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.

Labels: academic preparation, College Success

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.

Labels: academic preparation, College Success

>"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

Labels: College Readiness, College Success

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).

Labels: academic preparation College Completion, College Success

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

Labels: College Success

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

Labels: College Readiness, College Success

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

Labels: College Success, support for college

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.

Labels: College Completion, College Success, Student Success

The Lumina foundation continues its committment to new programs for college success and college completion- http://www.achievingthedream.org/ This impressive effort has different approaches throughout many states. It is primarily institution based rather than state systemic refom. But a new publication is on the website about a framework for state policies to support student success from a conference of fifteeen state policy teams. It also has a state data network.
Achieving the dream is now moving to state policy implications derived from the many local innovations to turn access into success.

Labels: academic preparation College Completion, College Success

I attended a conference on early college high schools that enable
average students to take college courses in high school up to 60
credits. These schools are spreading through Gates foundation grants,
and are impressive. They utilize lots of innovative practices
starting in the middle grades to prepare and nurture students for
college. Most of them are in low income areas and admit by lottery.
But they require students to attend longer hours, and to pursue a
college prep curriculum. But early college high schools have many
supports for students such as mentors, counselors, parent outreach,
and stimulating curriculum. They are smaller and more personalized
than typical big city high schools.

The costs are higher for early college schools and I wonder what
will happen after the foundation money runs out. However, the results
may be worth the extra money, and I was impressed with the energetic
staff and some preliminary outcomes for students. gates is evaluating
these schools so we will know more in a few years. For an overview,
check the major technical assistance provider for early college - www.jff.org

Labels: academic preparation College Completion, college costs, college information, college knowledge, College Preparation, College Readiness, College Success, curriculum alignment, ready for college

Some students decide to go to college without knowing much about what they are getting into when they arrive. Studies by the US Department of Education demonstrate that students are more likely to complete college if they go soon after high school. But the right time to go may depend on other factors such as lack of time to study because of work and family obligations. Moreover, lack of academic preparation may be crucial, and some increase in basic skills should precede college. Time management becomes crucial for college success as well as affordability.
In sum, there are a lot of interacting facors to answer the question of this blog. Fortunately, there are tools to help students analyse and understand the many factors for college success. Click on the site at the right corner of this blog- Mycollegepuzzle-www.mycollegepuzzle.com/ for help and a diagnosis letter at the end of completing the questions in the college puzzle.

Labels: College Completion, College Success

Largely due to data limitations, higher education research has focused chiefly on income and less on other socioeconomic proxies, with the specific role of wealth largely left unexplored. Wealth and income are markedly different. Wealth measures the total supply of financial resources available to a family, whereas income only measures the current stream of cash payments. As such, wealth better measures the financial well-being of families – it “signifies the command over financial resources that a family has accumulated over its lifetime along with those resources that have been inherited across generations”.

Wealth’s inclusion in the analysis of postsecondary access would greatly improve the understanding of the college choice process, just as it has enhanced the understanding of academic achievement, and racial inequalities. Research in these areas indicates that when looking at measures of social equality, disparities in wealth are much greater than disparities in income.

If wealth and income were strongly correlated, income would be an adequate measure of financial well-being, but they are not. When income stemming from assets is not included when measuring income, the correlation is 0.26. Wealth can provide income (and income may eventually build to wealth), but wealth also has other beneficial characteristics that income does not have. Wealth brings stability. It generally does not change drastically over time in the way that income may. It can be passed on from generation to generation. Unlike income, it is not used for daily expenditures; it is used to “create opportunities, secure desired stature and standard of living, or pass class along to one’s children”.

Research indicates that focusing solely on income to measure financial resources ignores the huge gaps in wealth by race. While the income gap between blacks and whites is still very large, the wealth gap is even larger. In 1998, black households earned sixty-two cents for each dollar earned by white households. In comparison, black households held between zero cents to twenty-five cents for each dollar of wealth held by white households.

Not only is the wealth gap between blacks and whites distressing, the proportion of black families that are nearly or totally without financial resources is alarming. Approximately 83% of black households did not have enough net financial assets (measured as assets minus debts and equity accumulated in a home or vehicle) to survive at the poverty line for six months without any income, as compared to only 43% of white households.

More importantly for studying issues of college access, the disparity in wealth between blacks and whites is present for households with children. Nearly twice as many black children as white children (almost 75% of all black children) grow up in households without any net financial assets. Even more striking, nearly 90% of black children are raised in households without the financial resources to support themselves at the poverty line through three months without income – slightly more than half of white children live in households with similarly dire financial situations.

Labels: College Admissions, College Success, income, Student Success, wealth

Girls were 58% of 4-year college graduates last year. The graduation rate of boys has been a declining trend for many years with last year's all-time low of 42% of all college graduates.

Yet, in new research on Baltimore school children, Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander, and Linda S. Olson found no evidence of boys in crisis. The researchers found that boys and girls enter school performing at about the same rate in reading.

Nevertheless, a gap favoring girls does surface during the elementary years, but only among disadvantaged youth – as defined by those who receive meal subsidies.

Disadvantaged boys fare poorly for two reasons:
(1) They are especially likely to have behavior problems, and
(2) their parents expect them to perform less well at school.

The research suggests that the so-called boy crisis is really a poor boy crisis.

Entwisle, Doris R., Karl L. Alexander, and Linda S. Olson, 2007. "Early Schooling: The Handicap of Being Poor and Male."Sociology of Education, 80(2), 114-138.

Labels: College Completion, College Success

A new study of college retention relationships suggests that for low income students academic success has a very important impact on college persistence and attainment, and is more important than increasing financial aid. The study at the University of Nevada Reno is one case and hardly conclusive as published in the January 21, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education ; http://chronicle.com/. BUT IT IS INTERESTING BECAUSE OTHER STUDIES SUGGEST GIVING MORE FINANCIAL AID IS THE PRIORITY COMPARED TO MORE ACADEMIC SUPPORT SERVICES for low income students.
The the real issue is that there are numerous factors that cause college success and completion. Take a look at the site at the top right of this blog to see the bigger picture :http://mycollegepuzzle.com/ .

Labels: College Completion, College Success, college sucess

My second review is the US Education Departments College navigator site www.nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator. It has data on 7,ooo public and private institutions using 16 criteria that cover many aspects of colleges including the setting, security, and major foci. The pop up boxes are useful on clarifying the terms and concepts included.
The site has so much information that it is difficult to use if students do not know what they are looking for, and are undecided about whether they should go to college at all. Moreover, it does not caution students enough concerning the time and study requirements ,if the student is working and has family obligations. Navigator is best for students who have some specific ideas about going to college.
Another website http://www.mycollegepuzzle.com/ shown at the top right of this blog is for the other end of the spectrum-broad access postsecondary education for students who are less clear on their choices ,and the demands of college success and college preparation. This site encourages prospective college students to consider several different factors and elements that could influence their individual college outcome. I plan to commenting on each of the elements or pieces of the college puzzle in future posts.

Labels: college information, College Preparation, College Success

A significant amount of attention is focused on the role of race in the college choice process, although recent reports have begun to focus on the access problem that exists for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, especially with regards to selective colleges. One report found that only about 10% of students at highly selective colleges came from the lowest 40% of the family income distribution. While race receives most of the public’s attention, we need to focus more on the role of income in who attends college.

Compounding the fact that low-income students have largely been ignored in the college admissions process is that they are the ones that benefit most from attending elite universities. These students benefit personally from higher rates of graduation and higher incomes after graduation, and society benefits from decreased dependence on public services and increased diversity in corporate, political, and military leadership.

Furthermore, most elite universities, while claiming to desire low SES students, have not been giving any them preferences during the admissions process. Findings like these on the effect of family income on college attendance have been remarkable, further highlighting the vast inequalities in higher education, especially at highly selective universities.

Labels: College Admissions, College Success, College Success Studies, ready for college, Student Success, Successful College Student

An unkown number of public 4 year institutions have agreed on a voluntary sytem to provide comparative data on: students and families, college student experiences/ perceptions, and student learning outcomes. The new effort is called "College Portrait" and includes some big name systems including Calififornia State University, University of Wisconsin system and University of North Carolina system. These institutions will report to the public on NSSE student surveys as well as an outcome measure like the College Learning Assessment for seniors. But it is unclear how many participants will use the same student learning measure since there are options. Perhaps Secretary Spellings commision had something to do with galvanzing such an open reporting system. In the past, most colleges have kept their assessments of student opinions and outcomes confidential.
This is a very interesting and promising development that hopefully will grow. The University of California system has refused to participate because of the learning assessment test. Moreover, College Portrait will use a six year graduation mesasure which is controversial because many students take longer than six years to complete college.

Labels: College Completion, College Success

A national effort called the Data Quality Campaign encourages states to develop high quality longitudinal data systems on a p-16 basis. They have ten fundemental elements for a statewide data system and stress student level college readiness test scores, high school transcripts for each student, and the ability to match student records between k-12 and higher education systems. Unfortunately, only Florida has all ten elements. The bigest state, California, does not even have individual student records for any level of p-16. Texas is making big progress and may meet the ten elements in a few years.
We cannot understand and solve poor college completion and college preparation without solid longitudinal data. More urgency needs to be given to the existing gaps. See http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/ to see the problem state by state.

Labels: College Completion, College Preparation, College Success

Washington state began an aggressive program in 1990 to have high school students earn credit at community college while enrolled in high school. This is called " Running Start" dual enrollment, and costs only $7 million dollars a year. It now reaches 17,ooo high school students, and saves on college tuition because students finish college earlier. The program reaches students not normally enrolled in AP. Many students say they are tired of the high school mentality and want to move on earlier. Running Start enrollment is 7% of the Seattle Community Colleges enrollment.
A big unkown issue is whether Running Start and dual enrollment enhances the probability of college sucess and college completion. Teachers College at Columbia is funding a randomized experiment to find this out for the City University of New York. This entire policy area of dual enrollment needs to move from promising to proven approach. Other than cost savings we still do not know much about the benefits of Running Start.

Labels: College Completion, college costs, College Success

Blackboard Inc., a provider of education and software services will launch " a strategic initiative" to help connection and collaboration between k-12 and postsecondary institutions.
The Company appears to have a good grasp of the problems including disconnected systems and the resulting poor preparation for college as well as low postsecondary completion overall.

Blackboard's assumptions are that a k-20 community can be built by leveraging technology and spending "over a million dollars". Both of these assumptions are problematic, but Blackboard's specific objectives are sensible. Technology could be an impetus for connecting two systems that rarely talk to each other about crucial issues. Blackboard hopes to build a k-20 online community of educators, promote state and local models of successful collaboration, publish case studies of success, and utilize Blackboard solutions and technology to enhance coordination.

Unfortunately, Blackboard's examples in its press release feature universities, rather than community colleges where the bulk of the problems (like remediation) exist. Something new is needed because k-20 connections are not growing fast enough. Focusing on so many age groups at once has bogged down states and regions as the Education Commission of the States found out in trying to organize around such a huge target. Perhaps Blackboard should focus on grades 8 to 14 as a first step , and not try to integrate kindergarten with college seniors in the same initiative.

I am intrigued by what technology might do, because there are few natural meeting places where k-12 and postsecondary come together face to face to confront their mutual problems and discuss potential solutions. Sectors of education have different governing boards and funding systems. The teacher unions are not well integrated either. Perhaps technology can bridge some of these divides without expensive and time consuming travel to meetings.

Don't forget to visit our sister site http://www.mycollegepuzzle.com/ for one tool that we believe could help students BEFORE they get to college.

Labels: academic preparation, College Completion, College Preparation, College Success