High School Students Benefit From Early Warning Signals About Lack Of College Preparation
Much research has shown that students who aspire to broad access colleges lack signals about their high probability of ending up in remedial education in college. See our flagship publication- put Betraying The College Dream in Google. California State University created a grade 11 early assesment to let students know whether they would place into non remedial courses. It is called the Early Assessment Program -EAP , and is added questions to the statewide grade 11 assessments. In 2007, over 350,000 students elected to take EAP after they finished the state test. A recent evaluation by UC Davis and Cal State Professors shows that taking the test and getting early signals helps students in high school avoid college remediation. For a copy of the paper email mkurlaender@ucdavis.edu
CONCLUSION
Most, if not all, public secondary and postsecondary systems of education are badly misaligned (Kirst & Venezia, 2004). Standards for academic success vary both within and across sectors. This variation poses a significant challenge to students and policy makers, the consequence of which is a great deal of confusion and even ignorance among students about the academic demands of college. It is no wonder they are confused; among Sacramento State’s students requiring remediation in either math or English in 2007, the average GPA they earned in high school in the subject for which they needed remediation was just above a 3.1.Their high schools told them that they were successful B students, but their colleges told them that they were not ready to do college-level work. This troubling state of affairs is exacerbated by an ethos of college for all, with little regard to academic preparation. The EAP program is an intervention designed to improve the quality of information students have regarding the California State University’s standard for minimally acceptable levels of academic preparation in math and English. By providing this information to high school juniors, the architects of the EAP give students the opportunity to make more informed decisions about their secondary school curriculum and postsecondary pathways. The signaling value of ‘conditionally exempt’ may be especially powerful, as it provides a specific step forward, in addition to diagnostic information. Future research should explore whether student course taking in the senior year accounts for the relatively greater impact of the conditionally exempt signal on college application.
15 http://www.asd.calstate.edu/remediation/07/Rem_Sys_fall2007.htm
Postponing secondary school preparation to the postsecondary level is both controversial and costly. While critics raise important questions about the appropriateness
of colleges taking on the task of remediation, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on interventions that effectively reduce remedial course-taking, particularly at the less-selective four-year institutions where remediation rates are quite substantial. This research indicates that participation in the Early Assessment Program is predicted to lower a student’s probability of needing remediation by 6.2 percentage points in English and 4.3 percentage points in math when attending a typical campus in the CSU system. Moreover, our analysis of the mechanism by which EAP reduces remediation need rules out a simple sorting story. This suggest that the information about college readiness that EAP participants receive does not deter the students obtaining a “not college ready” signal from applying. Of course additional work on whether and how EAP is promoting students to take advantage of their 12th grade year to become college ready is needed to more fully evaluate the program’s intention.
Recent reports by the Government Accounting Office and the Spellings Commission call for more systematic research on the determinants of college attrition and time to degree. This research responds directly to their calls. Our study provides an evaluation of an early intervention program that may also improve college persistence and completion rates by reducing the need for remediation in college. With the EAP, California State University has articulated more directly to high school students what it takes to be college ready. Soon, the California Community College system will be following suit as a result of Senate Bill 946, passed by the California legislature this past September, expanding the EAP to students entering the state’s 110 community colleges.16
16 For additional information see the Legislative Analyst’s Office Report, Back to Basics: Improving College Readiness of Community College Students, http://www.cos.edu/eli/files/ccc_readiness_0608.pdf
In 2007, nearly half of the 49,274 first-time freshmen entering the CSU system required remediation in English. Although not free to tax payers, the EAP program is much less costly to the state or the student than remediation, particularly when weighed against the benefits of making more informed education decisions following high school. Decreases in remediation need of the magnitude we find in this study may yield a substantial reduction of remediation for the CSU system—the equivalent of about 3,000 students in English and 2,000 in math. Research on college persistence has consistently demonstrated that students with better academic preparation in high school are more likely to complete college. In addition to improving the transition into college for large numbers of high school graduates, we believe this intervention has the capacity to ultimately increase students’ probability of successfully completing a baccalaureate degree.
To get the study contact Professor Michal Kurlaender at UC Davis-mkurlaender@gmail.com< >< ><-->
