Colorado knows the variation by institution concerning remediation. Four year remdiation ranges from less than 1% at Boulder to 48% at Adams State. Each state should provide this data to its citizens and policymakers for deliberation.
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As more students take a national test with high standards usually the failure rate goes up as well. This is an indicator of higher ambition and a weaker academic pool seeking better qualifications.
The number of students taking Advanced Placement tests hit a record high last year, but the portion who fail the exams is rising as well, a USA TODAY analysis finds. The findings raise questions about whether schools are pushing millions of students into AP courses without adequate preparation and whether schools are not training enough teachers to deliver the high-level material. The analysis finds that 41.5% of students earned a failing score of 1 or 2, up from 36.5% in 1999. In the South, 48.4% of students earned a 1 or 2. (USA Today, 02/04
Less than 10 states have adequate linkage of data for students as they progress from high school to college, but more states are working on the problem. We need this data to measure remediation incidence, college persistence and completion. States have made progress in building data systems that track student performance over time, but are not sharing the information in a way that leads to meaningful decisionmaking, according to a Data Quality Campaign survey. The report specifies 10 state actions necessary for effective data use. But 43 states have taken three or fewer of the actions, which call for states to expand their data systems to include higher education and workforce information; ensure that the data can be accessed, analyzed and used; and build the capacity of stakeholders to use the data.
What high schools teach is not aligned with what colleges want. ACT has been doing these studies for years and here is the latest. High schools should focus on providing in-depth instruction of fundamental knowledge and essential skills, rather than covering a larger number of skills in less depth, to better prepare students for college and career. That is one conclusion of the latest ACT National Curriculum Survey® findings, released today by ACT, Inc. Read more
Black males complete college at less than half the rates of black females, and their college readiness is very low overall. A College Board report highlights the “overwhelming barriers” minority males confront in becoming educated and productive citizens and recommends national strategies aimed at erasing “the disparities in educational attainment.” Among the recommendations: convene a national policy discussion on the issue of minority male achievement; fund research to clarify issues that could impact minority male achievement; pursue P-16 partnerships to help minority males gain preparation and succeed in college; and identify and scale up funding for successful programs
Cal State is the largest senior college system in the USA with 450,000 students on 23 campuses Their 6 year graduation rate is about 46%. California State University is embarking on an ambitious initiative to raise its graduation rates and help more low-income and minority students earn degrees, even as it faces a grim budget. The university is setting a goal of boosting its six-year graduation rate by 8% by 2016, bringing it to 54%, in line with the top national averages at similar institutions. University leaders say they hope to raise graduation rates for underrepresented minority students by 10%, cutting in half what has been a thorny achievement gap in degree completion compared with white students. Be sure to go to the link and look at the specific policies and practices they wil use to increase college completion.
The following was published in Education Week by a Jobs For The Future Writer
By Vincent Badolato
When President Obama outlined his plans for the American Graduation Initiative, he emphasized the critical role of community colleges in educating and training students and adults for the jobs needed to keep the United States economically competitive.
“Now is the time to build a firmer, stronger foundation for growth that will not only withstand future economic storms, but one that will help us thrive and compete in the global economy,” he said in July at Macomb Community College in Michigan. “It’s time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future.”
A key goal of his plan is to see an additional 5 million people complete community college—earn a certificate or degree or transfer to a four-year school—during the next 10 years. That will help the country once again lead the world in the proportion of college graduates by 2020, a distinction now held by Canada. The administration is proposing $12 billion in competitive grants to reach that goal and, education officials hope, improve the skills of workers, pull us out of the recession and lay the foundation for economic growth.
The initiative brings a national focus on an educational area that has more often been fodder for disparaging jokes by late-night comics than viewed as a path toward a middle-class job or a four-year degree. But many see the schools as a key way to retrain laid off workers and help them gain skills that will put them back on the job.
“Our community colleges are an integral part of the solution to help get our nation out of the current economic mess,” says Washington Senator Derek Kilmer, who chairs the Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. “They are critical for helping us retrain workers and meeting current and emerging employer demands.”
Idaho Senator John Goedde agrees. “The community college is one of our best economic development tools in that it can tailor training programs to suit the needs of industry,” he says. “It provides additional education to working adults in the community or those attempting to gain employment skills.”
The need to retrain and help people get back to work is critical. Unemployment reached 10.2 percent in October and some economists think it may exceed the 10.8 percent the nation hit in 1982—the highest rate since the Great Depression. The number of people unemployed was at 15.7 million in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The economy is changing, national demographics are changing, and in this new and evolving work environment, community colleges will be the driving force behind the future workforce,” says Carol Lincoln, senior program director at MDC, an education and workforce consultancy.
The original community colleges at the turn of the 20th century focused on a traditional liberal arts education. It wasn’t until the Great Depression that community colleges also began to focus on job training. Then the post-World War II manufacturing boom and the original GI Bill led the Truman Commission to recommend creating a system of public colleges to serve local postsecondary and job training needs.
As baby boomers came of age in the 1960s, community colleges took off. More than 450 schools were founded during that decade. There are now about 1,200 community colleges in the United States, and the number is approximately 1,600 when school branches are included.
Community colleges enroll almost half of all American undergraduates in public institutions—6.5 million, or 46 percent—and about 5 million additional students who take classes for job skills or general educational enrichment but are not seeking a degree or certificate. These numbers are expected to be noticeably higher over the next few years as more people look to gain or improve their work skills. Taken together, community colleges award about 820,000 associate degrees or certificates annually.
Community colleges are traditionally the most affordable schools, with an average price tag of $2,361 a year compared to $6,185 for four-year public research institutions, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. And they almost always admit anyone with a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate.
These features make community colleges the workhorses of higher education. They serve myriad roles, including helping students catch up through developmental, or remedial, classes; preparing students to transfer to four-year institutions; providing specialized workforce and jobs skills training; and teaching English as a second language. They also reach a disproportionate share of nontraditional college students—single parent, low-income, minority, immigrant, part-time, first generation and adult.
Community colleges also educate a large number of workers for vital professions. They are being called on in Michigan, for example, to help train displaced manufacturing workers for new “green jobs,” such as building solar panels and wind turbines. About 80 percent of law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians and almost 60 percent of new nurses and other health-care workers are credentialed at community colleges,
Obama’s proposed American Graduation Initiative would offer an unprecedented increase in financial support for community colleges. The $12 billion in competitive grants would help them pay for new strategies to help students complete college, offer more programs that improve educational and employment results, improve facilities and create new online courses.
Improving community college completion rates is the most crucial part of this initiative. Close to half of all people who enter community colleges intending to graduate or transfer to a four-year school don’t reach their goal within six years.
“Those who begin at a community college thinking they will complete and then don’t leads to a huge loss of their dollars and state dollars as well,” says Theresa Lubbers, the Indiana commissioner of higher education and a recent senator. “Finding out what has contributed to their not completing—and what works to help them continue through a degree or certificate—is critical.”
The need to vastly improve completion rates at community colleges is echoed by Arkansas Representative Tiffany Rogers, who is also director of continuing education at Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas. “The access to a postsecondary education provided by community colleges is critically important, but providing access does the student or state little good if they aren’t successful,” she says.
Several initiatives in various community colleges throughout the country are trying to help students reach their goals. One that has shown great results is Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count.
The aim of this five-year initiative is to help more students reach their individual goals, which may include earning a community college certificate or degree, attaining a bachelor’s degree or getting a better job.
Achieving the Dream has shown some impressive results so far. States involved have made student success a central part of their strategic plan and developed clear placement and assessment policies for remedial education. The program also rewards behavior—of both institutions and students—for promoting completion rates, and has dramatically increased data systems, allowing states to provide standardized and customized reports to the institutions to better inform policy and practice.
While there is incredible potential for community colleges to help the nation meet college completion and workforce development needs, many challenges remain.
One of the most significant is improving the way remedial education classes are structured to help students finish more quickly and to reduce the need for them altogether. These classes can not only be expensive on a large scale, they also tend to discourage students from finishing college. The more of these classes students have to take, the less likely they are to get a degree or certificate.
“Unfortunately, it is not completely clear what really works to improve developmental education,” says Richard Kazis, senior vice president at Jobs for the Future. “Legislatures need to take the lead to make this is a priority.”
One step legislatures can take is to set a public goal to increase the number of students who successfully complete remedial classes and go on to finish a degree. Lawmakers can provide incentives and hold institutions accountable for reaching that goal.
State budget difficulties make all this more challenging. Community colleges rely on state and local appropriations for about 60 percent of their funding to keep them intentionally less expensive for students. As such, community colleges are heavily affected by cuts in state and local support.
“Decisions made at the state level have ramifications for community colleges,” says Washington’s Kilmer. “There is a real need for legislatures to discover and support policies that can lead to better student success rates.”
Demand to attend community colleges is rising quickly during this recession while funding has dropped and looks likely to drop more in the coming years. This has caused many institutions and systems around the nation to cap enrollments to ensure they adequately support the tide of new applicants.
Miami Dade College in Florida, the largest community college in the nation, has capped enrollments for the first time in its history. And in California, the nation’s largest system, $840 million in budget cuts has led to longer lines, fewer classes and higher student fees.
Advocates of community colleges, however, say it is
More men are attending college and graduating with a bachelor’s degree, reversing the tendency of females to outnumber and outperform men, according to an American Council on Education report. One notable exception is young Hispanic men, who are falling further behind Hispanic women. Men account for 43% of overall college enrollment and earn 43% of bachelor’s degrees. However, men are much less likely than women to go to college - or return to college - later in life: Undergraduate men age 25 or older are outnumbered by women in the same age group 2-to-1.
Financial concerns, from paying for college to job prospects, dominated the new-student experience in 2009, according to an annual survey on freshman attitudes. Some of the students’ concerns were driven by family finances. Another possible effect of the economic downturn was the change in the number of students who reported that they would pursue either majors or careers in business. When it comes to their studies, about 39% of freshmen said they would need tutoring or remedial courses while in college.
In this post, Will Fitzhugh, editor of The Concord Review, explains why it is important for high school students to write research papers. The review is believed to be the world’s only English-language quarterly review for history academic papers by high school students.
By Will Fitzhugh
Professors E.D. Hirsch, Jr., and Daniel Willingham of the University of Virginia have continually, and most usefully, pointed out that tests of reading are really tests of knowledge.
They have also campaigned, somewhat quixotically, to encourage educators and “literacy pundits” to recognize that knowledge has a lot more to do with whether students can understand what they read than does their heavy-laden toolbelt of gimmicks and techniques to teach “literacy skills.”
Indeed, one major literacy study and report recently pointed out, in an aside, that the idea that reading books will do a lot for the literacy of students is sadly misguided. What students need, it was felt, is lots more technique and process classes, K-12, on “finding the main idea,” “identifying the author’s audience,” and all like that there.
I would argue to the contrary.
Not only does reading books contribute powerfully to the knowledge that students need in order to read more and more difficult material (such as they should face in high school and will certainly face in college), but, also, the work of writing a serious research paper will lead students to do a lot more reading and to gather a lot of knowledge in the process.
A study done for The Concord Review Institute some years ago found that the majority of U.S. public high school teachers no longer assign serious research papers, because teachers do not have the time (or perhaps the knowledge) to guide students through them and to assess them when they are handed in.
It is clear that working with students on term papers would be less time-consuming than layup drills for basketball, tackling drills for football and batting practice for baseball, to which countless hours of students and coaches are devoted every year on a regular basis.
But as long as educators do not see that writing serious term papers will lead to more knowledge, which leads students to read better and understand more, such papers will continue to receive the small notice they now do.
The California State College System people, at a conference last November, reported that 47% of their freshmen are in remedial English classes, just one bit of evidence that those students have not done the serious reading and writing or acquired the knowledge they should have to get ready for college work.
There are those who say that high school students are really not capable of writing serious research papers—and one student even told me that at her school the assumption was that students would learn to write in college—but they are quite mistaken, as it turns out.
This view, when made known to college professors, does not make them happy. A Chronicle of Higher Education poll a few years ago found that 89% of college professors reported that the students they were getting were not very well prepared in reading, doing research, and writing.
Since 1987, I have published 879 history research papers (averaging 5,500 words, with endnotes and bibliography) in 80 quarterly issues, by high school students from 44 states and 36 other countries. Samples of this exemplary work may be found here.
As has so often been reported, and as famed teacher Jaime Escalante used to say, students will rise to the level of the academic expectations we give them. And this is true for serious term papers as well as for history books, calculus, science, foreign languages and the rest.
I hope that those who have written so convincingly of the need for students to have more knowledge in order to be able to understand what they are reading, will come to agree with me that in the process of writing serious term papers students are very likely to gain some of that knowledge, as they read and work on their own to produce informative and readable essays of the sort I have published over the last 20 years or so.
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