Tag Archives: College preparedness

Lumina Foundation study: Many students fail to complete college with the six year study period

19 Dec

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

The Big Four
A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.
Key Cognitive Strategies
Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.
Key Content Knowledge
Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….
Key Self-Management Skills
In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.
Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education
Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….
Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college.

The AP reported in the article, Study: 4 in 10 finish college where they start:

WASHINGTON — Fewer than half of all students who entered college in 2007 finished school where they started, and almost a third are no longer taking classes toward a degree anywhere, according to review released Monday.
The dire numbers underscore the challenges that colleges confront as they look to bring in more students and send them out into the world as graduates. The numbers also could complicate matters for students at schools with low graduation rates; the U.S. Department of Education’s still-emerging college rating system is considering linking colleges’ performances with federal financial aid.
Overall, 56 percent of those who started college in 2007 have finished their coursework on any campus, according to the research arm of the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit organization that works with colleges to verify students’ enrollment and graduation status.
About 29 percent of those who started college that year are no longer taking classes toward a degree. The researchers also found 43 percent of all students finished their degrees where they started. The number ranges from 67 percent of students who enrolled full time in 2007 to just 19 percent of those who enrolled part time.
Thirteen percent of students who entered college in 2007 finished their degrees at a different school from where they started.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center worked with more than 3,500 schools to review almost 2.4 million records and track students as they transfer among schools.
“Conventional approaches fail to capture the complexity of student behavior because they look only at the starting institution where the student first enrolled,” said Doug Shapiro, the chief at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
The new analysis indicates students who enter private four-year, not-for-profit schools are more likely to finish their degrees than those who pick public four-year or four-year, for-profit schools.
The research also indicates students who were 20 years old or younger when they started their degree in 2007 were more likely to finish their degree than were older classmates. Of those who were 25 or older when they began their studies, 44 percent did not earn a degree and are no longer enrolled in a program. Those older students, however, were a minority of all new students in 2007 by a 5-to-1 margin.
Among all students who started classwork in 2007, female students enjoyed a 7 percentage point advantage over men when it came to whether they had earned a degree in six years.
The numbers stand to complicate life for students and administrators at schools where many leave campus without a degree in hand. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has proposed linking tuition costs, graduation rates and other data to how much federal money each school receives…. http://nypost.com/2013/12/17/study-4-in-10-finish-college-where-they-start/

Here is the executive summary:

Executive Summary
This second annual report on national college completions rates continues to respond to the limitations of institution-based research by focusing on student-level data, tracking the completion of postsecondary certificates and degrees among first-time degree-seeking students who started their postsecondary education in fall 2007 and tracking their enrollments nationwide for six years, through the spring of 2013. The report also introduces an enhancement to the first Completions Report by including in the cohort students who entered college with prior experience in college-level courses through dual enrollment opportunities while still in high school.
The six-year outcomes examined in this report include completions at students’ starting institutions and transfer institutions, as well as persistence for those who had not earned a degree within six years. The report emphasizes students’ first completions throughout. For students whose first credential was awarded by a two-year institution, however, subsequent completions at four-year institutions are also reported. Six-year outcomes are presented by students’ gender, age, enrollment intensity, and the type of institution where first enrolled. This report expands on the two age groups reported previously by splitting the 24 and under age group into those older and younger than 20 years at the time of entry. We continue to present results for three categories of enrollment intensity: those enrolled exclusively full time throughout the study period, those enrolled exclusively part time, and those with a mix of full-time and part-time enrollments.
The tables and figures presented in this report explore the following:
Six-year outcomes for the fall 2007 cohort overall and broken out by enrollment intensity;
Six-year outcomes by student age at first entry overall and further broken out by enrollment intensity;
Six-year outcomes by type of starting institution overall;
Six-year outcomes by type of starting institution further broken out by age at first entry, enrollment intensity, and gender focusing on the students who started at four types of institutions specifically:
Four-year public institutions,
Two-year public colleges,
Four-year private nonprofit institutions, and
Four-year private for-profit institutions; and also
Certificate and degree completions that occurred at institutions other than students’ starting institution, broken out by location within the same state as the starting institution, outside the state, or at a multistate institution.
For comparison to the 2006 cohort, which was the focus of the 2012 report, this report includes selected results for the fall 2007 cohort excluding former dual enrollment students. A supplemental feature also explores follow-up seven-year outcomes for the fall 2006 cohort.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS
The patterns revealed in this study reflect both the complexity of students’ postsecondary pathways and the distinctive enrollment behaviors among students following non-traditional pathways. The results suggest that conventional approaches to understanding college effectiveness and student success, limited to students’ enrollment at the starting institution only, fail to fully capture national completion rates. It also demonstrates that, as students attend multiple institutions on the way to their first completion, each of these institutions is likely to have contributed, in its own way, to each student’s pursuit and achievement of their educational goals. The findings help point the way to policies that recognize and promote such student success while also crediting the institutions that contribute to it.
Figure A. Six-Year Outcomes by Enrollment Intensity (N=2,386,291)
Figure A. Six-Year Outcomes by Enrollment Intensity
*This figure is based on data shown in Appendix C, Table 7.
More than a half (56.1 percent) of first-time degree-seeking students who enrolled in fall 2007 completed a degree or certificate within six years, including 13.1 percent who completed at an institution other than their starting institution. Completion rates varied considerably depending on enrollment intensity (Figure A) ranging from about 22 percent for exclusively part-time students to 77.7 percent among exclusively full-time students. Six years is sufficient for most exclusively part time students to complete a two-year degree, of course, but not a four-year degree. Nonetheless, only 11 percent of the exclusively part-time students were still enrolled or persisting during the final year of the study.
Figure B. Six-Year Outcomes by Starting Institution Type
Figure B. Six-Year Outcomes by Starting Institution Type
*This figure is based on data shown in Appendix C, Table 14.
The total completion rates for students who started at each of the three largest institution categories ranged from 40 percent for students who started at two-year public institutions to 63 percent for those who started at four-year public institutions and 73 percent for students who started at four-year private nonprofit institutions (Figure B). The proportion of students completing elsewhere, however, was roughly the same for students who started at any of these three largest institution types – about 13 to 14 percent of the starting cohort.
Comprehensive Completion Rates Beyond the Starting Institution
Accounting for completions beyond the starting institution raises the overall six-year completion rate above the halfway point, from 43 percent to 56 percent. Nationwide, nearly one in four students who completed a degree or certificate (23.4 percent) did so at an institution different from where they first enrolled. That figure was slightly higher (24.7 percent) for traditional-age students and was one in three (33.6 percent) for students who started in public two-year institutions. Accounting for these mobile students increased the completion rate for every institution type and student subgroup we studied. The increases ranged from 3 percentage points for exclusively part-time students to 11 percentage points for exclusively full-time students and 16 percentage points for students who attended both full time and part time during the six years.
Completion Rates Across Age Groups
Figure C. Six-Year Outcomes by Age at First Entry (N=2,373,802)
Figure C. Six-Year Outcomes by Age at First Entry (N=2,373,802)NOTE: Student with gender data missing were excluded from the above figure. This figure is based on data shown in Appendix C, Table 9.
In this study we introduced a new age category, hypothesizing that the outcomes of students who delayed entry by just a few years after high school would be different from those of traditional-age students and adult learners. We found that the persistence and completion rates for this group were notably lower than those of students in the traditional-age group, more closely resembling instead those of adult learners who entered college after age 24.
Gains from completions at institutions other than the starting institution were greater for students age 20 or younger at first entry into college than they were for older students: 14.7 percentage points, compared to 8.4 and 6.8 percentage points for the delayed entry and adult learner groups, respectively (Figure C). This left a sizable gap between the overall six-year completion rates of traditional-age students and adult learners, with the latter having a much lower total completion rate (43.5 percent vs. 59.7 percent). The total completion rate was lower still (40.8 percent) for delayed entry students. Disaggregating results by both age and enrollment intensity showed that exclusively part-time students over age 24 actually had a higher completion rate than did part-time students in either of the two younger age groups, contrary to the trend for full-time and mixed enrollment students. An important takeaway from these findings is that institutions may want to consider differentiated approaches appropriate to students who delay entry as well as for traditional age students and adult learners.
Compared to those of younger students, the success rates of adult learners varied greatly depending on the type of institution they attended. Full-time students who started at four-year private for-profit institutions, for example, completed at their starting institution at a rate more than 17 percentage points higher than their traditional-age counterparts. This pattern was reversed, however, for adult learners who started at any other type of institution, where full-time adult learners completed at lower rates than traditional-age students. These findings suggest that adult learners may be engaged differently across institutional contexts. Institutions in each of these sectors may benefit from comparing the outcomes of their own students to those of national and sector benchmarks, and perhaps adjusting their strategies for supporting adult learners to address their particular patterns of success.
Six-Year Outcomes by Gender
This report introduces data on student gender to the Clearinghouse’s measurement of completion rates, providing a new tool for understanding trends in student success that was not available in our 2012 report. Overall six-year completion rates for the fall 2007 national cohort showed a gender gap of 6.7 percentage points in favor of women. However, when results were disaggregated by age at first entry the advantage to women was concentrated among traditional-age students, with relatively small to nonexistent gaps among older students. When examined across institution types, the advantage of women among traditional-age students remained consistent, but other patterns emerged among older students. For example, the six-year completion rate for women adult learners who started at four-year public institutions was slightly lower than that for their male counterparts.
Four-Year Completions for First-Time Students Who Started at Two-Year Public Institutions
For students who started at two-year public institutions we examined the overall completion rates as well as completions at four-year institutions, giving particular attention to whether they received their four-year degree with or without first earning a credential at a two-year institution. Overall, 17.1 percent of two-year starters completed a degree at a four-year institution by the end of the study period, and over half of these did so without first obtaining a two-year degree. These students transferred and graduated from a four-year institution without receiving any credential from their starting (or from any other) two-year institution. Traditional graduation rate measures that focus only on completions at the starting institution do not account for this type of outcome, even though it is a well-worn pathway receiving increasing attention in today’s resource-constrained policy environment.
Completion Rates for Dual Enrollment Students
As an enhancement to the first Completions Report, this report introduces a larger study cohort by including former dual enrollment students, first-time college students who had enrolled in college courses while still in high school. When these students were added to the cohort, the overall completion rate jumped from 54 percent to 56 percent. Analysis of the postsecondary outcomes of former dual enrollment students showed a completion rate of 66 percent for this group, 12 percentage points higher than the rate for students with no prior dual enrollment experience. This descriptive study cannot speak to the effectiveness of dual enrollment programs per se, since there are undoubtedly strong selection effects in the sample of students who participate in these programs for which the data in this report does not account. Nonetheless, the results show that including students with prior dual enrollments in the starting cohort clearly increases the observed national college completion rate.
Seven-Year Outcomes for Fall 2006 National Cohort
Finally, this report looks at seven-year outcomes for the fall 2006 cohort, tracking their enrollment patterns through spring 2013. Within seven years, 43.7 percent of this cohort completed at their starting institution, while an additional 14.4 percent completed at a different institution, for a total completion rate of 58.1 percent nationally – a 4 percentage point increase over the six-year rate reported in our 2012 report. The largest increase was among students with mixed enrollment, whose total completion rate increased by 5.6 percentage points with the additional year. The seventh year of tracking also captured a larger proportion of completions for mobile students, who can often take longer to finish degrees. Nearly one quarter (24.7 percent) of the completers had earned their first credential somewhere other than their starting institution, compared to 22.4 percent of the same cohort when measured at the six-year point. These results suggest that tracking students for a longer period better captures outcomes for non-traditional students, such as those with mixed enrollments and multiple institutions in their pathways to the degree.
Exploring college completions at the student level provides an alternate, more comprehensive view of student progress and success in U.S. postsecondary education that captures the complexity of students’ postsecondary pathways. Moving in this direction can facilitate a shift in public and institutional policies that acknowledges and responds to student pathways that include institutional mobility, part-time and mixed enrollment, a gender gap that varies by age, and entry into college at different ages and life circumstances. This kind of shift will, moreover, allow policymakers to measure and credit the contributions of institutions that serve students who transfer or who enroll part time.
As higher education policy increasingly focuses on measuring student outcomes, it is important to ensure that we capture the full range of student enrollment, persistence, and completion behaviors. The findings highlighted in this report show the value and power of using comprehensive national student-level data, such as used for this report.
http://nscresearchcenter.org/signaturereport6/

Citation:

Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates – Fall 2007 Cohort
This second annual report on national college completions rates continues to respond to the limitations of institution-based research by focusing on student-level data, tracking the completion of postsecondary certificates and degrees among first-time degree-seeking students who started their postsecondary education in fall 2007 and tracking their enrollments nationwide for six years, through the spring of 2013. The report also introduces an enhancement to the first Completions Report by including in the cohort students who entered college with prior experience in college-level courses through dual enrollment opportunities while still in high school.
AUTHORS
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
• Doug Shapiro
• Afet Dundar
Project on Academic Success, Indiana University
• Mary Ziskin
• Xin Yuan
• Autumn Harrell
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Peter Ewell and Patrick Kelly, of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), for their thoughtful comments and suggestions; Robin LaSota, Post-Doctoral Research Associate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her assistance with writing and editing sections of the report; Vijaya Sampath, Jason DeWitt, and Diana Gillum from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center for their work to make the Clearinghouse data analysis-ready and sharing their deep knowledge of the data with the authors; and the members of the Project on Academic Success team, Youngsik Hwang and Sarah Martin, for their efforts and thoughtful comments. Of course, any remaining errors or omissions are solely the responsibility of the authors.
SPONSOR
This report was supported by a grant from the Lumina Foundation. Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based private foundation, is committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college — especially 21st century students: low-income students, students of color, first-generation students and adult learners. Lumina’s goal is to increase the percentage of Americans who hold high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina pursues this goal in three ways: by identifying and supporting effective practice, through public policy advocacy, and by using our communications and convening power to build public will for change. For more information, log on to http://www.luminafoundation.org.

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

Related:

Colleges rethinking who may need remedial education
https://drwilda.com/2012/10/24/colleges-rethinking-who-may-need-remedial-education/

Research: Summer bridge programs can help students succeed in college https://drwilda.com/2012/05/14/research-summer-bridge-programs-can-help-students-succeed-in-college/

Complete College America report: The failure of remediation
https://drwilda.com/2012/06/21/complete-college-america-report-the-failure-of-remediation/

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National Center on Education and the Economy report: High schools are not preparing students for community college

14 May

Moi wrote in Many NOT ready for higher education:

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

The Big Four

A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.

Key Cognitive Strategies

Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.

Key Content Knowledge

Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….

Key Self-Management Skills

In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.

Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education

Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….

Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college. https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

Katherine Mangan reports in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, High Schools Set Up Community-College Students to Fail, Report Says:

Community colleges’ academic expectations are “shockingly low,” but students still struggle to meet them, in part because high-school graduation standards are too lax in English and too rigid in mathematics, according to a study released on Tuesday by the National Center on Education and the Economy.

Students entering community colleges have poor reading and writing skills and a shaky grasp of advanced math concepts that most of them will never need, the study found…. http://chronicle.com/article/High-Schools-Set-Up/139105/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Here is the press report from the National Center on Education and the Economy:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Emily Kingsland

May 7, 2013

(202) 379 -1800

ekingsland@ncee.org

High Schools Fail to Teach What Graduates Need to Succeed in Community Colleges, Instead Teaching What They Don’t Need

New report from the National Center on Education and the Economy is first to look at the literacy levels actually required for success in nation’s community colleges

WASHINGTON, DC — Students are failing to learn the basic math and English skills and concepts needed for success in community colleges, according to a new report from the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) entitled, What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready: The English and Mathematics Required by First Year Community College Students That’s the surprising and discouragingcentral conclusion of a groundbreaking two year study, which examined the skills and knowledge in mathematics and English literacy that high school graduates need to succeed in the first year of their community college programs.

“We were surprised how little math is used in first year community college courses, and what is used is mostly middle school math,” said Phil Daro, co-chair of the study’s Mathematics Panel and co-director in the development of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. “Our system makes no sense for these students: even though so many students have a shaky understanding of the middle school mathematics they really need, high school courses spend most of these students’ time on topics not needed for their college programs.”

“The reading skills of our high school graduates are so low that most community college instructors do not expect their students to be able to read at the level of their textbooks,” said Catherine Snow, co-chair of the study’s English Panel and Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Their writing skills are so low that instructors rarely ask their students to write very much outside of their English composition classes, and, when they do, the writing they are asked to do is not very demanding.”

These are just a few of the key findings from the first study ever done that actually examines the level of mathematics and English literacy needed to succeed in the first year of study at our nation’s community colleges.

Roughly 45 percent of our nation’s undergraduates are attending community colleges, according to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). About half of those students are training to go directly into the workforce and enter popular fields such as nursing, law enforcement, auto mechanics or education, while others are working to complete the first two years of a four year degree program. The report concludes that students who cannot succeed in the first year of a community college program are surely not ready for success in college or the workplace.

Most studies of course requirements in our colleges simply ask instructors what students need to know to be successful in their institutions, but that method is notoriously unreliable, because instructors typically respond to such surveys by telling the interviewer what they would like students to know, not what they actually need to know.

This study was conducted by NCEE in collaboration with a team of leading scholars and community college leaders. It analyzed the textbooks, papers and projects students are assigned; the tests they are given; and the grades they get on both. These materials were gathered from a set of nine popular and diverse career oriented programs in randomly selected community colleges across seven diverse states.

AACC urged educators at the secondary and post -secondary levels to read carefully the specific findings of the report and reevaluate their courses and materials to ensure they are meeting students’ needs at every stage of their educational paths. “This study emphasizes the critical importance of better aligning the entire pipeline to ensure all students are adequately prepared for college and careers in the 21st century,” said Walter Bumphus, president and CEO of AACC. Achieve President Michael Cohen pointed out that this report’s findings constitute a powerful argument for implementing the new Common Core State Standards for literacy in mathematics and English. “This very important report underscores the urgent need for states to implement the Common Core State Standards. If the CCSS were properly implemented, students would have the kind of mastery of middle school mathematics skills identified in this report as the most important math skills needed in the first year of community college. Similarly, the report makes it crystal clear why the CCSS English literacy standards stressed the need for great improvements in students’ ability to do non-fiction reading and writing.”

The reports’ authors concentrate their recommendations on the steps schools must take to enable more of their graduates to succeed in our community colleges, but also touch on what community colleges can do. Among the recommendations are the following:

! Make Algebra II a key course on just one of several mathematics paths to a high school diploma, eliminatingthe mandatory status it has in some states.

! Have most students spend more time on middle school mathematics rather than rushing toward Algebra I.

! Reconceive community college placement tests to align them with the mathematics students actually need to succeed in their first credit-bearing programmatic courses.

! Increase writing assignments across all high school courses, especially those that require the presentation of a logical argument and evidence to support claims.

! Have high school students read texts of greater complexity.

Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy said, “This report shows that our community colleges have shockingly low expectations of the students entering their institutions, because many perhaps most of our future nurses, EMT’s and auto mechanics haven’t mastered middle school mathematics and cannot read much of the material in their first year college textbooks even though they are only written at the 11th and 12th grade levels and a large fraction of our future four year college students have a very hard time

Citation:

NCEE has just released What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready?, a study of the English Literacy and Mathematics required for success in the first year of community college. On May 7th, during a day-long meeting, key education and policy leaders joined NCEE to discuss the results of the study and its implications for community college reform, school reform, teacher education, the common core state standards, and vocational education and the workplace.

Click here to watch the video of the event.

Helpful Links:

Download the Executive Summary

Download the Math Report

Download the English Report

Agenda

Speaker Biographies

Q&As

Summary of Findings

InCritical thinking is an essential trait of an educated person, moi said:

There is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the state of education in America. A lot of that dissatisfaction comes from the belief that the education system fails to actually educate children and to teach them critical thinking skills. The University of Maine at Augusta defines an educated person:

An educated person exhibits knowledge and wisdom; recognizes and respects the diversity of nature and society; demonstrates problem solving skills; engages in planning and managing practices; navigates the on-line world; writes and speaks well; acts with integrity; and appreciates the traditions of art, culture, and ideas. Developing these abilities is a life-long process. http://www.uma.edu/educatedperson.html

Essential to this definition is the development of critical thinking skills.

The Critical Thinking Community has several great articles about critical thinking at their site. In the section, Defining Critical Thinking:

A Definition
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any subject, content, or problem – in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.

The Result

A well cultivated critical thinker:

  • raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and
    precisely;

  • gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to
    interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;

  • thinks open mindedly within alternative systems of thought,
    recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and

  • communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.  (Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008). http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

The question is how to teach critical thinking skills. David Carnes wrote the excellent Livestrong article, How to Build Critical Thinking Skills in Children. http://www.livestrong.com/article/167563-how-to-build-critical-thinking-skills-in-children/#ixzz1kB28AgFS

Related:

What the ACT college readiness assessment means                                            https://drwilda.com/2012/08/25/what-the-act-college-readiness-assessment-means/

Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’                                      https://drwilda.com/2012/07/11/study-what-skills-are-needed-for-21st-century-learning/

ACT to assess college readiness for 3rd-10th Grades                                        https://drwilda.com/2012/07/04/act-to-assess-college-readiness-for-3rd-10th-grades/

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Dr. Wilda says this about that

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                      http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

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College Board to redesign SAT test

3 Mar

Moi wrote in College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’:

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready? http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

There are two primary tests which access student preparedness for college, the ACT and the SAT. The SAT is owned by the College Board which has announced they will be redesigning the test. The ACT has overtaken the ACT as the primary test assessment.

Valerie Strauss reports in the Washington Post article, SAT exam to be redesigned:

The College Board, the nonprofit organization that owns the SAT, late last year appointed a new president, David Coleman, who was a co-writer of the Common Core State Standards. In a recent speech at the Brookings Institution, Coleman said he has a number of problems with the SAT as now written, including with its essay and vocabulary words. (You can read about that here.)

College Board Vice President Peter Kauffmann said the following e-mail was sent to all members of the College Board:

In the months ahead, the College Board will begin an effort in collaboration with its membership to redesign the SAT® so that it better meets the needs of students, schools, and colleges at all levels. We will develop an assessment that mirrors the work that students will do in college so that they will practice the work they need to do to complete college. An improved SAT will strongly focus on the core knowledge and skills that evidence shows are most important to prepare students for the rigors of college and career. This is an ambitious endeavor, and one that will only succeed with the leadership of our Board of Trustees, the strong coordination of our councils and committees, and the full engagement of our membership.

First administered in 1926, the SAT was created to democratize access to higher education for all students. Today the SAT serves as both a measure of students’ college and career readiness and a predictor of college outcomes. In its current form, the SAT is aligned to the Common Core as well as or better than any assessment that has been developed for college admission and placement, and serves as a valuable tool for educators and policymakers. While the SAT is the best standardized measure of college and career readiness currently available, the College Board has a responsibility to the millions of students we serve each year to ensure that our programs are continuously evaluated and enhanced, and most importantly respond to the emerging needs of those we serve.

As we begin the redesign process, there are three broad objectives that will drive our work:

• Increase the value of the SAT to students by focusing on a core set of knowledge and skills that are essential to college and career success; reinforcing the practice of enriching and valuable schoolwork; fostering greater opportunities for students to make successful transitions into postsecondary education; and ensuring equity and fairness.

• Increase the value of the SAT to higher education professionals by ensuring that the SAT meets the evolving needs of admission officers, faculty, and other administrators, and that the SAT remains a valid and reliable predictor of college success.

• Increase the value of the SAT to K–12 educators, administrators and counselors by strengthening the alignment of the SAT to college and career readiness; ensuring that the content reflects excellence in classroom instruction; and developing companion tools that allow educators to use SAT results to improve curriculum and instruction.Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the misuse of standardized tests, said this about the redesign:

The College Board’s announcement that it plans to revise its flagship exam, less than eight years after the previous “major overhaul” of the test was first administered, is an admission that  the highly touted “new SAT” introduced in 2005 was a failure. The latest version of the test is, in fact, no better than its predecessor in predicting academic success in higher education or in creating a level playing field to assess an increasingly diverse student body. The only significant changes were that it was longer and cost test-takers more. As a result, more than 80 additional institutions have adopted test-optional or test flexible policies (attached), and the ACT overtook the SAT as the nation’s most popular exam for colleges which still require a test. Those developments left the new College Board leadership with no choice but to try to “reformulate” its product in an effort to maintain market share and relevance. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/26/sat-exam-to-be-redesigned/

See, College Board Announces Sweeping SAT Redesign http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/college-board-announces-sweeping-sat-redesign/

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

Related:

What , if anything, do education tests mean? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/what-if-anything-do-education-tests-mean/

Complete College America report: The failure of remediation https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/complete-college-america-report-the-failure-of-remediation/

What the ACT college readiness assessment means https://drwilda.com/2012/08/25/what-the-act-college-readiness-assessment-means/

The importance of the National Assessment of Educational Progress                                                          https://drwilda.com/2012/09/12/the-importance-of-the-national-assessment-of-educational-progress/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                 Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                         http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                              http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                https://drwilda.com/

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Studies: Colleges don’t accurately assess which students need remedial courses

26 Feb

Moi wrote about remedial education in Remedial education in college:

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

The Big Four

A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.

Key Cognitive Strategies

Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.

Key Content Knowledge

Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….

Key Self-Management Skills

In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.

Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education

Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….

Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college.

Jon Marcus for the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit based at Teachers College, Columbia University that produces in-depth education journalism writes a guest post for the Washington Post, Many students could skip remedial classes, studies find. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/many-students-could-skip-remedial-classes-studies-find/2012/02/28/gIQA5p5rgR_blog.html

https://drwilda.com/2012/03/04/remedial-education-in-college/

Sarah D. Sparks reports in the Education Week article, Many Students Don’t Need Remediation, Studies Say:

At a time when more high schools are looking to their graduates’ college-remediation rates as a clue to how well they prepare students for college and careers, new research findings suggest a significant portion of students who test into remedial classes don’t actually need them.

Separate studies from Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education come to the same conclusion: The way colleges are using standardized placement tests such as the College Board’s Accuplacer, ACT’s Compass, and others can misidentify students, and secondary schools and universities should work to develop a more comprehensive profile of students’ strengths and weaknesses in performing college-level work.

The problem is coming to the fore as more states move to align their academic standards for college and career readiness with the Common Core State Standards and federal Race to the Top requirements and more high schools receive data on how their graduates are faring in colleges.

Thomas W. Brock, the new commissioner of the National Center for Education Research and a veteran higher education researcher, said improving remedial education has become a top research and policy concern. “It’s a huge need,” he said. “At many institutions, it’s a majority of students coming in and being placed into developmental ed.—and this is where it starts to bleed into the financial-aid agenda, because they’re using up valuable semesters of financial aid, which of course are not endless.”http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/02/20/21remediation_ep.h32.html?tkn=OLMFgMLxt1c%2F7EgyN%2FhosSD5NZpJQqsPmhKk&cmp=clp-edweek

Citation:

Improving the Targeting of Treatment: Evidence from College Remediation

Judith Scott-Clayton, Peter M. Crosta, Clive R. Belfield

NBER Working Paper No. 18457
Issued in October 2012
NBER Program(s):   ED

At an annual cost of roughly $7 billion nationally, remedial coursework is one of the single largest interventions intended to improve outcomes for underprepared college students. But like a costly medical treatment with non-trivial side effects, the value of remediation overall depends upon whether those most likely to benefit can be identified in advance. Our analysis uses administrative data and a rich predictive model to examine the accuracy of remedial screening tests, either instead of or in addition to using high school transcript data to determine remedial assignment. We find that roughly one in four test-takers in math and one in three test-takers in English are severely mis-assigned under current test-based policies, with mis-assignments to remediation much more common than mis-assignments to college-level coursework. We find that using high school transcript information—either instead of or in addition to test scores—could significantly reduce the prevalence of assignment errors. Further, we find that the choice of screening device has significant implications for the racial and gender composition of both remedial and college-level courses. Finally, we find that if institutions took account of students’ high school performance, they could remediate substantially fewer students without lowering success rates in college-level courses.

 

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

Resources:

States Push Remedial Education to Community Colleges http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/01/13/states-push-remedial-education-to-community-colleges

What are ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks?                  http://www.nc4ea.org/files/act_college_readiness_benchmarks-01-14-11.pdf

Related:

Colleges rethinking who may need remedial education https://drwilda.com/2012/10/24/colleges-rethinking-who-may-need-remedial-education/

Research: Summer bridge programs can help students succeed in college                                                                   https://drwilda.com/2012/05/14/research-summer-bridge-programs-can-help-students-succeed-in-college/

Complete College America report: The failure of remediation https://drwilda.com/2012/06/21/complete-college-america-report-the-failure-of-remediation/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                          https://drwilda.com/

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Complete College America report: The failure of remediation

21 Jun

In Remedial education in college, moi said:

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

The Big Four

A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.

Key Cognitive Strategies

Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.

Key Content Knowledge

Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….

Key Self-Management Skills

In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.

Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education

Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….

Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college.

Jon Marcus for the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit based at Teachers College, Columbia University that produces in-depth education journalism writes a guest post for the Washington Post, Many students could skip remedial classes, studies find.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/many-students-could-skip-remedial-classes-studies-find/2012/02/28/gIQA5p5rgR_blog.html

Tamar Lewin of the New York Times also reports on the studies in, Colleges Misassign Many to Remedial Classes, Studies Find. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/education/colleges-misassign-many-to-remedial-classes-studies-find.html?emc=eta1

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/remedial-education-in-college/

Complete College America has completed the report, Remediation: Higher Education’s Bridge to Nowhere which examines college remediation programs.

Huffington Post is reporting in the article, College Preparedness Lacking, Forcing Students Into Developmental Coursework, Prompting Some To Drop Out:

High school graduates may be attending college in record numbers, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily ready for higher education.

According to Complete College America — a Washington-based nonprofit aimed at increasing college completion — four in 10 high school graduates are required to take remedial courses when they start college. According to Cincinnati.com, two-thirds of those students attending four-year colleges in Ohio and Kentucky fail to earn their degrees within six years — a number that is on par with national statistics.

College completion rates are even lower at two-year and community colleges. In Ohio and Kentucky, only 6.4 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively, of remedial students earn an associate’s degree in three years. The rest either require more than three years, or withdraw.

Researchers say that remedial numbers have increased from nearly one-third of incoming college freshmen in 2001, to about 40 percent currently. The most common remedial — otherwise known as “developmental” — classes are math, English and writing, and many students are unaware that they need theses courses until they start planning their schedules and colleges decide who is required to take placement tests.

About 1.7 million students nationwide take remedial classes — a cost of $3 billion a year, since developmental courses often cost as much as regular college courses.

Experts also say that remedial coursework makes taxpayers pay twice — once for students to learn in high school, and again in college.

“It’s not efficient to be using those higher education dollars for remedial coursework,” Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the Ohio Board of Regents, told Cincinnati.com. “It’s not only more difficult andmore expensive, it can cause students to not complete.”

The ACT indicates only about a third of high school students are college-ready, yet around two-thirds of them are college-bound every year. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/18/students-lacking-college-_n_1606201.html?utm_hp_ref=education

Here are the recommendations from the report, Remediation: Higher Education’s Bridge to Nowhere:

Students should be college-ready upon graduating high school. However, colleges and universities

have a responsibility to fix the broken remedial system that stops so many from succeeding.

Adopt and implement the new Common Core State Standards in reading, writing, and math. These voluntary standards, currently supported by more than 40 states, offer multiple opportunities for

states and sectors to work together to:

• Align high school curriculum to first-year college courses;

• Develop bridge courses; and

• Create support programs to help students make a smooth transition to college.

Align requirements for entry-level college courses with requirements for high school diplomas. Academic requirements for a high school diploma should be the floor for entry into postsecondary education.

K–12 and higher education course-taking requirements should be aligned. Provide 12th grade courses designed to prepare students for college level math and English.

Administer college-ready anchor assessments in high school.

These tests give students, teachers, and parents a clear understanding about whether a student is on track for college. Giving these assessments as early as 10th grade enables juniors and seniors to address academic deficiencies before college.

Use these on-track assessments to develop targeted interventions.

K–12 systems and local community colleges or universities can develop programs that guarantee that successful students are truly college ready and exempt from remedial education as freshmen.

Use multiple measures of student readiness for college.

• Recognize that current college placement assessments are not predictive and should be supplemented with high school transcripts to make recommendations for appropriate first year courses.

• Have all students taking placement exams receive a testing guide and practice test and time to brush up on their skills before testing.ne this: Some states are ensuring that more

Citation:

2012 Remediation Report

Download:

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

Resources:

States Push Remedial Education to Community Colleges http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/01/13/states-push-remedial-education-to-community-colleges

What are ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks?                     http://www.nc4ea.org/files/act_college_readiness_benchmarks-01-14-11.pdf

Related:

College Board’s ‘Big Future’: Helping low-income kids apply to college                                                                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/college-boards-big-future-helping-low-income-kids-apply-to-college/

Are college students stuck on stupid?                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/are-college-students-stuck-on-stupid/

Producing employable liberal arts grads                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/producing-employable-liberal-arts-grads/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Research: Summer bridge programs can help students succeed in college

14 May

In Helping community college students to graduate moi said:

Going to a community college is one way to reduce the cost of college.

The Lumina Foundation provides the following statistics:

  • Forty-six percent are 25 or older, and 32 percent are at least 30 years old. The average age is 29.

  • Fifty-eight percent are women.

  • Twenty-nine percent have annual household incomes less than $20,000.

  • Eighty-five percent balance studies with full-time or part-time work. More than half (54 percent) have full-time jobs.

  • Thirty percent of those who work full time also attend classes full time (12 or more credit hours). Among students 30-39 years old, the rate climbs to 41 percent.

  • Minority students constitute 30 percent of community college enrollments nationally, with Latino students representing the fastest-growing racial/ethnic population.

Source: The American Association of Community Colleges, based on material in the National Profile of Community Colleges:Trends & Statistics, Phillippe & Patton, 2000.

Many of those attending community college will need a variety of assistance to be successful in their academic career.https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/helping-community-college-students-to-graduate/

Caralee J. Adams has written the Education Week article, Colleges Offer Incoming Freshmen a Summer ‘Bridge.’

“Summer bridge programs can provide an important head start on college,” said Elisabeth Barnett, a senior research associate at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Community College Research Center in New York. “They can increase the chances that students will enter college without needing remediation, and they can help students to gain comfort with the college environment and with themselves as college students.”

Such programs, which tend to run four to five weeks, offer intensive academic instruction. At-risk students are often recruited, and colleges generally pick up the tab as an enticement.

Students can come for the day or, at some institutions, live in the dorms. In developmental programs, classes focus on mathematics or English. Other campuses allow students to take a broader range of courses. Almost all find providing “college knowledge” through peer mentors is a valuable way to help students feel more confident about the transition to campus….

Participating in the summer programs did not lead to higher enrollment or better long-term persistence, but Ms. Barnett said they are beneficial, and schools should build on them with supports in the freshman year and beyond.

There is an increased need for remediation for the broader swath of students enrolling in college, including those who are the first generation of their families to attend, said David Hawkins, the director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC, in Arlington, Va.

“This creates a significant demand for pathways that feed into the college pipeline that allow students the time and knowledge to catch up to others who were born into families who had gone to college and were exposed to that culture,” he said.

A new NACAC survey found that 57 percent of colleges have some type of provisional-admission program, and of those, 23 percent had a summer bridge program. Other NACAC research of camp colleges (a form of summer bridge) also reported better persistence and outcomes among participants.

“It seems like we are at a breaking point on cost and remediation,” Mr. Hawkins said. “It gives reason for colleges to want to open their doors earlier.”

Recruitment Issues

Nationwide, about 40 percent of all traditional-age college students at two- and four-year colleges take a remedial course, and about 60 percent of incoming community college students are deemed not ready in at least one core subject—math, reading, or writing.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/09/30bridge.h31.html?tkn=NTSFjDnm0FZQdpTpx9MAnzPSdg0kJXiVUEh4&intc=es

The National Center for Postsecondary Research has published a report, Getting Ready for College: An Implementation and Early Impacts Study of Eight Texas Developmental Summer Bridge Programs written by Heather D. Wathington, Elisabeth A. Barnett, Evan Weissman, Jedediah Teres, Joshua Pretlow and Aki Nakanishi.

Overview

In 2007, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) funded 22 colleges to establish developmental summer bridge programs. Aimed at providing an alternative to traditional developmental education, these programs involve intensive remedial instruction in math, reading, and/or writing and college preparation content for students entering college with low basic skills. In 2009, the National Center for Postsecondary Research (NCPR) launched an evaluation of eight developmental summer bridge programs in Texas (seven at community colleges and one at an open-admissions four-year university), the

early findings of which are described in this report. Students who participated in the study were randomly assigned to the program group or the control group. Program group students participated in the developmental summer bridge programs, while control group students received colleges’ regular services. All developmental summer bridge programs had four common features: accelerated instruction in math, reading, and/or writing; academic support; a “college knowledge” component; and the opportunity for participants to receive a $400 stipend.

The main findings of this preliminary report are:

• All eight programs in the study were implemented with reasonable

fidelity to the model framed by the THECB, but they varied on some

key dimensions.

• Program costs averaged about $1,300 per student but varied widely.

• Program group students did not enroll in either the fall or spring

semester at significantly different rates than control group students;

enrollment rates were high for both groups.

• There is evidence that the program students were more likely to pass

college-level courses in math and writing in the fall semester following

the summer programs. The findings also suggest that program students

were more likely to attempt higher level reading, writing, and math

courses compared with control group students. http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/DSBReport.pdf

In Producing employable liberal arts grads, moi said:

One of the goals of education is to give the student sufficient basic skills to be able to leave school and be able to function at a job or correctly assess their training needs. One of the criticisms of the current education system is that it does not adequately prepare children for work or for a career.

Related:

New report takes community colleges to task https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/new-report-takes-community-colleges-to-task/

Producing employable liberal arts grads https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/producing-employable-liberal-arts-grads/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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