Good and Bad News On College Transition
First, the good news: ACT scores were flat this year compared to last year, but this obscures the fact that 5 states have all their grade 11 students take the test. So usually this kind of expanded base would lower test scores. Moreover, the percent of students who have taken a college prep recommended curriculum continues to go up.
Now the bad news : the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in Measuring Up reports that between 1982 and 2006 college tuition and fees increased by 439%. College costs have risen faster than income, inflation, and health care. In 1996 need based student aid grants made up 84% of total grants, but by 2007 this had dropped to 72%.
The Latino Education Crisis And College Readiness
A new book The Latino Education Crisis by Patricia Gandara of UCLA and Frances Contreras of the University of Washington ( Harvard University Press ) is a comprehensive treatment of the this issue. It is the best compilation that I have seen covering preschool through college and out of school influences. But particularly strong are the 3 chapters that cover college knowledge, preparation, intervention programs, and student success. This is one stop shopping for all the key issues and solutions. The college transition part is enhanced greatly by what comes before in the book that lays the groundwork for understanding college success or failure.
For a comprehensive book review go to http://edrev.asu.edu
NCLB Needs To Be Changed To Focus More On College Readiness
As part of a series on the shortcomings of NCLB as it relates to high school accountability and improvement, the Alliance for Education has released a policy brief proposing a strengthened federal role in preparing students for college and career. At a moment when “emerging best practices have shed light on more effective approaches to high school improvement, the national discourse on high schools has begun to shift from one about the crisis to one about solutions.” The brief argues for “harness[ing] this progress and momentum,” strategically designing the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to “move the nation toward the goal of all students graduating from high school ready for college and careers.” Federal policy must therefore establish college and career readiness as the common goal for all students; ensure meaningful accountability for high school outcomes around common indicators; replace the current one-size-fits-all school improvement process with state- and district-led systems that are differentiated and data driven; support strategies for high school improvement on a larger scale, including district-wide; build system capacity to implement bold approaches to teaching and learning, school organization, and system structure; and provide new funding for the implementation of these innovative solutions.
Read more: http://www.all4ed.org/files/PolicyBriefReinventingFedRoleEd.pdf
State Common Core Curriculum Standards Will Be Political
A new effort by Governors and Chief State school officers to formulate common core standards for 46 states is underway. See www.ccsso.org The leaders want to rely on research and evidenced based information, but as this blog indicates below past efforts have been heavily influenced by politics.
Michael W. Kirst and Robin L. Bird
As the national debate about curriculum content standards demonstrates, policymaking around the standards is a political as well as a technical process (Ravitch, 1995). Disputes over such issues as the inclusion of AIDS education or creation science in a curriculum highlight the existence of value conflicts embedded in the development and maintenance of curriculum standards (Wirt & Kirst, 1992). Because of these conflicts, the process often requires complex trade-offs between groups of competing interests. In this blog, we review the political tensions surrounding the process including foundations for making decisions regarding the content of curriculum standards, the history of reform efforts, the role of values, and the influence of special interest groups.
The most common solution to determining curriculum standards is to endow an individual or group (e.g., a state school board or a national subject matter association) with the authority to make decisions about curricular content by professional, and presumably expert, judgment (Massell & Kirst, 1994). The community provides these decision-makers with a degree of autonomy that ranges from absolute responsiveness to virtual independence. For example, the Clinton administration’s Goals 2000: Educate America Act advocated that disputes concerning national standards content be resolved by a part of the federal government.
But what procedures do the developers of curriculum standards follow? Past efforts can best be described by what Lindblom and Braybrooke (1963) call disjointed incrementalism, a strategy in which decision-makers use pragmatic methods that result in minimal changes at the margin. Conflict is avoided by using vague language concerning standards and covering so many topics that no major interest group feels left out. Content priority is sacrificed to the political necessity of coverage.
The development of national mathematics and science standards, however, represented a change from disjointed incrementalism to a nonincremental reconceptualization and complete overhaul of subject matter standards and examinations. Examples cited by national standards advocates include efforts by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the National Academy of Sciences (Massell & Kirst, 1994). The politics of these efforts are complex, as one observer of NCTM’s efforts noted (Ball, 1992,
p. 2-3): Twin needs propelled the development of NCTM’s standards for school mathematics: the need to gain consensus and the need to promote change. On the one hand, if these standards were to stand as the banners of the community, then they had to reflect shared values and commitment. On the other hand, if change was desired, then these standards had to do more than reflect current practice. New ideas were needed, ideas that departed from extant assumptions and practices.
In short, the development of national, state, and local content standards requires complex trade-offs, and there is no way to avoid conflict and a sense of winners and losers. Difficult choices must be made concerning standards and the procedures by which they are established. Merely following the “right” procedural steps is not sufficient because there are many constraints on what can be included (e.g., length of the school day). The history of standards development has been one of jockeying for priority in an overcrowded school schedule, and some groups’ priorities are incorporated into the curriculum because of political considerations while others’ are neglected. For example, organized proponents of driver education and vocational education have been more effective politically than those of music education (Wirt & Kirst, 1975).
Efforts to formulate curriculum standards have provoked conflict over the proper foundations for deciding what to teach. For example, should schools teach those things that are likely to be useful immediately in life outside the school or those most fundamental to an understanding of organized knowledge? Should they emphasize the development of individuality or conformity to cultural heritage? As long as people disagree on how to evaluate curricula, they are bound to quarrel over its composition. The basis for this disagreement can even be such things as social class or race.
From 1900 to 1970, four foundations for evaluating elements of curricula emerged as salient: tradition, science, community, and individual judgment. These foundations are reflected in people’s preferences, but their conflicting natures create political stress and demand for curricular changes. They are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive, but do represent major streams of thought and feeling among constituencies. In short, they are ways of answering Herbert Spencer’s question, “What knowledge is of most worth?”
The appeal to tradition, exemplified by the Great Books program of the Council for Basic Education in Washington, D.C., rested on the assumption that subjects of study that survive the test of time are in the long view most beneficial and, therefore, should receive the highest priority in the curriculum. The appeal to science, the newest basis for curricular decision-making, has received strong support from many influential groups, including the U. S. Department of Education. This appeal rests on the assumption that educational and psychological research will reveal cognitive concepts that should guide teaching. The appeal to community presupposes that every school is part of a community of association and interests, in which reside the ultimate criteria of usefulness, relevance, and benefit of any curricular element. Therefore, those matters that deserve first priority in the curriculum are to be determined by the community, either directly via its representatives or by studies of the community. The appeal to individual judgment amounts to a skeptical denial of any rational basis for curriculum-making beyond the student’s own values, needs, and desires as these are manifested in his or her own judgments. Adherents to this position argue that any basis for curriculum is doomed to failure if it purports to provide answers to Spencer’s question.
Each of these values has its supporters and detractors who bolster their positions with techniques that we regard as political. Some schools stand primarily on only one of these foundations. Some liberal arts colleges rely largely on the appeal to tradition, as do the curricula of a number of private “Latin” schools. A number of Christian groups advocate traditional curricula. By contrast, several schools embrace a scientific basis such as constructivist pedagogy or stimulus and response psychological rewards. “Free” schools and “free” universities base their programs on the choices of individual students. Afrocentric schools are oriented to a community focus. But, by and large, the foundations of U.S. public school curricula represent a heterogeneous mixture. As such, they reflect the political compromises and diverse values found in any state or local district.
Utah Reneges On Student Aid
Utah promised students who got certain grades in college prep courses that they would recieve a scholarship to a state college. But because of budget shortfalls the grant was cut by 50%. This may be the first of many state merit aid cuts, because many states followed the Georgia Hope Scholarship idea in the last 10 years. Students will feel betrayed by politicians who promised specefic amounts of college aid.
The Status Of Improving The Transition From Secondary To Broad Access Postsecondary Education
This is a long blog , but it is an overview of where we are in the main subject of this blog. It covers many of the key issues and components.
Most of the nation’s eighth graders aspire to college. Unfortunately, however, the majority of them will not realize their ambitions to complete their higher education and gain some advantage in the job market.
In my research since 1998, I have not focused on students who seek acceptance at elite, selective institutions but rather on the 80 percent of high-school graduates who attend what I call broad-access postsecondary institutions. (Nearly half of first year students attend community colleges, and another 30 percent go to four-year schools that accept all qualified applicants.) And I look back on the last decade with some gratification and much anxiety. I have seen some, but not nearly enough, progress among high-school students when it comes to being ready to go to college and get their degrees. College completion rates are stagnant for recent for recent high school graduates with only twenty four percent of community college students in California receiving a vocational certificate, an AA, or transfer to a four year school after six years.
At community colleges, more than 60 percent of students who enroll after high school end up taking at least one remedial course. Four-year institutions like those in the California State University system have 56 percent of entering freshmen in remediation. Clearly, the connections between high schools and higher-education institutions are still not what they should be to help students prepare for college.
There are no definitive costs of remediation, but a 2008 estimate for California by the Pacific Research Institute included $274 million in direct costs for California postsecondary institutions, and several billion for remediation costs of businesses, diminished earnings of students, tax receipts, and government costs.
Media attention to poor college preparation has grown exponentially in the last decade. The policy agendas of various states have focused increasingly on college-transition problems, and some policy makers have raised specific solutions. Thirty seven states have established P-16 councils that enable the major state decision makers to deliberate on college transition issues. But few of those solutions deal with the magnitude or many dimensions of the problem, particularly financial incentives to increase college completion and aligned classroom instruction. Action beyond agenda-setting and policy discussions has been shallow and limited.
Moreover, evaluation of new policies, both the successes and the failures, to determine what works has barely begun. And enhanced awareness of inadequate college preparation and completion is largely confined to government leaders and policy elites, with little impact on teachers or administrators at the secondary or postsecondary level.
IN 2005, I and my colleagues at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education identified four state policy levers that are necessary for true reform to occur:
Standards alignment between high school and college for courses, content, and assessment;
Student financial support and incentives for higher-education institutions to provide better student-support services;
A data system that tracks the progress of individual students from pre-K through college; and
Accountability measures that link secondary and postsecondary institutions to student outcomes, like the completion of college.
How far along are most states in putting such policies and programs in place? The most progress has been made in aligning high school and college standards, led by groups like Achieve Inc., an organization established by governors and business leaders. Achieve is helping the Council of Chief State School Officers and National Governors Association to create a nationwide common core of curricular standards in English and math in 2010. More states such as Georgia and Texas are using, or considering the use of, assessments at the end of high school and other means of aligning curricula with college courses. Achieve has also worked to help establish high-school graduation requirements and develop other programs to ease the school-college transition in 31 states.
But broad-access postsecondary institutions rely on placement tests more than admissions scores like ACT or SAT, and few statewide secondary-school assessments are aligned with those placement tests or the content of first-year college courses. Colleges use many different types of placement assessments, and most high-school students do not know what those assessments will cover.
Meanwhile, Education Week’s “Quality Counts 2008,” which grades states’ policies and outcomes, has found that just 15 states have a definition of college readiness, and only three (New York, Rhode Island, Texas) require all students to finish a college-preparatory curriculum to graduate. Many state governments have chosen the easy route of simply specifying course labels to be taken—like geometry or biology, or three years of math— without doing much more. Further, the hard work of getting secondary-school teachers to work with their higher-education counterparts on subject-matter course articulation between the 10th grade and sophomore year in college has barely begun.
The lack of headway on financial policies is even more discouraging. Although more states are focusing student aid on needy students who complete college-preparation courses, too much federal and state money still goes to students who are so unprepared that they have little chance of college success. Meanwhile, financial-aid applications are so complicated that they make the standard income-tax form look easy.
Financial aid is not designed well for 75 percent of the community-college students who attend part time and live off campus. Financial aid is insufficient, complex, and hard for part-time community-college students to obtain. Federal financial aid is less for part-time students, aid forms must be filed before students decide to go to community college, and there are not enough counselors for evening students.
In addition, the use of state financial incentives to encourage college and universities to improve student outcomes has been largely unexplored. It is less expensive for most broad access public colleges to recruit a new student rather than provide services to retain a struggling student.
And unlike elementary and secondary education, the spending patterns within postsecondary systems and institutions is mostly a black box, so we do not even know where to start.
It is extremely difficult to find out how much money is spent on remediation, adjunct versus full time teachers, and counselors. For example, the California legislature appropriates money to the state’s community colleges for keeping students through the third week of a class, but it requires no other student outcomes.
How can we devise a K-16 state-finance system that supports efforts to lessen the need for student remediation and stimulates higher-education institutions to help more students obtain their degrees?
Theoretically, high schools and colleges could work together to design outcomes to meet outcome accountability targets, like the need for less student remediation. Then both high schools and colleges could be rewarded financially for outcomes they produce by working together.
Florida has a complete K-16 data system that follows students from kindergarten through graduate school. Most states are making significant data improvements (partly with federal money), but are not close to Florida.
Underlying all these difficulties, are the deeply rooted policy differences between the secondary and postsecondary systems. Meanwhile, there are few deliberative forums or interest groups that can bring together representatives from both educational levels to sustain momentum.
The future is murky, with both good and bad scenarios possible. A more positive future would include working simultaneously on all four policy levers, and a commitment to build teacher capacity to align instruction across the K-16 system. A more negative scenario would be slow incrementalism that addresses parts of the problem in an incoherent manner.
Perhaps a secondary-school-improvement focus in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization will galvanize faster and more inclusive improvement. Now states have an incentive to keep secondary school assessments below college level because more students will be able to become proficient by 2014. A differential federal policy could reward states with college level assessments by extending the federal proficiency deadline beyond the required date of 2014.
Michael Kirst is a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and a senior scholar at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
New Overview of National Education Standards Controversy.
Paul E. Barton of ETS has a very informative and balanced summary of the history and current context of national education standards called Getting Beneath The Surface. He outlines choices, risks, difficulties, and potential of national standards. It is only 40 pages long, but has most of the issues and useful citations.
Go to www.ets.org
Some High School Exit Exams Lower College Preparation
Professor Laura Perna from the University of Pennsylvania examined the impact of state exit tests on college prep in the May 2009 issue of Educational Policy. She found that: “High school exit exams shape college enrollment by limiting high school graduation; diverting attention away from ensuring that students are academically prepared for college toward ensuring that students obtain the minimum academic requirements for graduating from high school; reducing time for college counseling; and reducing students’ real and perceived academic qualifications for college. Second, the ways that state testing policies shape college opportunity vary across and within states.”
High school exit policies are complex to design correctly, and the college implications are often overlooked.
California Ineligible For Race To The Top Federal Competition
Because California law precludes linking state test data to specific teachers, one out of nine of the nation’s school children are not able to be part of Obama’s 5 billion dollar stimulus money. The legislature passed the law to preclude using state test scores for teacher evaluation at the behest of the powerful teacher unions. The Republican Governor says he wants to change the law , but he will confront a Democrat controlled legislature. California has huge remedial problems in its state colleges and California State University. Race to the top included college readiness as a funding criteria.
Education Week Story On Common Core Standards: An Excerpt
Published Online: July 23, 2009 : MY COMMENTS FOLLOW IN THE NEXT TWO POSTS BELOW
Draft Content Standards Elicit Mixed Reviews
A draft of common academic standards, meant to bring greater coherence to the nation’s English and mathematics lessons, is drawing a mix of enthusiastic, ambivalent, and barbed responses from those who have seen it.
The working document, which was unexpectedly put out for public consumption yesterday, is meant to serve as the first step of a standards-writing process, led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The crafting and review of those academic guidelines is expected to play out at least through the end of the year.
The draft that was circulated on the Web yesterday attempts to set “college- and career-readiness” standards for English and math—the skills students need to succeed in credit-bearing postsecondary courses and workforce-training programs.
From there, the NGA, CCSSO, and other organizations collaborating on the project will attempt to move back through the K-12 system, crafting English and math standards for earlier grades. Eventually, it will be up to state education leaders to accept or reject the final documents, after they have gone through several iterations, officials from the governors’ and chiefs’ organizations say.
Unlike some standards documents, the draft does not break out skills and knowledge by grade level—a level of detail that is expected to come, in some form, later. Instead, it spells out core standards, concepts, and principles in English and math in very simple terms, then provides more detailed explanations of what is meant by that guidance. It also offers sample texts for English, such as the Declaration of Independence, and sample problems, or “performance tasks” in math.
Forty-six states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have signed on to the common standards work so far, according to the NGA.
The draft document began drawing public reaction after it was unexpectedly posted on the Web site of Core Knowledge, a Charlottesville, Va., organization that advocates grounding students in a foundational and specific set of content across subjects.