Posts published in 2009
High School Senior Slump Begins To Intensify
Systemic Incentives for High School Senior Slump
Now that the senior year of high school is ending its first half, it is an appropriate time to examine its impact upon college preparation and college completion. The American educational system does little to discourage high school seniors from focusing on matters other than academic work. Rather than using the senior year to complete their secondary education and continue to prepare for postsecondary education, many seniors take less demanding courses and pay less attention to them. Some students use this time for goofing off; others earn money for college or complete nonpaid internships.
For the 70% of students who go on to postsecondary education directly after high school, the primary academic tasks for senior year are, in their view, to graduate on time and to secure admission to college. The first of these tasks may be accomplished by taking the easiest courses that meet the school’s graduation requirements. The second of these tasks usually does not require any effort after the first semester of senior year, since college admissions decisions do not rely on second-semester grades and colleges rarely withdraw an admissions offer to a prospect whose grades drop sharply.
Indeed, the college admissions calendar encourages college-bound students to work hard in their sophomore and junior years—since those grades are reviewed by admissions officers—and provides no incentives for continuing to study hard or take challenging courses in their senior year. It is not unusual for the highest-achieving students to take AP courses in their junior year in order to gain admission to a highly selective college and then drop challenging courses after receiving early admission in the fall of senior year.
The students’ view is, of course, shortsighted. But it is hard for students to see beyond the twin goals of high school graduation and college admission. And in their minds, these goals are not only sufficient but discrete: They do not realize that meeting their high school graduation requirements does not mean that they are prepared for college (ACT, 2000). Nor do they think about using their senior year to prepare for the placement exams that may await them when they enroll in college.
One result is that many students who received good grades in high school spend part of their freshman year in college enrolled in remedial writing, math, and science classes. For example, 56% of the students admitted to the California State University campuses fail a placement test and must take a remedial course; at the more selective University of California campuses, almost a third of freshmen fail the writing exam.
Among those who fail college math placement exams are students who took math courses during their junior year in high school, but took no math their senior year. By the time they arrive on campus, they have forgotten their algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Instead of moving on to college-level work, they must revisit topics they studied in high school. Remediation is a particularly acute problem for low-income students who proceed directly from high school to postsecondary education (ACT, 2000).
The colleges know this—they know how many of their freshmen fail their placement tests, how many are on academic probation, and how many drop out because they are not academically prepared for college-level work. But most colleges, like their applicants, have been more concerned about access to higher education—about admissions—than about academic preparation. For example, most community colleges have an open admissions policy, which fulfills their mandate to provide access. But community colleges send weak signals to high school students about the knowledge and skills they need to acquire in high school in order to succeed in college. Only when these students arrive for orientation or registration do they discover that they will not be allowed to take for-credit courses until they have passed the college’s English and math placement exams.
The fault, of course, does not lie solely with higher education. Part of the problem is that the high schools view their curriculum more as a set of discrete courses than as a coherent program that culminates in the senior year. Seniors continue to accumulate the units needed for graduation with little guidance about the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in their next endeavor, be it college or a vocation. Despite the cliché about viewing high school graduation as a commencement, the high schools largely treat the completion of senior year as an end in and of itself.
In addition, the senior year has been left out of the accountability movement in the K-12 schools. New York’s state K-12 assessment includes the senior year; other states stop by the 11th grade and most stop at the 10th grade level. The K-12 assessment movement has no strategy for accountability for the senior year.
From this perspective, senior slump appears to be the rational response of high school seniors to an education system in which no one claims the academic content of the senior year as a basis for further education. Neither the K–12 system nor the postsecondary system provide any incentives for high school seniors to work hard. To understand this institutional disinterest in senior year, we must look at the almost total disjuncture between K–12 education and postsecondary education.
New Middle Grades College-Going Toolkit
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation through its Early College program has provided a useful toolkit.
| The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is pleased to share resources for promoting a college-going culture in the middle school years: Developing a College-Going Culture in a Middle School: A Toolkit by Su Jin Jez.
Students who enroll in college start working towards that goal before high school, much before they ever start thinking about college applications. But how can schools make the most of the formative middle school years to promote students’ college readiness? The Toolkit grew out of a study of the college-going culture in one middle school that was grounded in UCLA Education Professor Patricia McDonough’s nine components of a college-going culture. The Middle School Toolkit provides schools with an array of tools and resources to assess, understand, and improve their culture in ways that help middle school students take concrete steps towards college success. Resources include surveys and interview guides, an example case study from an early college school, and a list of educational resources for teachers, students, and parents. This resource was developed by Su Jin Jez, formerly of WestEd, and the Woodrow Wilson Early College Initiative. Currently, Dr. Jez is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration and Associate Director of the Education Doctorate Program at California State University, Sacramento. |
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| Link to Middle School Toolkit |
California State University Creates Selective Admissions Because Of State Budget Cuts
John Fensterwald, formerly of the San Jose Mercury News, has a blog on California education policy that has content well ahead of other media outlets-www.educatedguess.org. Here is a sample that is relevant to my blog.
The California State University system is about to send a harsh message to this year’s high school seniors and community college students aspiring for a four-year degree. In spite of record applications, CSU will admit 7 percent fewer students next year to its 23 campuses, while likely raising tuition yet an additional 10 percent. And, seniors, don’t think about straying too far from the nest: Depending on your field of study, you may be limited to attending the CSU closest to your home.
CSU Chancellor Charles Reed gave the grim assessment at a press conference Tuesday. He made it clear that his recommendations pained him. “Denying students access to the California State University is just about the worst thing I can do during a recession. But we have to provide a quality higher education to students and we cannot educate more students with less.”
The Legislature cut $564 million from the CSU budget this year, leading to furloughs and a 30 percent increase in fees. Cutbacks in admission over two years will reduce the 450,000 students in the system by 40,000. A quarter of that will happen this year, mainly by eliminating, for the second straight year, mid-year transfers from community colleges. The remaining 30,000 will result from fewer freshman admissions and fewer transfers in the fall of 2010.
The Mercury News offered a look <http://bit.ly/1nL5tO> at how one CSU campus will do the downsizing. San Jose State, with 30,000 grads and undergrads, will be allotted 2,500 fewer slots next year, on top of the 3,000 cut this year. Admission for the most popular majors – business, nursing, engineering, psychology – will go only to students from Santa Clara County, and will require higher grades and scores. Students outside the local area will be able to compete for spots for less popular majors, like biology, chemistry and computer science. Only those local and non-local qualified students willing to study aviation and chemical engineering – among the least popular majors – will be assured admission.
Applications to the most impacted campuses, such as San Jose State, are due Nov. 30. The early deadline may be one reason why, as of Oct. 1, there already were 266,152 applications to the CSU system, up 53 percent. Freshmen applications had increased by a third.
Reed will ask trustees to approve a 2010-2011 budget seeking $838 million more from the Legislature, restoring university funding to the 2008 level. Of that, $110 million would come from increasing student fees about an additional $500 – to more than $5,300. With midyear state budget cuts coming, and at least a $7 billion gap projected for next year, getting more money from legislators is a moon shot.
But legislators have also balked at cutting the $10 billion prison budget as much as the Gov. Schwarzenegger requested and experts for years have urged. As Reed said, it’s also a matter of priorities.
The College Remedial Trap And How To Get Out Of It :Part 2
Most college remediation is in math where students need to take up to three remedial courses to reach a beginning transfer course to a four year college. Most do not survive this path. According to the Carnegie Foundation, about 65% cannot pass these developmental courses and reach the first transfer class. Carnegie proposes to develop a one year math sequence ending with a statistics course that will count toward 4 year transfer credit. This new course would contain statistics, data analysis, and quantitative reasoning rather than just algebra.
This sounds like a good idea, but will the universities accept this different math content, and is there an ample supply of statistics teachers? For the article see San Jose Mercury News on December 1.
For Profit Private Colleges Rake In Federal Aid
Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of low-income students and increases in federal financial aid are ending up at for-profit schools. Last year, the five institutions that received the most Pell Grant dollars were all for-profit colleges, collecting over $1 billion among them. In the first quarter after the maximum Pell Grant was increased last July, the government paid out 45% more than during the same period a year ago. But the amount of dollars heading to for-profit, or “proprietary,” schools is up 67%. (Boston Globe, 11/29/09).
The College Remedial Trap And How To Get Out Of It
Qualifying for a transfer level course often requires taking multiple pre-requisite courses. This multi-semester sequence provides many chances for students to fall off track.
Depending on where a student scores in placement tests, they may face up to two years of required remedial courses in a developmental math sequence before even enrolling in a transfer level class. The length of this sequence entails a coordinated number of course registrations decisions over time, a successful negotiation of instructional expectations with multiple faculty, and acceptable student performance over multiple learning contexts. Taken in aggregate, this creates multiple opportunities for students to fall off track.
A simple mathematical model illustrates this problem. Suppose a sequence of four developmental courses and we optimistically project that 80% of students succeeding in each course, and 80% of those who succeed continuing on to the next course. Over the four-course sequence, a starting cohort of 100 students would reduce to 18. And that is based on a success and continuation rate that is higher than average.
Here are some principles to solve this problem:
Create a cohort model that lays out a clear course sequence, publicize it, and counsel students to follow it.
Individualize instruction – Create a modular curriculum that lets students move through at their own pace, and spend time as they need on topics.
Deploy hybrid course models which introduce more scheduling flexibility for students and thereby making it easier to fit academic requirements into their “complex other lives.”
Re-organize classes so that students co-enroll in two courses in the same semester and the two courses are taught as a single block.
Thanks to Carnegie Foundation for providing this content.
Male/ Female Gap In College Completion Still A Mystery
Last year females were 58% of college graduates at four year institutions. The ratio has been rising steadily, and is much worse for Latinos and African Americans. I read with anticipation the review of six new books on the cause for this in the November 23 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education on line daily-htlm@chronicle.com. But there was nothing new in any of the books except more speculation and no hard data. Various causes are argued , but no strong empirical evidence to support the assertions. At least the title is correct for the book reviews-The Puzzle of Boys
State Data For College Transition and Readiness Getting Better
The data quality campaign – www.DataQuality Campaign.org has released its annual survey of state data systems. Stimulus money and other causes have fueled an expansion of k-16 linkage. 30 state collect data on high school students that require remediation, up from 8 in 2005. 31 states can match records between k-12 and postsecondary education, up from 12 in 2005. Most surprising is that 37 states now have some form of collegereadiness test , up from 7 in 2005 .
I wonder what these state college readiness tests look like. They could be just scores on SAT or ACT rather than something based on state curriculum content standards and career education. Moreover, how is all this data being used for state and local decision making?
2 Million Students Now Attend Private For-Profit Colleges
Private for profit-colleges are growing faster than public and non profit colleges, and award 16% of all associate degrees. Students tend to complete associate degrees more quickly, and at higher rates than non profit instiutions according to the USA Department of Education. 60% graduate from for 2 year for-profit colleges compared to 22% at public community colleges. But for profit colleges have higher student loan default rates. despite their high costs of recruiting new students. Moreover, 54% of students graduate from 4 year public colleges compared to 44 % at for- profit colleges. Tuition at for profit 2 year colleges is 6 times higher than a public community colleges. Revenues at for profit colleges of all types is projected to reach 42 billion in 2014.
All this and more is in the November 8 issue of the Chronicle of Higher http://chronicle.comducation
Study Points Way To Improving Developmental Education For Community College Completion
Rethinking Developmental Education in Community College (CCRC Brief No. 40)
Community colleges are charged with teaching students college-level material, yet a majority of their students arrive with academic skills judged too weak to allow them to engage successfully in college-level work in at least one subject area. Colleges address this problem by providing extensive programs of developmental education designed to strengthen students’ skills so they can successfully complete college-level courses.
This Brief, based on a longer paper, reviews evidence on students who enter community college with weak academic skills, and it summarizes study findings on the effectiveness of developmental education. It suggests that, on average, developmental education is not very effective in overcoming student weaknesses. The Brief concludes with recommendations for a broad reform agenda based on a comprehensive approach to assessment, more research that tracks students through their early experiences at college, a blurring of the distinction between developmental and “college-level” students that could improve pedagogy for both groups of students, and strategies to streamline developmental programs and accelerate students’ enrollment in college-level courses.
Link to: Challenge And Opportunity: Rethinking the Role and Function of Developmental Education in Community College (Working Paper No. 14)
