pricing, Raw Data, Research

Gates To Pay Students For College Persistence and Completion.

2008-12-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

Gates Foundation will pay 2 and 4 year college students between $1,000 and $4,000 to continue in college and graduate. Less than half of all students complete college including vocational certificates. MDRC will conduct a random control study to assess the impact of the payments on student behavior. Studies by Clifford Adelman in the Tool Box Revisited stressed that students had a higher probability of college completion if they entered college right after high school, stayed continuously enrolled, attended summer school, and did not withdraw from classes. Hopefully, these are the kind of behaviors Gates will test to see if they make a difference.

Measuring Up Report Charts New Directions For College Preparation and Completion

2008-12-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

The 2008 National Report Card: Modest Improvements, Persistent Disparities, Eroding Global Competitiveness
By Patrick M. Callan
President, The National Center For Higher Education and Public Policy, San Jose, Ca.

Measuring Up 2008 is the most recent in the series of national and state-by-state report cards for higher education that was inaugurated in 2000. The key findings this year reveal that the nation and most of the 50 states are making some advances in preparing students for college and providing them with access to higher education. However, other nations are advancing more quickly than the United States; we continue to slip behind other countries in improving college opportunities for our residents. In addition, large disparities in higher education performance by race/ethnicity, by income, and by state limit our nation’s ability to advance the educational attainment of our workforce and citizenry—and thereby remain competitive globally.
College Preparation
Young Americans who graduate from high school on time are now more likely to take courses that prepare them for college and to enroll in college, compared with earlier this decade or in the 1990s. But far too many graduates leave high school unprepared to succeed in college-level courses and need remediation when they enroll. In addition, larger proportions than in the past fail to graduate from high school; some eventually receive alternative high school certification, principally the GED, but they do not enroll in college in large numbers. The reduced high school graduation rate decreases the pool of potential college graduates and college-educated workers.
Access to College
The likelihood that a high school freshman will enroll in college by age 19 has improved modestly in this decade, from 39% to 42%, and the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college has grown even more modestly. Meanwhile, the enrollment of working-age adults in college-level education or training has been declining since the early 1990s. Overall, the Measuring Up indicators show that access to college is fairly flat in the United States, with mostly small improvements in some states and declines in others.
College Graduation
For students who enroll in college, rates of completion of certificate, associate, and baccalaureate programs are poor and have improved only slightly. These low college completion rates—as with the declining rates of high school completion—are depriving the nation of college-educated and trained workers needed to keep the American workforce competitive globally.
International Comparisons
The United States’ world leadership in college access has eroded steadily, as reflected in the international comparisons of the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college (see Figure 1). In college completion, which has never been a strength of American higher education, the U.S. ranks 15th among 29 countries compared (see Figure 2). The U.S. adult population ages 35 and older still ranks among the world leaders in the percentage who have college degrees—reflecting the educational progress of earlier times (see Figure 3). Among 25- to 34-year-olds, however, the U.S. population has slipped to 10th in the percentage who have an associate degree or higher (see Figure 4). This relative erosion of our national “educational capital” reflects the lack of significant improvement in the rates of college participation and completion in recent years.
These cross-national comparisons place the nation’s higher education performance in a global context and reflect the gaps that have opened between the United States and other nations. These disparities undermine our national value of individual opportunity and our collective capacity to succeed in the knowledge-based global economy. Addressing these disparities is critical because:
 Education and training beyond high school is a prerequisite for employment that supports a middle-class life. This is a reality for most Americans.
 Seventy-eight million Americans are reaching or approaching retirement age, and this is the best-educated generation in the United States—both currently and historically.
 As the nation’s demography changes, large proportions of the younger generations are among those who are least well-served by the U.S. system of education currently: those whose educational opportunity and attainment reflect the disadvantages of race, income, and geography.
Persistent Disparities
To make significant headway in increasing the educational attainment of its population and thereby its comparative standing internationally, the United States must address disparities in educational opportunity and achievement among Americans. These persistent gaps must be closed if the United States is to meet its workforce needs and compete globally.
First, the high school graduation rate (the percentage of ninth graders who complete a standard high school diploma in four years) has decreased for all racial and ethnic groups over the past three decades, and differences between racial and ethnic groups persist. By the middle of this decade:
 the national on-time high school graduation rate was 77.5%,
 the rate for African Americans was 69.1%, and
 the rate for Hispanics was 72.3%.1
Meanwhile, a growing number of high school students are taking longer to complete or are leaving high school without a standard diploma; some who drop out earn GEDs but are less likely to enroll in any form of postsecondary education and those who do enroll are less likely to complete a certificate or degree.
In addition, disparities in college access are closely linked to race/ethnicity and income. While college attendance has increased for all groups over the past three decades, gaps in enrollment among racial/ethnic groups have not diminished. For high school graduates, 73% of whites, 56% of blacks, and 58% of Hispanics enroll in college the next fall.2 In terms of family income, 91% of high school students from families in the highest income group (family income of $100,001 or more) enroll in college. The enrollment rate for students from middle-income families (family income between $50,001 to $100,000) is 78% and for those in the lowest income group (family income between $0 and $20,000) the rate is 52%.3
The racial and ethnic disparities that exist in preparation for and access to college are also found in college completion rates. For example, 59% of white students complete a bachelor’s degree within six years of enrolling in college. In contrast, 47% of Hispanic students, 41% of African Americans, and 39% of Native American students complete a bachelor’s degree within six years.
Finally, the state-by-state variation in educational performance represents another source of disparity and inequity for Americans. As reflected in the Measuring Up state report cards and grades, the likelihood of graduating from high school prepared for higher education, enrolling in college, and graduating from an affordable college or university differs enormously by state of residence. Here are some examples:
 High school freshmen in California, compared with their peers in Massachusetts, are 17% less likely to enroll in college by age 19. High school freshmen in Pennsylvania are 12% less likely to enroll than those in South Carolina or Utah.
 Half of young adults (ages 18 to 24) are enrolled in college in Rhode Island, while only 18% are in Alaska. Young adults are 15% more likely to be enrolled in college in Iowa than in Georgia, and 11% more likely to be enrolled in Massachusetts than in Texas.
Given our relative decline internationally and the gaps in higher education performance within our borders, no state can afford to maintain the status quo. As Measuring Up 2008 reveals, even the best-performing states have gaps in performance they need to—and can—address. Narrowing those gaps will improve educational and economic opportunity in those states and for the nation as a whole.
Dimensions of the National Deterioration of College Affordability
The deterioration of college affordability throughout the United States has contributed to the disparities in higher education opportunity and attainment. There are several dimensions to this national and state problem.
First, college tuition continues to outpace family income and the price of other necessities, such as medical care, food, and housing (see Figure 5). Whatever the causes of these tuition increases, the continuation of trends of the last quarter century would place higher education beyond the reach of most Americans and would greatly exacerbate the debt burdens of those who do enroll.
Second, the erosion of college affordability has been exacerbated not only by increased tuition, but also by relatively flat or declining family incomes. As a result of these trends, the financial burden of paying for college costs has increased substantially, particularly for low- and middle-income families, even when scholarships and grants are taken into account (see Table 1).
Third, students who do enroll in college are taking on more debt to maintain their college access. More students are borrowing (see Figure 6), and they are borrowing more. Over the last decade, student borrowing has more than doubled (see Figure 7).
Another dimension of the problem of college affordability involves the financial aid priorities of colleges and universities, which are not in synch with public policy priorities. Currently, students from middle- and upper-income families receive larger grants from colleges and universities than students from low-income families receive (see Table 2).
Conclusion
Measuring Up 2008 identifies clearly the key areas of improvement and decline in higher education performance in the United States. States have made some modest advances, but these improvements are overshadowed by larger gains by other countries, and by the deterioration of college affordability throughout the United States. The relative erosion of our national “educational capital” has occurred at a time when we need more people to be college educated and trained because of Baby Boomer retirements and rising skill requirements for new and existing jobs.
Meanwhile, states are grappling with substantial budget shortfalls. In this fiscal cycle, state leaders face a crucial choice in determining state policy for higher education. They can respond to their current budget crises in the usual patterns of the past, by allowing tuition and student aid policy to play second fiddle to institutional finance. States that select this course will most likely see precipitous tuition increases, cuts in student financial aid, and drops in college access. Further, if states take this path in being passive and complicit in allowing the brunt of the financial distress to be passed to students and families, then our national and state gaps in college access and completion will worsen, and college affordability will continue to deteriorate.
But states have another option: to establish state policies for tuition and student aid that balance the financial burden for higher education among states, the institutions of higher education, and students and families. This is both a short- and long-term strategy that makes state policy more transparent, grounds it in the needs and financial circumstances of state residents, establishes college affordability as a priority, protects educational opportunity, and in the process helps to meet the needs of states and the nation for a well-educated workforce and citizenry.
1. James J. Heckman and Paul A. LaFontaine, “The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels,” Institute for the Study of Labor, IZA Discussion Paper Series, No. 3216 (December 2007).
2. National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), “Education Longitudinal Study of 2002,” Digest of Education Statistics 2007 (Washington, D.C.: March 25, 2008).
3. NCES, “Education Longitudinal Study of 2002” (Washington, D.C.: October 2007), Table 6.

Income Disparity between White and Latino College Students Is Growing

2008-12-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

UCLA reports that the income difference between 4 year college entering white and Latino students has quadrupled over the past 30 years- from $8,000 in 1975 to $33,000 in 2006. Moreover, in 1975 57% of Latino first year entering students were men compared to 39% in 2006. I wonder if the two statistics are interrelated, or whether college preparation is crucial. See report from UCLA Higher Education Research Institute

Communit College Students Do Not Apply For Student Aid

2008-12-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

A new report stresses a variety of reasons for community colleges not applying for federal aid. The main reason is not the complicated FAFSA form .Often community college students see themselves more as workers than as students because they attend college part time. Some do not think they are elible and others use work income to pay fees.Over 29% of students in community colleges with incomes less than 10k do not apply for federal aid. High schools could help by having all their seniors fill out Fafsa forms and better counseling.
See report from the Federal Advisory Council on Student Financial Assistance

College Completion Rates and Suggestions For Improvement

2008-12-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

Guest blogger who runs a very useful website for students and parents-GoCollege

by Thomas J Hanson, Editor , OpenEducation.net

Poor college completion rates - suggested solutions even worse.

The results of a first-of-its-kind study recently graced the front pages of the Boston Globe. In Hub Grads Come Up Short in College, James Vaznis revealed an all too similar refrain regarding college completion rates.

Of the members of the graduating class from Boston high schools for the year 2000 who had gone on to higher education, nearly two-thirds of the class had not earned a college diploma seven years after they had begun collegiate studies.

The findings were particularly troublesome for a city that has touted its steadily increasing college enrollment rates over the last few years. In simplest terms, Boston does see more high school graduates enrolled in college than does the nation as a whole, but the college completion rate for those students is actually lower than the national average.

Cliff1066

City of Prestigious Institutions
The news hit the city, often dubbed the ‘”Center of American Higher Education,” extremely hard. The Globe editorial staff penned a companion piece the same day entitled, Getting in Isn’t Enough.

Stating it was time “to take a long and deep look into the gulf between ‘getting in’ and ‘getting through college’,” the editorial revealed some incredibly dismal numbers.

Consider:

* students attending two-year community colleges had a 12 percent graduation rate.
* students attending four-year public state colleges had approximately a 33 percent graduation rate.
* students at four-year, private colleges managed the best rate at 56 percent.

Another revealing statistic, not evident in the editorial but on display in Vaznis’ article, referred to the completion status calculation more fully. It seems that not all of the 675 students who were deemed to have graduated had actually earned a bachelor’s degree. Also included in the completion rate were students who had earned either a certificate or an associate’s degree.

Thomas M. Menino, the Mayor of Boston, responded by announcing a major initiative. It set forth a goal of increasing the college graduation rate by 50 percent for this year’s high school seniors. In addition, the Mayor went on to suggest a goal of doubling the rate a second time for those students who are currently high school sophomores.

“We want to make sure all our kids in Boston get a good education and graduate from college,” Menino is quoted by the Globe. “It’s not just about getting into college but how to stay in college.”

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/
As but another step that has been uttered time and again across America in recent years, officials indicated it was time the city school system did a better job of preparing its high school students for success after graduation. That was followed by the traditional hue and cry to raise K-12 education standards.

And last but not least, the traditional basis for pushing all students towards earning a bachelor’s degree was postured once again.

“A graduate of a four-year college will make almost $1 million more than a high school graduate over a lifetime,” Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council, told the Globe. “We need to help students every step of the way earn the prize: a college degree.”

The Wrong Focus
The state of public education has focused on the K-12 system in recent years. During that time frame, higher education has earned a free pass. In fact, the general consensus from most folks is that America’s colleges and universities represent the best of the educational system in our country.

However, Mark Schneider, the vice president for new educational initiatives at the American Institutes for Research, offers a very contrasting viewpoint. In The Costs of Failure Factories in American Higher Education, Schneider asks, “If there is virtually universal agreement that American high schools are failing, how do our colleges and universities measure up against such a low benchmark?”

Turns out not very well.

WikipediaIt can be difficult comparing data but Schneider does his best to compare apples to apples. However, he does note one specific advantage for higher education: colleges generally use a six year window as the norm for completing the four years of study while high school calculations are based on a four year timeframe.

“The median high school graduation rate, for example, is 77 percent,” writes Schneider, “but the median post-secondary graduation rate is more than twenty-five points lower. While American high schools graduate about three-fourths of their students in four years, American colleges graduate only about half of their students in six.”

Schneider indicates that there are also significant differences by type of institution. But the key notion is a simple one: “The low high school graduation rates that have long been decried as a failure of America’s education system are mirrored in even lower college graduation rates.”

In addition, the long-standing differences in high school graduation rates based on race and ethnicity have led to expressions such as “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” But while public education K-12 is often labeled in such a manner, it must be duly noted that colleges and universities also see large gaps in post-secondary completion rates when comparing whites to blacks and Hispanics.

College Does Not Work for Many Students
One positive is that the poor completion rates are finally catching people’s attention. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently launched a new initiative that seeks to sort through the poor completion rates of college bound students, particularly those who have chosen the community college route.

In the Globe article, there is at least some acknowledgment of the “enormous barriers facing urban high school graduates.” Vaznis points out that many of the individuals being discussed within the study are the very first members of their respective families to actually attend college.

The writer notes further that the study did not specifically address reasons for the low graduation rates. But he speculates, quite soundly, that “these students often have financial problems, some are raising children, and others are held back by a need to retake high school courses in college because they lack basic skills.”

In regards to the issue of college preparedness, a short time ago we discussed the words of Marty Nemko, a man dubbed the “The Ralph Nader of Education.” At that time we offered what Nemko calls his ‘killer statistic.’

Marty Nemko“For those aspiring college students who finished in the bottom 40 percent of their high school classes, but went on to attempt to secure a four-year degree right out of high school, roughly two-thirds had studied for the better part of eight and a half years without obtaining a diploma.”

In simplest terms, those students who lack the ability to handle the rigor associated with college are unsuccessful when they give college a try.

Nemko adds that “only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading, and science.”

Yet four-year colleges admit and accept funds “from hundreds of thousands of such students each year.” However, according to the data we have just reviewed, those same schools fail to see these students through the process of completing their degree program.

Nemko pulls no punches with his summary assessments.

“Colleges and universities are businesses, and students are a cost item, while research is a profit center.

“As a result, many institutions tend to educate students in the cheapest way possible: large lecture classes, with necessary small classes staffed by rock-bottom-cost graduate students. At many colleges, only a small percentage of the typical student’s classroom hours will have been spent with fewer than 30 students taught by a professor.”

And as for the quality of instruction, well:

“The more prestigious the institution, the more likely that faculty members are hired and promoted much more for their research than for their teaching. Professors who bring in big research dollars are almost always rewarded more highly than a fine teacher who doesn’t bring in the research bucks.”

Square Pegs, Round Holes
Ultimately we have the worst of all potential situations: students who do not have the academic ability to handle the level of rigor that college must demand combined with ill-equipped institutions of higher education that seem incapable of helping these students succeed.

That issue is then exacerbated by education officials who continue to insist that all we must do is simply raise standards further and that by doing so, somehow the square peg, round hole malady facing us will disappear.

Unfortunately, those same officials also insist that the only path to success in life is by way of a college education. It is the same nonsense that brought forth the No Child Left Behind Act and the oxymoron, proficiency for all.

The notion that college is for everyone really just pushes NCLB to the K-16 arena. It is the fundamental belief that every child regardless of innate ability must be placed on a ‘bachelor’s degree or bust’ path, followed by the assumption that every student is capable of such academic rigor.

Benjamin LyonsThis is a false and damaging assumption. A bachelor’s degree for every student is no more viable than setting forth a goal of a masters or a PhD for every student. Yet, would we ever in our right minds suggest that such a standard is possible?

It is time that those in charge came to their senses and acknowledged that other approaches to learning are possible. It is time to recognize that hands on vocational schooling and working apprenticeships can be just as viable for helping students learn as the traditional academic teaching tools of reading and writing.

If only our educational experts could grasp that our country needs skilled workers as well as college graduates they might embark on a different path, one that creates multiple educational opportunities for our youngsters based on a goal of helping all students succeed.

What we do not need is more high school or college drop outs. But instead of examining the real issue, a one size fits all approach to education, we opt to tinker with standards and expectations, then set goals that are beyond the reach of many students.

Open Education.net is brought to you by Go College. Go College has been helping students succeed in college since 1997, offering free advice on:
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Foundations Pour Money Into Community College Improvement

2008-11-30T14:18:00.000-08:00

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.

New Guide For State Policy: College and Career Readiness

2008-11-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

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

National Assessment Will Move Forward On Grade 12 College Preparedness Measures

2008-11-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

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

Out of School Services Crucial To Student Success, But We Know Little About Interventions

2008-11-17T17:31:00.000-08:00

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

Landmines for P-16 State Councils

2008-11-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Gates Foundation Announces New Focus on College Completion

2008-11-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

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.

Broad Access College Enrollment Surges, But Funds Are Cut

2008-11-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Slow Progress Toward Secondary School End of Course Exams

2008-11-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

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

Historically Black Colleges Lack Resources in Maryland

2008-11-04T08:25:00.000-08:00

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.

High School Senior Year Curriculum Can Enhance College Success

2008-10-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

Students who attend broad access colleges usually take light academic loads in their senior year. But more attention is being paid to not just to increasing academic loads, but also to help revamp what is in the courses. University of Oregon is designing reference courses based on what first year college instructors expect in their classes. These courses are fast paced with lots of homework and analysis. They compress 150 days of instruction in typical high school courses to 30 or more. Oregon also designs senior seminars that simulate intensive discussion and writing in college seminars. These kinds of courses should be designated as honors courses, in order to provide clear benchmarks for the flabby and undefined curriculum that now is designated for "honors" in high school.
Honors courses often seem to be a booby prize for not getting into AP. They should not have college credit like AP, but should simulate college work. Put University of Oregon, Educational Policy Improvement Center in a search engine to see more

First year College Students Cannot Keep Up With Pace of Instruction

2008-10-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

Last blog covered some aspects of this ,now some data from The High School Survey of Student Engagement- HSSSE in search engines. This is a national survey of 170,000 students grades 9-12.First year students in college spend more than twice as much time studying in college compared to their high school senior year. Half of college students spend more than 10 hours a week studying in their first year, but only 14% of high school seniors devote this much time to homework. 47% of the seniors spend three hours or less per week studying, but most get A's or B's in high school. Seniors write a few short papers and many skip math in the senior year.More on what to do about the senior year of high school in next blog, including ideas for senior seminars and reference courses based on introductory college courses.

Pacing of College Courses Is Difficult For First Year Students

2008-10-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a conference in Northwest Missouri on high school college prep. One message was that the pace of college courses is so different from high school, and freshman cannot keep up. 4 year broad access colleges cover in 30 days the math that high schools cover in 155 days of instruction. The homework hours are enormous difference in college, and the instructors do not go slowly through each chapter of the textbook. Pacing was more of a college transition problem than content alignment!
First year students expected to "do over" work they made mistakes with, and thought "extra credit" could raise their college grades. 4 year colleges do not do either of these. We need to get beyond vague phrases like college ready and alignment to a deeper understanding of college transition.

New Report On College Remediation Has New Facts

2008-10-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Diploma to Nowhere published by Strong American Schools has some fascinating new remediation data. 4 out of 5 high school students who enrolled in college remediation had a high school grade point average of 3.0 or higher. 95% said they did all or most of their high school work that was asked of them.80% thought they were ready for college when they graduated from high school. The cost of remediation for each student is estimated at $2,000 for two year and $2,531 for 4 year public colleges- these are the high range estimates , but seem low to me.
For the report go to: http://www.edin08.com/diplomatonowhere.aspx

A Ten Year View of Progress In Improving the Transition to College-1998-2008

2008-10-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

This is a long blog, but puts together my analysis of our progress and integrates many components of past blogs. Revised version is in the Chronicle of Higher education on line, October 7, 2008

PROGRESS AND GAPS IN COLLEGE PREPARATION
POLICY
MICHAEL W. KIRST, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Most of the nation’s eighth graders aspire to college. Unfortunately, however, the majority of them will not realize their ambitions to complete their higher education and gain some advantage in the job market.
In my research since 1998, I have not focused on students who seek acceptance at elite, selective institutions but rather on the 80 percent of high-school graduates who attend what I call broad-access postsecondary institutions. (Nearly half of first year students attend community colleges, and another 30 percent go to four-year schools that accept all qualified applicants.) And I look back on the last decade with some gratification and much anxiety. I have seen some, but not nearly enough, progress among high-school students when it comes to being ready to go to college and get their degrees. COLLEGE COMPLETION RATES ARE STAGNANT FOR RECENT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES WITH ONLY TWENTY FOUR PERCENT OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS IN CALIFORNIA RECEIVING A VOCATIONAL CERTIFICATE, AN AA, OR TRANSFER TO A FOUR YEAR SCHOOL AFER SIX YEARS.
At community colleges, more than 60 percent of students who enroll after high school end up taking at least one remedial course. Four-year institutions like those in the California State University system have 56 percent of entering freshmen in remediation. Clearly, the connections between high schools and higher-education institutions are still not what they should be to help students prepare for college.
THERE ARE NO DEFINITIVE COSTS OF REMEDIATION, BUT A 2008 ESTIMATE FOR CALIFORNIA BY THE PACIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE INCLUDED $274 MILLION IN DIRECT COSTS FOR CALIFORNIA POSTSECONDARY INSTITUTIONS, AND SEVERAL BILLION FOR REMEDIATION COSTS OF BUSINESSES, DIMINISHED EARNINGS OF STUDENTS, TAX RECEIPTS, AND GOVERNMENT COSTS.
MEDIA ATTENTION TO POOR COLLEGE PREPARATION HAS GROWN EXPONENTIALLY IN THE LAST DECADE. The policy agendas of various states have focused increasingly on college-transition problems, and some policy makers have raised specific solutions. THIRTY SEVEN STATES HAVE ESTABLISHED P-16 COUNCILS THAT ENABLE THE MAJOR STATE DECISION MAKERS TO DELIBERATE ON COLLEGE TRANSITION ISSUES. But few of those solutions deal with the magnitude or many dimensions of the problem, PARTICULARLY FINANCIAL INCENTIVES TO INCREASE COLLEGE COMPLETION AND ALIGNED CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION. Action beyond agenda-setting and policy discussions has been shallow and limited.
Moreover, evaluation of new policies, both the successes and the failures, to determine what works has barely begun. And enhanced awareness OF INADEQUATE COLLEGE PREPARATION AND COMPLETION is largely confined to government leaders and policy elites, with little impact on teachers or administrators at the secondary or postsecondary level.
IN 2005, I and my colleagues at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education identified four state policy levers that are necessary for true reform to occur:

• Standards alignment between high school and college for courses, content, and assessment;
• Student financial support and incentives for higher-education institutions to provide better student-support services;
• A data system that tracks the progress of individual students from pre-K through college; and
• Accountability measures that link secondary and postsecondary institutions to student outcomes, like the completion of college.

How far along are most states in putting such policies and programs in place?
The most progress has been made in aligning high school and college standards, LED BY groups like Achieve Inc., an organization established by governors and business leaders. More states SUCH AS GEORGIA AND TEXAS are using, or considering the use of, assessments at the end of high school and other means of aligning curricula WITH COLLEGE COURSES. Achieve has also worked to help establish high-school graduation requirements and develop other programs to ease the school-college transition in 31 states.
But broad-access postsecondary institutions rely on placement tests more than admissions scores like ACT or SAT, and few statewide secondary-school assessments are aligned with those placement tests or the content of first-year college courses. Colleges use many different types of placement assessments, and most high-school students do not know what those assessments will cover.
Meanwhile, Education Week’s “Quality Counts 2008,” which grades states’ policies and outcomes, has found that just 15 states have a definition of college readiness, and only three (NEW YORK, RHODE ISLAND, TEXAS) require all students to finish a college-preparatory curriculum to graduate. Many state governments have chosen the easy route of simply specifying course labels to be taken—like geometry or BIOLOGY, or three years of math— without doing much more. Further, the hard work of getting secondary-school teachers to work with their higher-education counterparts on subject-matter course articulation between the 10th grade and sophomore year in college has barely begun.
The lack of headway on financial policies is even more discouraging. Although more states are focusing student aid on needy students who complete college-preparation courses, too much federal and state money still goes to STUDENTS WHO ARE SO UNPREPARED THAT THEY HAVE LITTLE CHANCE OF COLLEGE SUCCESS. Meanwhile, financial-aid applications are so complicated that they make the standard income-tax form look easy.
Financial aid is not designed well for 75 percent of the community-college students who attend part time and live off campus. Financial aid is insufficient, complex, and hard for part-time community-college students to obtain. FEDERAL FINANCIAL AID IS LESS FOR PART-TIME STUDENTS, AID FORMS MUST BE FILED BEFORE STUDENTS DECIDE TO GO TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE, AND THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH COUNSELORS FOR EVENING STUDENTS.
In addition, the use of state financial incentives to encourage college and universities to improve student outcomes has been largely unexplored. IT IS LESS EXPENSIVE FOR MOST BROAD ACCESS PUBLIC COLLEGES TO RECRUIT A NEW STUDENT RATHER THAN PROVIDE SERVICES TO RETAIN A STRUGGLING STUDENT. AN Unlike elementary and secondary education, the spending patterns within postsecondary systems and institutions is mostly a black box, so we do not even know where to start. IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH MONEY IS SPENT ON REMEDIATION, ADJUNCT VERSUS FULL TIME TEACHERS, AND COUNSELORS. For example, the California legislature appropriates money to the state’s community colleges for keeping students through the third week of a class, but it requires no other student outcomes. How can we devise a K-16 state-finance system that supports efforts to lessen the need for student remediation and stimulates higher-education institutions to help more students obtain their degrees? Theoretically, high schools and colleges could work together to design outcomes to meet outcome accountability targets, like the need for less student remediation. THEN BOTH HIGH SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES COULD BE REWARDED FINANCIALLY FOR OUTCOMES THEY PRODUCE BY WORKING TOGETHER.
FLORIDA HAS A COMPLETE K-16 DATA SYSTEM THAT FOLLOWS STUDENTS FROM KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADUATE SCHOOL. MOST STATES ARE MAKING SIGNIFICANT DATA IMPROVEMENTS (PARTLY WITH FEDERAL MONEY), BUT ARE NOT CLOSE TO FLORIDA.
Underlying all these difficulties, are the deeply rooted policy differences between the secondary and postsecondary systems. Meanwhile, there are few deliberative forums or interest groups that can bring together representatives from both educational levels to sustain momentum.
The future is murky, with both good and bad scenarios possible. A MORE POSITIVE FUTURE WOULD INCLUDE WORKING SIMULTANEOUSLY ON ALL FOUR POLICY LEVERS, AND A COMMITMENT TO BUILD TEACHER CAPACITY TO ALIGN INSTRUCTION ACROSS THE K-16 SYSTEM. A MORE NEGATIVE SCENARIO WOULD BE SLOW INCREMENTALISM THAT ADDRESSES PARTS OF THE PROBLEM IN AN INCOHERENT MANNER.
Perhaps a secondary-school-improvement focus in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization will galvanize faster and more inclusive improvement. NOW STATES HAVE AN INCENTIVE TO KEEP SECONDARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENTS BELOW COLLEGE LEVEL BECAUSE MORE STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO BECOME PROFICIENT BY 2014. A DIFFERENTIAL FEDERAL POLICY COULD REWARD STATES WITH COLLEGE LEVEL ASSESSMENTS BY EXTENDING THE FEDERAL PROFICIENCY DEADLINE BEYOND THE REQUIRED DATE OF 2014.

Michael Kirst is a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and a senior scholar at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Rethinking student Aid Report Is Comprehensive and Correct

2008-10-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

Two of the nations leading experts on college student aid have a new report suggests big changes and not just tinkering around the edges. Sandy Baum of the College Board and Michael McPherson of Spencer Foundation attack the roots of our current aid limitations. They want to get rid of the complex Fafsa application, combine a confusing host of current grant programs, provide subsides during loan repayments, create savings accounts for college through government funds, and create a tax credit that includes living costs. There is much more covered than these ideas- well worth the time of people who want a major overhaul fo financial aid.
See report at www.collegeboard.com/rethinkingstudentaid.

Class Rank Admissions Process Is Controversial

2008-10-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

The University of Texas admits almost all students under the top 10% of the class for each high school criteria. UT is struggling with equity and quality issues in applying the top 10%, UT is considering eliminating grades in music, career education, and many electives from the class rank calculation, but faces resistance from these subject matter lobbies. Wealthy suburban schools claim their top 10% is much harder than the average school to attain, so UT should admit the top 15% from some schools.
UT does not know how to consider what content is in courses at different high schools and relies on similar course labels, But UT is carefully tracking the college success of students from various types of high schools.
Class rank admissions is a continual trade off among conflicting objectives, and no policy will satisfy everyone.

Testing and Academic Fitness for College Success

2008-10-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

Madison, Wisconsin
>Academic Fitness
>
>Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
>
>
>
>The NACAC Testing Commission has just released
>its report on the benefits of, and problems
>with, current standardized admission tests. The
>Commission says that "a 'one-size-fits-all'
>approach for the use of standardized tests in
>undergraduate admission does not reflect the
>realities facing our nation's many and varied colleges and universities."
>
>It might be pointed out, by an outside observer,
>that standardized tests not only do not reflect
>the realities of acceptance for high school
>students receiving athletic scholarships, but
>such tests have nothing whatever to do with
>whether high school athletes are recruited or
>not and nothing to do with whether they receive
>college athletic scholarships or not.
>
>Athletic scholarships are based on athletic
>performance in particular athletic activities,
>not on tests of the athletic or physical fitness
>of high school athletes. The cost of failure for
>college coaches is too high for them to think of
>relying on any standardized test of sports
>knowledge or of anything else in their efforts
>to recruit the best high school athletes they can.
>
>The NACAC Testing Commission also says that
>standardized tests may not do a good enough job
>of telling whether applicants to college are
>academically fit. They recommend the development
>and use of good subject matter tests which are
>"more closely linked to the high school curriculum" than the SAT and ACT exams.
>
>This suggestion begins to approach the rigor of
>assessment in the recruiting and selection of
>high school athletes, but there are still
>important differences. The high school athletic
>curriculum includes such subjects as football,
>basketball, soccer, baseball, etc., but college
>coaches do not rely on tests of athletes'
>knowledge of these sports as determined by
>sport-specific tests. They need to know a lot
>about the actual performance of candidates in
>those sports in which they have competed.
>
>The parallel is not perfect, because of course
>students who can demonstrate knowledge of
>history, biology, literature, math, chemistry,
>and so on, are clearly more likely to manage the
>demands of college history, biology, literature,
>math and chemistry courses when they get there,
>while athletes who know a lot about their sport may still perform poorly in it.
>
>But college academic work does not just consist
>of taking courses and passing tests. In math
>there are problem sets. In biology, chemistry,
>etc., there is lab work to do. And in history
>courses there are history books to read and
>research papers to write. Such performance tasks
>are not yet part of the recommended tests for college admission.
>
>It is now possible, for example, for a student
>who can do well on a subject matter test in
>history to graduate from high school without
>ever having read a complete history book or
>written a real history research paper in high
>school. That student may indeed do well in
>history courses in college, but it seems likely
>that they will have a steep learning curve in
>their mastery of the reading lists and paper
>requirements they will face in those courses.
>
>New standard college admissions tests in
>specific academic subjects will no doubt bring
>more emphasis on academic knowledge for the high
>school students who are preparing for them, but
>a standard independent assessment of their
>research papers would surely make it more likely
>that they would not plan to enter college
>without ever having done one in high school.
>
>The reading of complete nonfiction books is
>still an unknown for college admissions
>officers. Interviewers may ask what books
>students have read, but there is no actual
>standard expectation for the content, difficulty
>and number of nonfiction books high school
>students are expected to have read before college.
>
>The increased emphasis on subject matter tests
>is surely a good step closer to the seriousness
>routinely seen in the assessments for college
>athletic scholarships, but it seems to me that
>some regular examination of the reading of
>nonfiction books and an external assessment of
>at least one serious research paper by high
>school students would help in their preparation
>for college, as well as in the assessment of
>their actual demonstrated academic fitness
>which, as the Commission points out, is not now
>provided by the SAT and ACT tests.
>
>
>
>"Teach by Example"
>Will Fitzhugh [founder]
>Consortium for Varsity Academics® [2007]
>The Concord Review [1987]
>Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]
>National Writing Board [1998]
>TCR Institute [2002]
>730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24
>Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 USA
>978-443-0022; 800-331-5007
>www.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org
>Varsity Academics®
>
>
>
>

Why Do Students Drop Out of 4 Year Colleges?

2008-10-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

From guest blogger Sarah Scrafford:

Why do College Students Drop Out?

It’s an irony of sorts – almost every high school kid dreams of going to college, but once that dream is realized, they end up crushing it beneath their feet by dropping out even before they get through their freshman year. And the surprising (and sad) part of this dropout saga is this – that most freshmen and sophomores who drop out have a history of being high achievers in high school with no problem whatsoever breezing through tests and assignments. Admitted, college is a tough ask for a kid who’s leaving home for the first time, especially for someone who’s moving far away from home or from a small town to a big city. And so we have the reasons why America is a nation of dropouts:

• Nothing in their schooling experience prepares high school graduates to handle the workload in college once they get there and see what’s expected of them.
• They are homesick and miss their parents and old friends, and as a result, tend to either withdraw into an antisocial shell or go back home to an environment that’s familiar to them.
• The price of college is too high to bear; rising tuition costs and the daunting prospect of having to repay loans are major dampeners to graduating from college.
• There’s the tendency to party till they drop and enjoy the freedom that college affords without bothering too much about the academic aspect. This leads to poor performances in the classroom and in tests, a continuation of which leads to no other option but to drop out.
• Some students make the mistake of choosing the major that’s wrong for them and pay the heavy price of having to drop out of college altogether because they’re not able to cope.
• Others are forced by circumstances beyond their control – like family emergencies – to drop out.

Institutions over the country are now waking up to the fact that something needs to be done to reduce the number of dropouts before it’s too late. An educated workforce is what this nation needs, and colleges are the starting point that helps meet that end. And so we have survival courses for freshmen that show them the ropes of adjusting to the demands of college, of learning to manage their time effectively, of managing finance and health aspects, of being responsible for themselves, of coping with homesickness, and of the importance of according priority to academic coursework. Educators are also advocating bridge programs in high school that will prepare students for college by showing them what to expect when they get there and how to cope with the various pressures they are bound to face. Time will tell if these measures succeed!

By-line

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the subject for kaplan university review http://www.universityreviewsonline.com/2005/10/kaplan-universi.html. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com

Admissions Officers Challenge Use Of SAT

2008-09-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

The New York Times on page a-13 carried a good article on the new report advocating less reliance on SAT for admissions at the annual convention of college admissions officers. The report drafted by the Harvard admissions director said SAT is "incredibly imprecise" and favored students who can afford intensive SAT prep. Most of these charges are not new, but what caught my eye was the support for more college tests based on the high school curriculum. This suggests more k-16 talks and negotiations concerning course content alignment that is badly needed. For example,ACT and SAT1 are not as well aligned as the New York Regents tests are to NY courses like biology and history. But how to handle huge interstate k-12 differences in testing and state content standards will be very dificult.
Are we headed towards top down college advocacy for more uniform national standards?

Student Loans May Be Part of Bailout

2008-09-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

HigheredWatch reports that Paulson put student loans into the bailout bill in the last few days. Many reports have come to my attention about student loan credit squeezes and private lenders in fiscal difficulty. So watch for whether a bailout happens and who gets the money. Is it some of the same lenders who exploited the interest rate loopholes in the past decade?

Indiana's Policies Improve College Access and Success

2008-09-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

SIGNIFICANT SHIFTS IN INDIANA POLICY PRIORITIES
>OVER TIME INCREASE STATE RESIDENTS' ABILITY TO ACCESS AND SUCCEED IN COLLEGE
>
>Study Reveals How Policymakers, Education
>Officials, Interest Group Leaders Adopted
>Bipartisan Policies to Improve Postsecondary
>Opportunities for Hoosier Students
>
>Washington, D.C., September 17, 2008 When it
>comes to improving access and success in higher
>education to the benefit of the whole state,
>Indiana is at the nation's forefront. This
>achievement can be credited to bipartisan
>efforts by key decision makers-policymakers,
>business leaders, and education officials-who
>continue to address some of the state's major
>educational issues through a process of
>evolutionary change that gave a seat at the
>table to all interested parties. Due in large
>part to those efforts, more than two-thirds (68
>percent) of Hoosier high school students
>completed a college preparatory curriculum in
>2006, compared with only 12 percent in 1994, and
>more than 65,000 additional students have
>enrolled in college in the state since 2001.
>
>According to a new report by the Institute for
>Higher Education Policy (IHEP), Indiana has made
>considerable progress in increasing college
>access over the last several decades. The study,
>Creating Change One Step at a Time: Efforts to
>Improve College Access and Success in Indiana,
>offers a glimpse at the interventions Indiana
>has undertaken in the areas of academic
>preparation, higher education affordability, and
>a diversified system of higher education.
>
>EXAMPLES OF INDIANA'S INITIATIVES IN CREATING A COLLEGE-GOING CULTURE
> * The Core 40 diploma-which requires
> students to take four years of English, three
> years of math through at least Algebra II, and
> three years of science-was created to improve
> academic preparation for high school graduates
> and is now required for nearly all students.
> * As a part of a commitment to provide
> need-based grant aid, Indiana awards
> approximately 86 percent of all undergraduate
> student aid based on financial need alone
> (rather than on academic merit or a combination
> of need and merit), compared with a national average of 49 percent.
> * The establishment of a statewide community
> college system, Ivy Tech Community College of
> Indiana, offers more affordable postsecondary
> options, especially for working adults and for
> underserved groups such as low-income and minority students.
>
>"By focusing its efforts on a clear policy
>goal-increasing college access and
>success-Indiana has been able to achieve a
>series of significant postsecondary policy
>changes that we hope will lead to a myriad of
>successful outcomes," said IHEP President
>Michelle Asha Cooper, Ph.D. "We applaud the
>state and its efforts to aggressively push
>through bureaucratic policy mazes to embrace
>bipartisan amendments resulting in the creation
>of a college-going culture among Hoosier residents."
>
>INDIANA'S KEY STEPS IN CREATING CHANGE The
>report highlights several key practices that
>have enabled Indiana to create substantial
>changes in the educational policy arena. These include:
> * Recognizing the need for change and
> expressing that need to all stakeholders.
> * Moving forward incrementally without
> letting initial setbacks stop the process of change.
> * Using data to inform policy decisions. The
> work of experts inside and outside the state
> can provide a range of options to address identified problems.
> * Connecting to national organizations
> working in the same areas. These connections
> offer support in developing new policies and
> links to other states that may have similar concerns or experiences.
> * Seeking financial support for new policy
> initiatives from nonprofit organizations,
> foundations, and the federal government.
> * Building public support through
> transparency and aggressive communication efforts.
> * Making sure all stakeholders have a seat
> at the table so problems and policy solutions
> can be thoroughly discussed before implementation.
> * Cultivating strong, sustained, and
> bipartisan state leadership. A few key
> individuals can make or break policy initiatives.
>
>Despite its progress in creating change and
>building a college-going culture, the report
>notes that Indiana still has to address a number
>of specific concerns, such as increasing
>postsecondary completion rates and doing more to
>assist low-income, minority, and adult students.
>The state also faces a number of ongoing
>challenges, including finding funding for
>need-based aid and other programs in the face of
>budget pressures as well as sustaining momentum
>for change through the election cycle and into
>the future. Nonetheless, the study points out
>that the factors helping Indiana be successful
>in promoting policy change thus far are likely
>to persist, and the state will continue to create change one step at a time.
>
>The full report,Creating Change One Step at a
>Time: Efforts to Improve College Access and
>Success in Indian, is available for download on
>IHEP's Web site at www.ihep.org.

Education Groups Form New College Ready Multi- State Institute

2008-09-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

>
>
>Eight Leading States Selected to Develop Cutting
>Edge College- and Career-Ready Assessment and Accountability Policies
>
>
>WASHINGTON, D.C. - September 10, 2008 - Today
>Achieve, the Data Quality Campaign, the
>EducationCounsel, Jobs for the Future and the
>National Governors Association Center for Best
>Practices announced an unprecedented partnership
>to provide guidance, advice and support to
>states through the "College & Career-Ready
>Policy Institute" ("Institute"). The Institute
>is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
>
>The Institute is designed to help states put
>K-12 assessment and accountability systems in
>place that will ensure that all students
>graduate from high school college- and
>career-ready. In addition, the Institute will
>also assist states in developing strategies for
>building the capacity of districts and schools
>so that all students successfully reach higher
>standards. The support to states by the partners
>will include multi-state gatherings where state
>teams will participate in cross-state leadership
>sessions, the first of which begins today in
>Washington D.C., as well as in-state, customized technical assistance.
>
>The eight Institute states, all participants in
>Achieve's American Diploma Project Network, are
>Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana,
>Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Tennessee. The
>Institute states were chosen through a
>competitive selection process based on the
>states' strong leadership and commitment to a
>college- and career-readiness agenda as
>demonstrated by their success in raising
>academic standards and graduation requirements
>for all students. These states are now well
>positioned to tackle the difficult, but
>essential, task of ensuring that their
>assessment and accountability systems are
>likewise anchored in college- and
>career-readiness and that state education
>policies cohesively support this critical goal.
>
>Specifically, the Institute will assist states in:
> * Developing goals for improving high school
> graduation, college- and career-readiness and postsecondary attainment rates;
> * Putting in place a comprehensive state
> assessment system that is aligned with college-
> and career-ready standards and that measures student progress over time;
> * Establishing a coherent system of
> accountability that makes college- and
> career-readiness a central priority and that
> "incentivizes" proper actions, promotes
> accurate judgments, and drives effective supports and interventions;
> * Designing a statewide system of supports
> and interventions to assist low performing
> districts and schools and ensure continuous
> improvement for all schools and districts around the state; and
> * Providing educational options and supports
> to boost the achievement of low-income students
> and other groups at high-risk of not achieving
> college-ready standards and college success.
>In addition to assisting the eight states in
>developing and implementing a comprehensive
>college- and career-ready policy, it is hoped
>that the lessons learned from these Institute
>states can assist other states also committed to
>the college- and career-ready agenda, therefore
>boosting the academic prospects for even more U.S. students.

Secretary Spellings Index on Educational Indicators

2008-09-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

In a September 15 press release Secretary Spellings noted that 4 year college completion among adults 25-34 inched forward by 2% from 2000 to 2007. This is a slow pace, and many other nations have surpassed our rate of 31% in the past decade. Some surveys have 9 nations ahead of us and others 15. Until recently the USA lead the world in college completion rates, in part because of our high level of female attainment.

University of Washington Program is Designed Well for College Success

2008-09-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

The Dream Project is a student-initiated
>high-school outreach program that operates as a
>University of Washington course and partners UW
>students with first-generation and low-income
>high school students to assist in the college
>admissions process. Over 100 UW undergraduates
>work with over 300 juniors and seniors in seven
>area high-schools. The undergraduates attend
>class once per week for an hour and a half, and
>then travel to the high-schools for at least one
>hour per week throughout the entire school
>year. In the high-schools, juniors and seniors
>work through the entire college application
>process with the UW undergraduates, including:
>thinking about the right "fit" for college,
>studying for the SAT and ACT, preparing
>articulate personal statements, turning in three
>or more college applications, understanding and
>filling out the FAFSA, applying for
>scholarships, matriculation, and the transition into college.
>
>
>
>Once they have transitioned into college, many
>students will find a community-in-waiting,
>especially if they choose to come to the
>University of Washington. Similarly, other
>college campuses across the state (and the
>nation) are either starting their own Dream
>Project this year or are currently learning how
>to start one in future years. These
>communities--groups of undergrads that are
>already friends with the transitioning high
>school students--help to ensure high retention
>and graduation rates of the Dream Project
>scholars. In effect, the line is blurred
>between high school student, college student,
>and college graduate because many students who
>are involved in the Dream Project start out in
>one of the partner high schools and then join
>the Dream Project as an undergraduate
>themselves, continuing the cycle of giving back
>to their community. In this way, high school
>students can find their older peers at nearly
>any of the colleges to which they apply.
>
>
>
>In the UW course, undergraduates learn about
>educational opportunity and social mobility
>while gaining the skills necessary to mentor the
>high school students throughout their
>preparation for and application to
>colleges. Each week, undergraduates work with
>and learn from college admissions counselors,
>financial aid and scholarship officers, SAT/ACT
>preparation experts, and numerous faculty and
>staff who speak about mentorship, social
>justice, non-profit work, and public schooling
>issues. Also, undergraduates are the leaders of
>the program--from collaborating with the high
>schools and school districts, to creating the
>class syllabus and course readings, to fund
>raising and development efforts. The
>undergraduates hold panels with the counseling
>staff from the high schools so that they can
>better understand how to collaborate and learn
>from one another's efforts. Similarly, the
>undergraduates work with an advisory committee
>of university faculty and staff to help the
>university understand the needs and changes of
>the program and the schools with which the Dream Project works.
>
>
>
>The Dream Project is unique on many levels, but
>two DP achievements are particularly relevant to
>this blog. First, the Dream Project has helped
>to develop better communication between and
>among the public high-schools it serves and the
>higher education world in Washington State,
>including career/college counselors, high-school
>administrators, teachers, parents, college
>admissions counselors, university
>administrators, and university faculty and
>staff. Second, the Dream Project has induced an
>"in-reach" effect by changing the culture of the
>high schools we serve, such that the younger
>high-school students and their teachers,
>administrators, counselors and parents are
>preparing earlier and more accurately for
>college admissions. The Dream Project's
>students--undergraduates and high schoolers--are
>well aware of the "myths" of college and have
>aimed to dispel those myths wherever they occur,
>which happens to be at all levels along the P-16
>continuum. I believe that is why the Dream
>Project's dedication to collaboration and
>communication between all areas of education
>(K-12, higher education, funding partners,
>students, and parents) has been so successful.

For more information contact: Jenee Meyers ,myersja@u.washington.edu

Highly Selective and Broad Access Higher Education Are in Different Financial Orbits

2008-09-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

The New York Times ran an article on september 10 reporting on how wealthy selective institutions defend high and rising tuitons. Two facts caught my eye. Only 3% on the nations college students are at institutions costing $25,000 dollars or more- just 75 universities control over 70% of all endowment assets! Amherst spends $80,000 a year for each pupil.
Meanwhile the California community colleges spend on average around $6,000 per fte and have almost no endowment. They charge $18 a credit hour. California State University recieved $10,600 from the state per fte in 2005. These gaps are so large between selective and broad access that it is difficult to think about any public policy that they share in common.

Community Colleges Need More State Support

2008-09-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Opinion: Start new community college chancellor off on the right foot
By Pamela Burdman and Michael Kirst

This spring, for the first time in a century, the University of California regents hired an outsider to lead the 10-campus, 200,000-student system. To lure Mark Yudof unfrom the University of Texas, the regents doubled the president's salary package to more than $800,000. Yudof's arrival was heralded on the front pages of our state's newspapers.
Similar attention needs to be paid to the arrival of another education leader, one who will influence the lives of far more students. In his new position as incoming chancellor of California's community colleges, state Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, will assume responsibility for the education of 2.6 million students at the 110-college system.
It's not just that the vast majority of Californians who go to college attend a community college. It's also that unlike the California State University system, which admits the top one-third of students, or UC, which enrolls the top one-eighth, community colleges are open to the top 100 percent. They serve the students least prepared to complete college with the fewest resources per student. Furthermore, they enroll large numbers of ethnic minorities: The Los Angeles district alone has nearly four times as many African American students as the entire UC system.
The job of ensuring that those students can succeed is as complex as it is important. The colleges' next leader must marshal talented educators and unify policy leaders around this mission in the face of severe state budget constraints. Fortunately, Scott brings with him more than just Sacramento savvy. A former college president, he understands well the educational challenges.
But his job may be more difficult than Yudof's for another reason: Unlike UC's president, the chancellor's job has traditionally been relatively powerless. It pays just $198,000, a fraction of the UC president's earnings, and less than many of the district chancellors. And to represent those 2.6 million students, the chancellor has a staff of just 130 people — fewer than UC's information technology office. Before the recent budget cuts, UC employed about 2,000 people.
Precise parity in salary and staffing between two vastly different systems is not realistic. But placing a priority on community colleges is not just realistic, it is imperative. The colleges deserve more dollars, but there is another tool that in Scott's hands they could make good use of: state policy. The state has focused primarily on making sure students have access to college, but it also needs to ensure that more high school students are prepared for college and that more who attend community college can complete a credential or transfer to a four-year university.
Two policy proposals championed by Scott, if signed by the governor, could strengthen the colleges' ability to do their job well.
The first would help community colleges partner with California State University to address the large numbers of students who complete high school unprepared for college-level work. The proposal would encourage the colleges to join with California State University system in using an 11th-grade test to advise students of their proficiency in math and English then use their senior year to improve their skills. Given that the colleges have made a commitment to improving success rates of under-prepared students, they need support in implementing this policy.
The second proposal would launch a comprehensive higher education report card to keep us in the know about how well our colleges and universities are serving California: how affordable they are, and how many of their students are completing credentials and benefiting the state. If we are to ask more from our community colleges, we need clear measures to indicate when they are meeting those expectations.
Scott, who becomes chancellor in January, introduced both proposals well before he was tapped for the job. Alone, they will not ensure success of community college students, but both are needed steps to providing community colleges not just the right leader, but also the tools to be successful.

Radical Overhaul of SAT Recommended

2008-09-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

On August 8 in Forbes magazine,the former president of the University of California, Richard Atkinson, recommends that SAT be shortened by reducing the critical reading portion , but keeping the writing and math parts. Atkinson taught statistics and measurement and led the fight to put a writing sample in SAT. He contends that the new SAT is a "dramatic improvement", and has come a long way toward becoming an achievement test. But it is only a promising first draft, and the critical reading section does not add significant value to the predictions of college academic performance. The new test is an hour longer, so cutting part of it makes sense to him.
This is a provactive proposal and worth consideration. I agree with Atkinson we need some external assessment to monitor high school grade inflation.

Follow Up: Is P-16 a Field of Action and Study?

2008-09-04T09:57:00.001-07:00

Last blog opened up the definition and conceptual boundaries of this emerging area of P-16. For now, I am avoiding the discussion of P-20 that includes preschool through graduate school. In order to be a "field" P-16 must develop several characteristics- shared identity, standards of practice, knowledge base, leadership and grassroots support, and funding. Right now there is some funding and a lot of players , but not much progress on the other dimensions.
Shared identity implies clarity around terminology and relationship to other education reforms. Shared identity also implies high alignment on goals and core practices and research targets.Right now these are lacking , and there is a low affilation with the field of k-16 by many people who adress these issues.
Knowledge base in k-16 is hampered by too few vehicles to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration. There is no annual meeting of activists or even subparts of large organizations like AERA or ASHE. Practicioners meet at separate k-12 and postsecondary metings.
Who will lead and organize this emerging field? There are no obvious candidates. There are 39 state P-16 councils and more on them in next blog.

Follow Up: Is P-16 a Field of Action and Study?

2008-09-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

What Is the p-16 field?

2008-09-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

The more I talk with people in the domain of this blog, the more confusing it is about how to specify and bound the "field of k-16'. Most of us have do not much focus upon preschool or elementary grades. Few people I meet discuss changing how college courses are taught that are not developmental -eg more use of technology and less lectures. One way to start thinking about this is to look at the University of Georgia website , go to www.usg.edu and then go to " Office of p-16. UGA has one of the oldest and most ambitous p-16, and has a working definition. But it is not complete, and does not align with the focus of this blog. UGA features teacher education- a focus that is not covered by this blog.
If there is no conceptual agreement on our field then it is difficult to organize a professional network. Who should be invited to a meeting to set up an organization and communication system? More on this next blog.

National Student Survey Shows Increase In Homework

2008-08-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Peter D. Hart has conducted a national poll of students in grades 9-12 on a number of topics including education. The poll found that 21% of students grades 9-12 said they spent more than 10 hours a week on homework, up from 9% in 2005. This caught my eye because other homework polls have been flat or down in the past. UCLA has reported declining homework among high school seniors going to 4 year colleges over the past 15 years. Maybe something is happening out there that will improve college preparation and college completion. But the Hart poll reports that 64% OF TEENAGERS REPORT AN AVERAGE OF 10.3 HOURS PER WEEK PLAYING OR PRACTICING A SPORT. So homework is still not much of a priority for teens.
See the poll at www.horatioalger.org

Windows On College Readiness, Guest Blogger Will Fitzhugh

2008-08-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

>"Windows on College Readiness"
>Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
>
>
>
>
>The Bridgespan Group, working for the Bill &
>Melinda Gates Foundation, has just released a
>report called "Reclaiming the American Dream."
>The study was intended to find out how to get
>more U.S. high school students prepared for and through college.
>
>Much of the report is about getting kids to go
>to college, and it finds that if there is enough
>money provided, and if parents, peers,
>counselors and teachers say going to college is
>important, more high school students are likely to go.
>
>The major weakness of the report, in my view, is
>its suggestions for the kind of high school work
>that will help students to do college work and to graduate.
>
>One of the concluding statements is that
>"Inertia is particularly difficult to overcome
>when people are unaware that a problem exists or
>that the potential for solving it is real." What
>a useful insight. What they recommend for high
>school students is "a rigorous college
>preparatory curriculum." What could be wrong with that?
>
>Two very simple and basic things are wrong with
>that. Current "college preparatory" curricula,
>including AP courses, do not include the reading
>of complete nonfiction books or the writing of serious research papers.
>
>That is almost as if we had a crisis in
>preparing high school football players for
>success in college and recommended a standard
>preparation program which did not give them
>practice in running, blocking and tackling. ACT
>found last spring that 49 percent of the high
>school students it tested could not read at the
>level of college freshman texts. And the
>Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a
>survey in which 90 percent of college professors
>thought high school students were not well
>prepared in reading, writing and doing research.
>A true college education requires reading
>serious books and writing substantial papers
>although many schools have watered their
>requirements down. High school students should be ready for in-depth study.
>
>If high school football players haven't done
>much blocking or tackling in high school, no one
>would expect them to play well in college, but
>somehow we expect high school students in a
>college preparatory program which includes no
>nonfiction books and no real research papers to
>do well with college reading lists and with college term paper assignments.
>
>In my state, Massachusetts, 34 percent of the
>students who go to state four-year colleges are
>in remedial classes, according to The Boston
>Globe. Those students had the expectations,
>support, access and aspiration for the college
>dream, but when they got there, they were not ready to do the work.
>
>The Gates report says that "the high school
>environment needs to provide students with high
>expectations and strong teaching..." but without
>any real focus on students' independent academic
>reading and writing, that environment doesn't do
>the job of preparing students for college work.
>
>If we want students to be able to read and
>understand college books and to write research
>papers there, then we must give students a
>chance to learn how to do that in a "rigorous
>college preparatory program" in high school. But
>that is not happening, and just about no one is
>paying attention to the fact that it is not happening.
>
>The inertia in this case that is "particularly
>difficult to overcome" is the exclusive focus on
>what teachers do and what courses cover in
>textbooks. There must be more attention to the
>actual academic work that students are required
>to do-at least in the humanities. Perhaps in
>mathematics and the sciences, some students are
>really doing the kind of academic work that
>prepares them, but in the world of academic
>reading (nonfiction books) and academic writing
>(serious research papers), most schools badly
>serve their students. This report, like so many others, completely misses that.
>
>The Business Roundtable reported in 2004 that
>their member companies were spending more than
>$3 billion each year on remedial writing courses
>for both salaried and hourly employees, so even
>many of our college graduates may not have
>achieved a very satisfactory level of academic
>competence in reading and writing these days.
>With so many ill-prepared students coming into
>college, many professors have taken the path of
>least resistance and watered down their courses.
>
>Our high school programs for students who hope
>to succeed in college and beyond should require
>them to write extended essays and papers which
>are rigorously graded. They should also require
>students to read at least one serious complete
>nonfiction book every year. While this may be
>beyond the prevailing and generally feeble
>educational standards of the moment, if we don't
>do it, most U.S. high school students will
>continue to be unprepared for higher education.
>
>
>
>Will Fitzhugh
>(fitzhugh@tcr.org) is
>the founder of The Concord Review; http://www.tcr.org

Comprehensive State Policy Guide for Dual Enrollment

2008-08-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

Jobs for the Future published "On Ramp to College" which has a fine overview of state policies and barriers to provide high school dual enrollment in college. The 52 pages are filled with good advice and data on state programs that reach nontraditional dual enrollment students. There are specific state examples for each section such as: access, quality, academic support,finance , data, and governance-see www.jff.org

Another Estimate Of College Remdiation Cost Is Too Low

2008-08-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

In my last blog , I covered the Pacific Research Institue estimate that college remediation costs California 3.9 billion annually. Bob Wise in his new book, Raising the Grade, estimates 3.7 billion annually for the entire country-1.4 billion in direct education costs, and 2.3 billion in economic losses. Wise must be too low becasue he uses the NCES 2004 estimate of 42% remediation in community colleges that is the most widely cited source. But Cliff Adelman in his book Answers in the Toolbox demonstrated through student transcript data that community college remediation is 61%. This figure is out of date and is probably closer to 70%. So, we have no good estimate of remdiation costs, and NCES should provide better data soon.

Study Finds College Remediation Costs California Billions

2008-08-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Research Institute a right of center think tank in California estimates the total cost of remediation for a single cohort of college freshman at 2 and 4 year California colleges at between $3.9 billion and $13.9 billion annually, driven largely by lost individual earnings and related social costs. The direct remediation costs for Ca postsecondary institutions is $247 million. But there are high and low estimates for many other costs such as lost earnings, crime, and reduced tax receipts. The study is provocative, but hardly definitive. Yet it is good for discussion because older studies only use direct costs to colleges and are way out of date. See the study at http:liberty.pacificresearch.org. The study is titled The High Price of Failure in California.

Website That Helps Students Plan and Understand College Choices

2008-08-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

The best new site I have seen to assist students parents, and counselors for college planning is http://www.collegegrazing.com-
It has 13 interactive self discovery surveys for immediate feedback concerning college planning and focus. It contains information on all kinds of colleges at home and abroad. Included is a complete application essay writing guide and other college search tools. It is free and creative. As someone who tried to build one of these sites, I appreciate how hard this is to creat this one.

Public Concerned About College Access

2008-08-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

A new nationwide poll by The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reveals that concern is growing about college costs and availability. 78% of Americans believe students have to borrow too much money to pay for college, 62% believe many qualified students do not have access to college,59% say college prices are rising as fast or faster than health care.
But this poll also shows what all recent polls have found : higher education gets much higher public approval marks than k-12 -51% grade higher education good or excellent compared to 37% for k-12. So there still is not much public pressure to overhaul higher ed. As long as the public myth continues that USA higher ed is the best in the world not much is likely to happen to change it. See the poll at www.highereducation.org

New Website on College Persistence and Preparation

2008-08-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

USC has established a Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice. I spoke at the opening conference August 5. There are a number of new papers on the website at the core of this blog.Sandy Baum did a comprehensive paper on student aid. There is a debate on testing between Wayne Camara of College Board and Saul Geiser of University of California.
My favorites were on the lack of college policy, central leadership, and initiatives on college persistence and college completion by Don Hossler of the University of Indiana and David Kalsbeek at Depaul. No one is in charge of retention at colleges and staff resources minimal. See it all at www.usc.edu/cerpp.

Achieve Finds Convergence Among State College Standards: But What About Assessment?

2008-08-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Achieve,s new report, "One Among Many" www.achieve.org analyzed college ready k-12 standards in 12 states for English and !6 for math. The key finding is that A critical mass of states has arrived separately at a common core of standards for college as a byproduct of their alignment deliberations. We may not need national college prepardness standards if the states converge on their own. The report then details this standards convergence for each subject.
All this is encouraging but what about assessment agreement? Tests drive k-12 curriculum more than subject matter content standards, Here the news is bleak. Studies by AFT and Fordham Foundation find state tests are all over the map partly in order to comply with NCLB. Some states have challenging tests and performance standards, others are low level in order to avoid NCLB sanctions. Of course, what really determines whether college content is covered is what teachers teach every day. And states have scant assessments for grade 11 and 12 that matter if they exist at all. NCLB testing usually ends at grade 10.

Outstanding Source on Latino College Transition Issues

2008-08-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

The website of the Tomas Rivera Center Claremont Graduate School is the best collection of studies I have seen about why Latinos do not attend and complete college. Go to www.trpi.org and then go to publications/education.The USA latino community is from 21 nations and includes 49 million people including Puerto Rico. About 9-12 million are undocumented, and the rest legal residents. The Tomas Rivera studies are stunning about what Latino parents do not know about college, and their difficulties in using the complex fiancial aid system. Huge majorities of parents do not know the difference between a 2 and 4 year college, and thought the fees were about the same. A majority of parents got no information on student aid, and thought applying for aid might risk their immigration status.
Over 50% of California k-12 public school students are latino, and 80% who go to college attend a community college. Their completion rate is 17% including technical certificates and transfer.

Many Components and Concepts Underly College Readiness and Culture

2008-08-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

College readiness is an elusive and multi-faceted concept that has no standard definition. Consequently, there is confusion among terms like “college readiness”, “college culture”, “college preparedness”, etc. This paper will provide some arbitrary definitions based on my judgments from the most appropriate literature. The overall design starts with secondary school student readiness attributes and then moves to cultures in secondary schools that build readiness. It ends with analysis of measuring dimensions of readiness. My themes are how complex readiness is and how many dimensions need to come together in order to embody and help produce readiness.

David T. Conley has the broadest view of college readiness, so it is the best starting point (Conley, 2007). He breaks readiness down to four integrated components:

1. Habits of Mind – patterns of intellectual behavior that lead to the development of cognitive strategies and capabilities necessary for college work. Among these are: intellectual openness, inquisitiveness, analysis, reasoning, interpretation, precision and problem solving. Multiple choice tests cannot measure all these elements.
2. Overarching Academic Skills – writing, research, English, math, science, social studies, world languages, etc. These include skills such as: evaluate source material, synthesize, access information from a variety of locations, and written argumentation.
3. Academic Behavior – metacognition, mastery of study skills, time management, note taking, communication with teacher and advisers.
4. Conceptual Skills and Awareness – this is sometimes called “college knowledge” and encompasses teamwork, communication with others, understanding of college admission/placement, college options, financial aid applications, testing, college cultures, and expectations of postsecondary education.

College Culture in High Schools

It is a challenge for secondary schools to create, nurture and build student college readiness, but college culture can be an important determinant of all four components of college readiness. The Center for Educational Outreach, University of California has synthesized much of the research on college going culture (https://outreach. Berkeley.edu).

In schools where most disadvantaged students go to college, certain common factors are obvious. These schools create a college culture that all students and their families experience. Where such a culture exists, all students are prepared for a full range of postsecondary options through structural, motivational, and experiential college preparatory opportunities. In these schools…
• School leadership is committed to building a college culture
• All school personnel provide a consistent message to students that supports their quest for a college preparatory K-12 experience
• All counselors are college counselors
• Counselors, teachers and families are partners in preparing students for college.

Schools with a “college culture” usually exhibit most or all of the following Nine Critical Principals of a College Culture:

College Talk: Clear, ongoing communication among students, teachers administrators and families about what it takes to get to college
Clear Expectation: Explicit, clear-defined goals, and communication in ways that make them part of the culture of the school
Information and Resources: Comprehensive, up-to-date college information and resources that are easily accessible by all students, families and school personnel
Comprehensive Counseling Model: View of counseling that makes most student interactions with counseling staff opportunities for college counseling
Testing and curriculum: Information about and access to “gatekeeping” tests (PSAT, SAT, etc.) and courses (A-G, AP, etc. for all students
Faculty Involvement: Informed, active participation from school faculty in the creation and maintenance of a college culture
Family Involvement: Meaningful engagement on the part of family members in the process of building a college culture
College Partnerships: Active links in a variety of forms between the school and local colleges and universities
Articulation: Ongoing coordination between counselors and teachers about college access and success

Sources

Clifford Adelman, The Toolbox Revisited (U.S. Department of Education, 2006).
Consortium on Chicago School Research, From High School to the Future: Potholes on the Road to College (Chicago:University of Chicago, 2008).
David T. Conley, College Readiness (Eugene, Oregon: Educational Policy Improvement Center, 2007).
David T. Conley, “Reference Courses”, personal communication.

What IF We Doubled College Graduates

2008-07-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

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

Content/Skills Within A Secondary School Course Is What Counts

2008-07-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

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

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

2008-07-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Remediation Effectiveness Studies Do Not Include Most Students

2008-07-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

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.

The Ideal State Postsecondary Data System

2008-07-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

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

Positive Research Study on Early College High Schools

2008-07-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Incentives and Signals Can Improve College Success

2008-07-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Understanding College Placement Exams: A Crucial Part of College Preparation

2008-07-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

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).

Using College Entrance Exams for Accountability: A Caution from Chicago

2008-07-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Regular College Prep Curriculum Has Weak Content/Skills

2008-07-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

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

Secondary Students Lack Engagement in Their Courses

2008-07-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

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.

Useful Scholarship Source For Students and Parents

2008-06-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

COLLEGEDEGREES.com has a college scholarship application directory that is targeted to differnt and distinct types of categories including: degree specific, ehnicity based, relgion based, specialty -eg single mothers, and subject based such as accounting. This type of organization of sources is very user friendly, and should help applicants find a niche that will increase their financial aid chances. The link is http://www.collegedegrees.com/financial-aid/scholarships.

5 Tips for Thriving in Your College Freshman Year

2008-06-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger Heather Johnson supplies these tips for college success and completion

Freshman year is the most challenging year of college. Chances are you’re leaving home, perhaps far away, for the first time. Your lifestyle will be completely different than it was living at home. You have to grow accustomed to a scattered schedule of classes and the coursework that will be more intellectually challenging than anything you experienced in high school. The important thing to keep in mind is that you’ve prepared yourself for this new, exciting experience and you will succeed. Here are five tips to help you along the way:

1. Organization breeds discipline. You’re coming from high school where teachers usually laid everything out for you as far as assignments and reading schedules. In college, you’ll have to plan your work load according to your other classes and how much time you have to devote to each course. This can be difficult because you will have a lot of down time when you’re not in class and the temptation to hang out and meet new friends is tough to avoid. Socializing is a major part of college, but remember why you’re really there.
2. Pick the right place to study. Studying in your dorm room can be a challenge to say the least. There is so much going on around you that you’re bound to be distracted. Find that corner of the library you can call your own. If you can study in peace then you’ll save yourself so much time down the road.
3. Talk to your professors. If you regularly talk with your professor after class or through email you’ll glean so much more from them than merely sitting in class and taking notes. You can talk to them when you feel unsure about an assignment or just need some of the material explained more thoroughly. They relish the opportunity to deal with their students in this fashion. Take advantage.
4. Attend class. I’m sure this sounds obvious but you need to get to class. It can be mighty tempting to sleep through your 8 A.M. class but you’ll pick up so much by just sitting in the classroom. Obviously, it’s better if you’re proactive when you get there and participate but the mere act of sitting in the classroom each meeting will help you out immensely.
5. Use the college’s resources. Your college will have tutors, learning centers and upper classmen that have excelled in certain majors available to help you. Don’t be shy and think that it’s a sign of weakness if you need a crutch. These resources exist to make you the best student you can be. Your tuition is going to pay for these tools, so you might as well use them!

By-line:

This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who is an industry critic on the subject of scholarships for college. She invites your feedback at: http://www.collegedegrees.com/financial-aid/scholarships

Texas Remedial Programs Do Not Help College Success or Completion

2008-06-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3506n.htm
________________________________________

Monday, June 23, 2008
Study of Texas Remedial Programs Finds They Don't Help Students
By PETER SCHMIDT
A federally financed study of Texas public-college students has found little evidence that remedial programs there improve underprepared students' graduation chances or their performance in the labor market soon after college.
"If anything, we find some evidence that remediation might worsen the outcomes of some students," says a paper summarizing the findings of the study by Francisco (Paco) Martorell, an economist at the RAND Corporation, and Isaac McFarlin Jr., a research scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas and a visiting scholar at the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
At two-year colleges where a large proportion of students took remedial courses, those students were significantly less likely than other comparably prepared students to complete at least one year of college or earn a degree, says the paper, Help or Hindrance? The Effects of College Remediation on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes.
The researchers, whose study was financed by the U.S. Department of Education and the Smith Richardson Foundation, have presented their as-yet-unpublished findings at various academic seminars and conferences, including an Education Department conference held this month.
The findings of the Texas study contradict other research that has found remediation to have positive effects, including a 2007 study of Ohio college students and a 2006 study of community-college students in California. In their paper, Mr. Martorell and Mr. McFarlin say the differences in the various studies' results might be partly a reflection of state-by-state differences in remediation policies or the quality of remedial programs.
In an interview, however, Mr. McFarlin emphasized that his study used a much different methodology than the others done before, allowing for better "apple-to-apple" comparisons between those two- and four-year college students who took remedial classes and those who did not.
A chief obstacle faced by researchers wishing to study the effects of remediation is sampling bias. Because those college students who take remedial classes tend to be less prepared than those who go straight into regular classes, they likely would fare worse than other students in the long term regardless of whether they took remedial classes to catch up.
By examining state data on students who entered Texas public colleges in the 1990s, however, Mr. Martorell and Mr. McFarlin were able to draw comparisons between large numbers of remediated and nonremediated students who had entered college with similar skill levels.
No More Likely to Earn a Degree
A state law in place by that time—known as the Texas Academic Skills Program, or TASP—required those students pursuing academic degrees to enter remedial courses if they could not demonstrate that they were ready for college on the statewide TASP test or by posting sufficiently high scores on the SAT, the ACT, or the state's high-school exit examination. As a practical matter, however, not all students who failed the TASP test were assigned to remedial courses—some earned a reprieve, for example, by passing the test on their second try. At the same time, some students who passed the TASP test nonetheless enrolled in remedial classes, often because their advisers encouraged them to do so or because they had failed some placement examination administered by their college.
Further assisting future efforts to compare how students of similar ability fared when they did or did not get remedial courses was the state's 1995 decision to raise the minimum score needed to pass the TASP test. As a result of that change, many students who would have gone straight into academic classes if they had entered college a year earlier ended up instead taking remedial courses.
The paper says the researchers did not find any evidence that students who took remedial reading or mathematics classes were more likely to earn a college degree than comparably prepared students who went straight into academic classes. Contrary to the assumption of many critics of remediation, however, they also did not find any evidence that remediation significantly extended how long it took students to earn a degree.
Based on records kept by the Texas Workforce Commission, the researchers also did not find any evidence that students who took remedial classes earned more than their nonremediated peers in the labor market up to seven years after entering college.
The researchers caution that, because their study focused on students who scored close to the remediation-placement cutoff on the TASP test, their findings may not apply to students of very low ability.
The paper also cautions that remediation may have other effects that the researchers did not study. For example, by keeping poorly prepared students out of college-level courses, remediation might help instructors keep those classes rigorous. At the same time, colleges might be paying the costs of remedial classes by draining money away from standard academic courses, hurting overall academic quality.

Inequity at Nations Flagship Public Universities

2008-06-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

In 2006 the Education Trust published an analysis of the 50 flagship public univerisites and using a variety of indicators concluded they looked more like "gated communities". Low income students declined, financial aid was focused on merit aid, colege completion rates were lagging for minority and low income students, and most univerisites were getting worse on equity indicators. The most common grade on 7 indicators of equity was F. A few schools like Berkeley and Wyoming got a C.
I wonder what has happened in the period 2006-2008. Merit aid seems to have been steady, but there is more policy talk about the equity issue. Hopefully, this report at www.edtrust.org will be updated.

The Role of College Counseling in College Opportunity

2008-06-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

A useful and incisive article on high school counseling is by Laura W. Perna et. al in The Review of Higher Education, Winter 2008 , Volume 31. They conduct case studies in 3 high schools in 5 states concerning availability of counseling, what counselors do about college counseling , external influences such as the district, and policy implications. They urge simplifying college applications and financial aid, a district wide committment,and lament that other priorities than counseling take precedence at low resource schools. Teachers play a narrow role and counselors gear their activites to the average child.
Overall , it is not a positive picture concerning college knowledge of students except in Maryland.

New Ca Report Blasts Community College Readiness

2008-06-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

Most students who enter Ca. Community Colleges lack basic skills and are in remediation- remediation estimates are 70% to 80% for those who enter from high school. Most of these students never overcome these basic skills defeciencies during their cc enrollment.The California Legislative Analyst reocmmends several policies that will help prevent remediation and make it more successful. See report at http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/PubDetails.aspx?id=1847

The High School-College Connection in Chicago

2008-06-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

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

Because many of Mike's entries are on how high schools shape college access, I thought readers would appreciate this new study my organization--the Consortium on Chicago School Research--recently released. The report, “From High School to the Future: Potholes on the Road to College,” (authors: Melissa Roderick, Jenny Nagaoka, Vanessa Coca and Eliza Moeller) shows that a majority of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates-even those with top grades and test scores-do not successfully navigate the college search and application process. While 95 percent of 2005 Chicago graduates hoped to complete some form of postsecondary education, and 90 percent stated that their parents wanted them to attend college after graduation, only 59 percent actually applied to a four-year college and only 41 percent successfully navigated this process and ultimately enrolled the fall after graduation. This drop off is even worse for Latino students, with only 46 percent applying and 30 percent enrolling in a four-year college in the fall after graduation.

Reason? Not parents but schools. Researchers at CCSR found that the single most consistent predictor of whether students took steps toward college enrollment was whether their teachers reported that their high school had a strong college going culture where they and their colleagues pushed students to go to college, worked to ensure that students would be prepared, and were involved in supporting students in completing their college applications. In addition, the college plans and behaviors of Latino students in Chicago are particularly shaped by the expectations of their teachers and counselors and by connections with teachers. This suggests that Latino students may be much more reliant than other students on teachers and their school for guidance and information, and that their college plans are more dependent on their connections to school.

The full report can be downloaded at: ccsr.uchicago.edu/potholes.

Overcoming the Disjuncture Between k12 and Postsecondary Education : A Policy Manifesto

2008-06-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Righting a Troublesome ‘Disjuncture’
A Push-Pull Strategy for P-16 Cooperation
By Patrick M. Callan & Michael W. Kirst
In the United States, the disjuncture, or gap, between K-12 and higher education is a major policy issue, one rooted in history and encompassing governance, academic standards, finance, communications, and organizational culture. Most visible and troublesome to college applicants, this gap also plagues admitted students who find themselves unprepared for college-level work. But the gap is barely visible to those who make and implement policy in public schools and colleges. On each side, professional concern is with the problems and opportunities unique to that particular level. In the absence of incentives to do otherwise, each side will continue to show more attention to itself than to the common goal of broad educational opportunity for all Americans.
A century ago, colleges and universities were much closer to high schools than they are today. Universities then offered relatively narrow curricula, served a very small proportion of young Americans, and set their own entrance requirements. Their influence over high schools increased as they sought to systemize college admissions. In 1900, for example, the College Board set uniform standards for each academic subject and issued a syllabus to help students prepare for college-entrance subject-matter examinations. Shortly thereafter, the University of California began to accredit high schools to assure that their courses were adequate for university preparation.
The disjuncture between secondary and higher education in the United States stemmed, in part, from the laudable creation of mass education systems for both sectors. In contrast, European countries designed the higher grades of secondary education for an elite group destined for the universities. These universities have, therefore, had strong influence on secondary school curricula and examinations. For example, professors at British universities like Cambridge and Durham grade the college-entrance exams taken by students during their last year of secondary education, and these essays figure crucially in students’ chances for university admission.
In America in the middle decades of the 20th century, high school became the universal and usually terminal education for the majority of youths. At the same time, the United States was moving to mass higher education, with the GI Bill and then the expansion of college opportunities for the postwar baby boomers. Expansion was achieved principally through the rapid growth of public, broad-access campuses—regional four-year campuses and community colleges. Each of these tiers “below” the traditional university had lower admission standards and fewer dollars per student. Placement examinations were administered to admitted students in these tiers to determine readiness for college-credit coursework, and eventually these became more important than admissions criteria. But the shift to universal secondary school and mass nonselective higher education eroded school-colleges linkages.
This erosion was compounded as former normal schools and teacher colleges closely connected to public schools became comprehensive state colleges and universities. Similarly, community colleges had their origins in school districts, but as they grew almost exponentially, they also detached themselves from K-12 education. Unfortunately, in the era of the most dramatic growth in higher education, distance from the public schools was considered a mark of higher education’s legitimacy and status. Institutional prestige was seen to increase by moving closer to research universities and away from identification and contact with schools.
________________________________________
In the postwar years, the notion of K-16 academic standards vanished. “Subject matter” admissions tests were replaced by “aptitude” tests like the SAT. Consequently, high school students and teachers received fewer and weaker signals about academic preparation for a successful college career. And secondary schools added elective courses in nonacademic areas, such as vocational education and life skills, that further diverted their attention from university curricula. Today, even when K-12 and college faculty members belong to the same discipline-based professional organizations, they rarely meet with one another. K-12 policy leaders and those in higher education cross paths even less often. At the state-policy level, legislative committees and state budget offices typically reflect the same fragmentation, as do state educational finance and accountability systems.
The gap has consequences: Student standards are established in separate orbits. K-16 faculty members rarely work together on standards, curricula, or assessment. Few states have entities in education, or in the legislative or executive branches, that span K-16 policy and practice. No organized group lobbies for K-16 linkages. Little data and no accountability systems measure K-16 performance. And nobody loses a job for poor K-16 linkage or performance.
Today, the convergence of a different set of circumstances requires a different response from policy leaders and educators. The three most salient of these circumstances are the following:
For high school graduates, gaining admission to college is seen as their most daunting challenge. It is not. The more difficult challenge is to be prepared academically for college-credit coursework.
• Most high school graduates now enroll in postsecondary education, and most enroll in broad-access institutions. Collaboration between schools and colleges to align curricula, standards, and assessments is essential to improve college readiness, reduce the need for remediation at the college level, and increase college-completion rates.
• As the baby boomers—the best-educated Americans in history—retire, the nation and the states face a projected shortage of workers with college-level knowledge and skills. Strengthening college readiness and the flow of students from high school through college is one of the most promising strategies for increasing the numbers of college-educated Americans.
• For high school graduates, gaining admission to college is seen as their most daunting challenge. It is not. The more difficult challenge is to be prepared academically for college-credit coursework. About half the college students in the United States require remediation. Many of them take recommended or required high school coursework in preparation for college, but still find themselves unprepared.
To overcome the disjuncture between the sectors, states must create motivation and incentives to change these two, presently disparate, institutional cultures. Many states have recently established entities called P-16 councils, spanning preschool through college, and are asking them to take a leadership role in this effort. These councils (also configured as P-20 bodies or other variations) can create a dynamic among top elected officials and K-16 agencies that will move beyond ad hoc personal relationships and stimulate state systemic policy change. Whatever the mechanisms and policy tools, the task will be neither easy nor quick.
________________________________________
Money motivates, but programmatic allocations must not relegate K-16 reform to the margins of institutions and sectors. Colleges and their faculties have little incentive, for example, to work with K-12 institutions to reduce the number of students who require remediation because those students bring valuable funds for colleges that are typically financed on a per-student basis. A possible strategy: Use the “push” of a reconstructed accountability system together with the “pull” of financial incentives.
An obvious objective of a P-16 system would be assurance that a greater percentage of traditionally underrepresented students persist and complete some form of postsecondary education. But some broad-access institutions pursue this objective through two problematic practices. They improve completion rates either by becoming highly selective and diminishing access, or by reducing both standards and the value of the credential. Other broad-access institutions use a “student churn” business model to survive. These contend that it costs less to let students drop out than to support the intensive services needed by unprepared students. As long as the number of incoming students equals or exceeds those dropping out, the institution is financially viable. Again, a well-designed K-16 accountability system might counteract the student-churn practice.
In many states, the elite institutions are in their own, separate postsecondary-policy orbit—institutions such as the University of California system, the University of Michigan, and others—and are not closely connected to their states’ broad-access institutions. Of the latter, many community colleges are locally governed, and, regardless of governance, appropriately see their mission as quite different from that of four-year institutions. Similarly, former normal schools and teacher-training institutions that now have become state universities see their role as more expansive than do the selective flagship state universities. Consequently, policy leadership and leverage that trickles across sectors is likely to be very limited.
Some easier issues, such as funding dual enrollment in high school and college, can be worked out in discussions. Deeper instructional and institutional change requires long-term external pressure and the active commitment of all stakeholders. No one design will work in all state contexts. Regional P-16 councils may be more useful in Georgia, for example, than in Rhode Island. But few of these P-16 councils have the state money, staffs, or organizational bases for long-term sustainability. The federal government has numerous roles, but a high priority should be changing the incentives in the No Child Left Behind Act that now encourage the use of low-level high-school-proficiency tests that fall well short of college-readiness standards.
States that are successful in integrating precollegiate and higher education share the presence of an external civic culture that stresses a belief that the two levels must come together to improve the labor force and the economy. Governors who are committed to the college transition can bring all key state policy leaders to the table. Business interest is vital, but so is broader public concern and engagement—civic groups, foundations, labor, parent groups, and other interests are crucial.
If the people help lead the way, more states will act to end the disjuncture that historically has kept our collegiate and precollegiate systems separate and apart. And, together, K-12 and higher education will tackle the learning challenges of the 21st century.
PATRICK M. CALLAN is the founding president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. From 1992 through 1997, he was the executive director of the California Higher Education Policy Center.
MICHAEL W. KIRST is a professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University and a member of the management and research staff of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education. He is a former president of the California state board of education, and is the author of such books as From High School to College (2004).
Vol. 27, Issue 40, Pages 22-25
Diplomas Count is produced with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/06/05/40callan.h27.html?print=1

Edweek Diploma Counts A Useful Information Source on P-16

2008-06-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

The june 5 special issue of Diploma Counts by Edweek is the best overview of state p-16 councils in history! It has data on the 40 state councils and 3 outstanding case studies. I worked on all phases of this as an adviser to Edweeek and the result is outstanding from their writers. These councils are getting the right policymakers across p-16 to the table , and many are making some progress- but there is a long road ahead. Most councils lack adequate staff , and may not survive political turnover. But we have come a long way from a decade ago and the momentum is growing. My next blog will include a detailed op ed on the p-16 state concils from a historical perspective.
Do not miss the geographical GPS look at high school dropouts by Edweek in Diploma Counts. It includes a county and Congressional district specification.

Unintended Consequences of State Merit Aid Upon College Preparation and College Stem Course Taking

2008-06-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

In prior blogs I have cautioned that state merit aid programs based on high secondary school grades may discourage students from taking difficult courses where they may get low grades. This will inhibit college success and college completion. Kentucky is concerned about this and now we have a study of Floridas merit aid program- Bright Futures- that found the worries have a basis in college course taking as well.. A study by Fla State U professor Shouping Hu shows a decline in Science and math courses at Fla colleges from students who got state scholarships from before and after Bright Futures started. Students need high college grades to maintain their aid.
This study is suggestive not conclusive, but much more research is needed because a lot of state money is devoted to these merit aid programs. Redesign of state aid may be necessary. The study is in May 29 issue of Inside Higher Ed.

New International Study Shows Girls as Good as Boys in math and better in reading

2008-06-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

The may 31 edition of the Economist has a fascinating article on pages 84-85. Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute in Florence took data from OECD PISA that tests 276,00 15 year olds in 40 countries.In countries that have the most sexual equality like Sweden, versus low like Turkey, the sexes are even in math and reading.Geometry is the only area where boys score higher in advanced nations. Girls score much higher in reading than boys in all the equal societies, and every country ,including Turkey in the Economist chart.
Last year in the USA girls attained 58% of the bachelors degrees. The lower performance of boys seems to be an emerging issue in most European and Asian countries with more industralized economies. These trends make it difficult to figure out what to do about it in USA, and relates to college completion.

National Survey Reveals Most Schools Do Not Provide Enough College Information

2008-06-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

A new survey by the National Center For Education Statistics found that Only a third of parents thought their childs secondary school did "very well" in providing information to help with postsecondary education planning. Over a quarter of parents felt their schools provided "no information at all". The best information was provided to students in 11 or 12th grades, USA born parents, private school students ,and earned mostly A"S. So the lack of clear signals about college is still not reaching most students who attend broad access postsecondary education. See for yourself at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008079.pdf.

AAUW Report on Male College Performance Requires Critical Reading

2008-05-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

I have waited to report on the new AAUW report "Where the Girls Are"-http://www.aauw.org- until I read more about it. The report has been very controversial in downplaying the male gap in college completion-58% female versus 42% male.The male gap is 2 to 1 in favor of females for black and hispanic students. AAUW is correct in stating this should not be framed as a win lose game, and lead to policies that favor males in some form of affirmative action. But AAUW tries to make the issue go away by emphazing older students are a large part of the gap, and that SAT scores are similar among genders. What about the male students who go to broad access postsecondary and do not take SAT! Half the first year enrollment is in community colleges.
In 1970 there were 1.5 million more men in higher education than women,and AAUW was saying this was a crisis. Now there are 2.7 million more women than men and AAUW says there is no crisis.
Each person needs to sift all the evidence in this provacative report.

More 8th grade algebra does not lower college remediation

2008-05-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

The Sacramento bee on May 22 published an analysis of why students who take algebra in 8th grade instead of 9th are not lowering college remediation and improving college success. California state policy promoted 8th grade algebra to prepare students to take the full math college prep sequence in high school. Many more students are taking 8th grade algebra, but remediation rates of 56 % for Cal State U and nearly 80% for community colleges have not been lowered.
The article speculates on why. Many students get a C in 8th grade algebra, some do not take math in their senior year, and the 1Oth California high school exit test is way below college standards. Moreover, the community college placement tests are not aligned with the high school mathematics test standards for the higher level 11th grade California standards test.
So 8th grade algebra is no silver bullet and needs to be supplemented with many other policies. California ended its algebra professional development for middle school teachers years ago, and this may be a significant cause.

College Access Without Support Is Not Opportunity

2008-05-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

This was the title of a talk by Syracuse professor Vincent Tinto.He has been studying for many years the lack of college success at broad access colleges. He has completed a large scale study of community colleges and universities to find keys to sucess under the headings: expectations, support, feedback, and involvment. The study focusses on learning communities through student engagement from the classroom up.Study groups linked around first year courses are crucial. Students get together before and after class- eg social and intellectual connections help. Clasess must be linked and not just one at a time for learning communities to be most effective. So he recommendes courses links like develpmental english, a core content course like history and a general studies seminar for a cohort learning community.
Tinto"s papers are on his website -vtinto@syr.edu

Conflicting Tests; College Ready, NCLB, Minimum High School Graduation

2008-05-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of the Gadfly by Fordham Foundation has an admission from both the Massachusetts State Superintendent and State Board Chair that the passing high school graduation cut score on MCAS is 8th grade level, and is nowhere near college ready. But Mass. is caught in the same vise as other states. If they raise the cut score to college ready level then huge numbers of students will fail to graduate, and many high schools will not make NCLB annual progress.Meanwhile students get an incorrect signal from MCAS that they are prepared for college. This is particularly true for community college students who know there are no entrance requirements.
We need to figure a way out of this bind by having colleges be clear on what is needed for college success and college completion. Colleges need to set cut scores on k-12 tests the way Texas and California State University has done. K-12 cannot solve this misleading testing situation on its own.

Imparting College Culture : High school Teachers View

2008-05-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

I visited an Early College high school in Los Angeles that is part of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation network of high schools. This school is in a low income area with very few parents who attended college. High school teachers with appropriate degrees teach college credit courses at the high school campus in introductory first year college classes ,that are crdit level for Cal State U - LA. But one of the most interesting things was how teachers convey a college culture through direct and indirect communication in all there classes.
The high school teachers view themselves "as an extension of college" and treat students as college bound. Teachers emphasize to students that what is being taught is because colleges will expect it-"you will need this concept in college". Content is presented along with skills that teachers know are needed in college. Students are encouraged and prodded to take 4 years of math and other senior classes aligned with college.Students are enrolled in extra curricular activities that 4 year colleges look for.
The dual credit arrangement is touted as a way to save college expenses while in high school. Students take PSAT or SAT each year from grades 7-12, and visit local colleges.
This just one dimension of creating a college going high school culture, but it is gratifying to hear how well some teachers grasp what they need to do for college readiness

Expanding Career Technical Education Pathways to Postsecondary Education

2008-05-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

A new report by ConnectEd in Berkeley, Ca. provides a blueprint for states and districts that want high quality secondary school technical education programs that provide access to both career preparation and 2 or 4 year degrees. This is not your fathers old vocational ed, but rather links to major industry sectors like Tourism, Marketing, Building Design and Engineering. Each pathway has a challenging academic component, a demanding technical component, a work based learning component, and supplemental services.
The concepts are good , but it will be hard for schools to implement this without state funding and leadership. Few states have the capacity to do this, but after reading the report perhaps more will get started. Go to www.ConnectEdCalifornia.org, and look for Expanding Pathways.

College Costs and Spending Hinder Student Success: :Guest blogger Pat Callan

2008-05-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

Looking Under the Hood of Public Higher Ed
By Patrick M. Callan

Last week, the College Board released its annual Trends in College
Pricing report, finding that tuition at the nation's public four-year
colleges and universities had risen 6.6 percent, which is roughly
equivalent to previous years but continues to far outstrip inflation and
increases in family income.

Media coverage of college affordability almost invariably takes its cues
from this report, focusing on the "sticker price" that colleges and
universities charge students. But tuition alone is a relatively
superficial measure that hides as much as it reveals, since it responds
to changes in state allocations, political factors and fund raising
success.

What has gone mostly undiscussed is escalating spending on college
campuses across the country. A public discussion focused on tuition -
the price of the education - gives institutions a free pass on how they
spend the money they raise. Furthermore, this discussion reinforces the
assumption that spending increases follow some sort of natural
progression. But this is not the case. Spending can and must be
contained if the price of college is to be brought under control.

This message is falling on deaf ears today in part because last year was
a good state appropriations year for colleges and universities. But even
in bad years, public institutions are raising spending. Today, higher
education is a "seller's market." Demand for college has never been
higher, and families are willing to take on dangerous amounts of debt to
get their children through.

However, the willingness of families to reach deeper into their pockets
is reaching a breaking point. Recent polling by my organization, the
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and Public
Agenda shows that the public is concerned about how colleges and
universities spend their money. Most Americans (83 percent) believe that
today's colleges should be doing a much better job of keeping their
costs down. More than two out of three (68 percent) believe that
colleges and universities could reduce their costs without hurting the
quality of the institutions.

The American public is onto something. But many institutional leaders
have not been willing to look under the hood of higher education
expenditures. Typically, leaders have used a range of excuses to deflect
questions about spending. Some common excuses, and my responses to them,
follow:

Increases in tuition reflect the high demand for postsecondary education
and financial aid keeps the net cost to families under control. Public
college and university leaders think there is no crisis in higher
education so long as there are students and families willing to pay. But
tuitions at four-year public institutions have risen 22 percent in the
past five years, after adjusting for inflation, while family incomes
have increased only 8 percent. What's more, need-based financial aid is
not keeping up with increases in tuition, pricing many poor families out
of higher education. Continual price hikes may respond to market forces,
but do not honor the public mission of state colleges and universities.

Higher education is a labor-intensive industry and faculty salaries and
health care costs are behind most of the recent run-up in spending.
Because institutions use humans to pass on knowledge, historically a
greater proportion of their budgets have gone to salaries and benefits
than in other industries. But this is not where most of the spending
growth is occurring. Faculty salaries have barely kept up with inflation
for the past 10 years. Last year, faculty salaries rose on average 1.3
percent after adjusting for inflation - the first inflation-adjusted
increase since 2003-2004. In addition, the use of cheaper part-time
faculty is growing fast, now making up 48 percent of all faculty,
according to the American Association of University Professors. On the
other hand, universities are spending huge amounts of money on
construction - for new dorms, new athletic facilities, and new student
centers- as part of an "amenities arms race." And administrative
overhead at many universities has ballooned, due to an explosion in
niche student services and fund raising apparatuses. It is doubtful that
these developments have improved student learning.

There is great competition for applicants nowadays, and we have to spend
to compete for the best students. This is probably the most common
excuse offered by leaders at state flagship universities, but they are
not referring to competition with other state institutions. Rather,
leaders at public research universities are increasingly viewing
themselves as competitors with private research universities such as
Duke and Stanford, or even Ivy League institutions. These leaders feel
that they can only "compete" if they offer the same amenities and
practice the same aggressive recruitment tactics, including lavish merit
aid for high performing students, which takes resources away from
low-income students. Instead, they should refocus on their educational
mission, and the advantage that public institutions have always had: the
availability of need-based financial aid and the opportunity for a great
education. Prospective students seeking high quality education at low
cost will be smart enough to know the difference between style and
substance.

There's no political incentive to take on cost containment. Most
institutional leaders don't want to touch this issue because it almost
inevitably leads to faculty concerns that they will be expected to do
more for less. Faculty will revolt, if "cost containment" means
across-the-board budget cuts. In cases where institutional leaders have
contained spending and reinvested savings in teaching and learning,
faculty have been very supportive. The University System of Maryland is
a case in point. Chancellor William E. (Brit) Kirwan got faculty support
for the Effectiveness and Efficiency Initiative, which identified areas
for cost savings and redirected those savings toward priorities such as
increasing enrollment capacity, containing tuition increases, and
improving academic programs and services for students. Even though
faculty teaching loads increased 10 percent, faculty largely supported
the measure, because it was focused on improving student learning.

At the state level, lawmakers and system heads don't want to engage cost
because it requires a restructuring of higher education finance. States
base appropriations on students enrolled, which encourages spending on
amenities and recruitment - not students graduating.

Where there have been incentives, universities have proven capable of
cost management. In the 1990s, the Illinois Board of Higher Education
established the Priorities, Quality, and Productivity initiative, which
re-evaluated all academic programs with an eye to institutional
priorities. Elimination of duplicative programs, technology
enhancements, and administrative streamlining resulted in savings
averaging $36 million annually. As at Maryland, faculty came to support
PQP because the savings generated were reinvested in instruction. These
funds were most often used to reduce class size and reliance on graduate
teaching assistants; support minority student achievement; improve
technology; and expand need-based financial aid.

My hands are tied, because the biggest decisions are made at the state
level. Big decisions about allocations are made at the state level, but
institutional leaders have a lot of discretion about how that money is
spent. While there aren't many incentives for cost containment now,
there also isn't much oversight of spending requests. Institutional
leaders have lots of room to maneuver on this issue.

Cutting spending hits disadvantaged students hardest. Cutting spending
only hits disadvantaged students hardest if need-based financial aid is
the first target. In fact, cost containment, if it focuses (as it
should) on increasing instructional spending, boosting degree
completion, and streamlining administrative processes, can make public
higher education work much better for disadvantaged students. That is
because these are the students most likely to have trouble completing
degrees and to have the most interaction with administrative offices.

There is another major reason why colleges are not acting on this
agenda. There is too little data about how spending impacts learning. In
contrast to business or the military, how inputs affect outputs is
poorly understood in higher education. New research being conducted by
the Delta Project for Postsecondary Costs to be released next year will
set the basis for looking at the relationship between spending and
student success.

But the lack of data is no barrier for action. We don't need to wait for
longitudinal studies to know that more spending on full-time faculty and
need-based financial aid will impact student learning more than a glitzy
new dorm.

Taking a hard look at the evidence shows that it is time to focus on
college spending patterns and that there is a lot college leaders can do
right now to contain the spending that drives up college prices. Many of
the problems originate at the state level, but bold leaders will take
action regardless of incentive structures and political rewards. It is
time to expect more of college and university leaders than we do now.

Patrick M. Callan is president of the National Center for Public Policy
and Higher Education.

AVID Continures to Provide College Preparation

2008-05-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) is a college preparation program for students in the middle achievement range who are low income. It was developed in 1980 and now includes 2,300 schools in 40 states and 15 countries. Some states like Ca. provide state funds to support it. AVID began as an add on program to middle and high schools but under it recent director has expanded to a whole school focus. It has several required components for particpating schools.
Like most college prep programs we have no randomized trials , but AVID has a well designed longitudinal study of positive college success and completion by former West Ed researcher Larry F. Guthrie. Seventy seven percent of Avid grads enroll in 4 year colleges. It is well worth checking out at www.avidcenter.org