Massachusetts is among the highest scoring states on k-8 Naep, and is viewed as a national model for reform of k-12. But in a new study published by Boston.Com the state concluded its remediation rates for entering students at public colleges is very high- 65% at community colleges and over 20% at four year colleges. This is about average for all states under my estimates for remediation.-, even though the US Education Dept uses much lower numbers for remediation.
But Ma sends 80% of its high school graduates to postsecondary education which is also among the highest in USA. This may account for some of the remdiation. Ca sends just over 60% of its high school grads to college, and has even higher remediation rates than Ma.

Labels: academic preparation, ready for college

Many students who are in the middle or lower part of their high school graduation class are unsure whether or when they should go to college. The next decision is where. Starting with the first two decisions is correct, but complex. Many students want to delay going or think they are ready academically and cannot. This is analyzed in depth by the publication I co-authored "Betraying the College Dream" at http://brigeproject.stanford.edu. This website has many other studies that discuss these issues. But since then we have added another website to guide prospective college students through their decisions on whether, where, and when to go to college. Just click the website at the right hand top of this blog to begin solving the college puzzle. It asks you questions on many pieces of the puzzle and then gives you summary advice at the end.

Labels: college costs, college information, college knowledge, ready for college

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

The ACE report featured in my last blog, "Apples and Oranges in a Flat World" has the USA all over the place in various comparisons with other developed nations in terms of participation and attainment in post secondary education. The basic trend is USA still increasing, but at a rate not fast enough to be impressive. But the USA starts from such a high base of participation that it will take a while for more countries to surpass us in participation. But the k-16 problem in the future is ominious becasue of so many USA high school dropouts. For USA adults ages 55-64 , US is first in population that has" attained upper secondary education." But for the ages 25-34 group, US is tenth.
Go to http://www.acenet.edu/ and specify item 3111576

Labels: College Success Studies, ready for college

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

Jon S. Twing of Pearson Educational Measurement recently critiqued a prior Blog entry -- Alignment Needed To Enhance College Completion and College Success. Twing acknowledged that the Blog entrycaused him to ruminate regarding a concept that he works on everyday -- the validity of assessment systems.

My entry, according to Twing, argued that K-12 and post-secondary education systems are not integrated. He agreed with that crucial premise, but had much more to say. I respect Twing’s perspective as he has spent much of his career providing support for many large-scale, statewide assessment programs, some of which include end-of-course testing, college readiness components and consideration of school-to-work transitions.

He agrees that educational standards (both content standards and performance standards) and the assessments are created in different K-12 and postsecondary “orbits”. He listed ACT®, SAT®, and AP® assessments, the PACT and the PSAT, the PLAN®, Explore®, the SAT Subject Tests™, COMPASS™, and WorkKeys® -- all of which explicitly link what is done in one system (secondary school) with another (college).

Many students lack the skills required to be college-ready because their high school courses and exams are different from the expectations at college. For example, he agreed with my earlier comment that -- “for example, some colleges in California complain that secondary tests do not emphasize trigonometry enough.”

But Twing believes that high school educators are working on ways to improve students’ preparation for college. The stated goal of the American Diploma Project by Achieve and it’s sponsoring of the Algebra II End-of-Course Assessment is an example of explicit attempts to prepare students for the rigors of post-secondary study.

Yet, the high school educators with whom he speaks are often talking about what they can do to improve ACT® and SAT® scores, how they can get students college level credit via dual enrollment, CLEP® or AP®, and how they counsel students to take the rigorous courses they will need for college. There are many examples of such notions being supported in the literature, such as the ACT documents: “Crisis at the Core: Preparing all Students for College and Work” and “Courses Count: Preparing Students for Post-Secondary Success.

Yet, according to Twing, all of this tells us that the rigor of the courses taken in high school is insufficient to prepare students for success in college. The expansion of end-of-course testing seen in several states might well be an attempt by secondary systems to compensate.

I’ll continue with my perspective on Twing’s critique of my prior entry in a subsequent entry.

Labels: academic preparation, College Readiness, ready for college

It is useful to highlight some particularly good state studies and actions regarding college student risk factors and college support for struggling students. A superb report was released on February 12, 2007 by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education through their Developmental Education Task Force. It is entitled Securing Kentucky’s Future. It has six core recommendations:

1. Update college admissions regulations
2. 
   Create an integrated accountability system tied to performance funding
3. 
   Fund infrastructure improvement
4. 
   Align college readiness standards and tie to educator professional development
5. 
   Better link educator preparation to college readiness
6. 
   Develop early student interventions

Among the specifics in the report is a detailed plan on how to help students with poor college preparation once they enter college. A key passage is quoted below:

Best practice, as implemented in the Council’s admission regulation, will require that under-prepared students (a) receive developmental help in their first semester of college (or perhaps before that in summer workshops); (b) be required to stay in developmental education until they successfully complete the course(s); and (c) take the appropriate credit-bearing course(s) immediately following completion of developmental work.

Implementing these changes will require improved (and more directive) advising, revisions in course registration procedures, and additional resources to increase the availability of developmental education in the first semester for all students in need.

Labels: College Completion, College Preparation, College Success, ready for college

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

Block’s prior work under me has lent him a somewhat unique perspective on equities. He recently wrote a lengthy report on the dangerous combination of search advertising and college admission. Its theme dovetails quite nicely with my work on K16. I referenced Block’s report in an earlier post. This entry references that report again.

Block’s report mentioned that another even less frequently cited factor for the high dropout rates is that there are simply too many students in schools. Charles Murray touched on this in the midst of his fabulously insightful three-part series of Op-Ed pieces that ran earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal (1/1607: “Intelligence in the Classroom”, 1/17/07: “What’s Wrong With Vocational School?”, 1/18/07: “Aztecs vs. Greeks”).

One of Murray’s several, compelling assertions is that there are far too many people going to college. Murray’s basic point is that too many college students lack the ability to benefit from college and thus are wasting their time and their resources not to forget, in many cases, taxpayer and parental resources.

Murray believes that a college education makes sense for only 15%-25% of the population. However, Block’s report takes it further by arguing that one reason for too many people going to school is the ease with which those prospective students can carelessly enlist Search engines to help them make the decision of enrolling in college. Block argues that far too many students – prospective and otherwise – use search engines to answer two questions:
1. Should I go to college?
2. And where should I go to college?

And, too frequently, search engines are used indiscriminately – whether it is to answer “yes” or “no” to the first question or whether it be to select a college (the second question).

Relying on a search engine is as random and arbitrary as perhaps using the yellow pages to determine which plumber to unclog your sink. Did you pick the plumber with:
The biggest ad?
The friendliest sounding name?
The address closest to your home?
Or, did you pick the one who answered his phone first? An increasing volume of college students are taking a random walk through search engines in contrast to the paradigm of the traditional college student: A high school junior or senior who sought constructive advice through conversations and exchanges with his or her family, friends, high school counselors and trusted advisors.

The Internet makes it too easy by tempting prospective college students with what sounds like the right answer.

Labels: College Completion, College Success, ready for college

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: College Completion, College Success, ready for college

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the next post, I will discuss DATA COLLECTION.

Labels: College Completion, College Success, ready for college

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the next post, I will discuss FINANCE.

Labels: College Preparation, College Success, ready for college

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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