A California Institute of Technology professor has a novel idea to keep up to half of students intending to major in tech or engineering in college from dropping out of the program before graduation. Yaser A. Abu-Mostafa, who teachers computer science and electrical engineering at CalTech, took the idea of a course that would teach incoming freshmen the basics of engineering and pitched it to the school’s admissions office.

Admissions officials were overjoyed, and now the class – Learning from Data – is available for free on iTunesU.

“University is a mystery to these students, and they really don’t know what they’re getting into a lot of the time,” said Dr. Abu-Mostafa, whose course ultimately attracted 100,000 subscribers. He estimates that one in 10 were in high school, based on the number of e-mails he received from different age groups.

“The class crystallized their interests,” he said, “and gave them some confidence going into the field.”

CalTech isn’t the only school to detect this need among aspiring college students. Brown University is in the process of developing a whole massive online open source curriculum aimed at high schoolers who hope to enter the school and major in engineering. If the Brown program succeeds, no longer will students interested in pursuing this and other technology-related topics start from scratch. By the time thy make it onto the Brown’s campus they’ll know what to expect, including which engineering specialty to concentrate on and what high school courses to take to get them better prepared.

“This is the kind of innovative leadership that can be a game changer for students,” said Josh Coates, chief executive of Instructure, the software company that provided the platform for Brown’s project. “We all know we need more STEM education, and bridging the gap between college and high school with an open online course is a great way to get more kids into these kinds of fields and more interested in the college experience.”

The 500-person cap for the first course section, which began April 1, was met in December. Teachers have also expressed interest in incorporating the course work into their own classes, Dr. Drexler said.

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This year’s edition of a school curriculum survey shows that the gap between high school teachers’ understanding of how well their students are prepared for college and the reality of their preparation remains wide, The Washington Post reports.

The results of the ACT National Curriculum Survey 2012: Policy Implications on Preparing for Higher Standards indicate that typical high school curriculum remains out of step with the set of skills students need to learn in order to succeed in college.

Authors believe that one of the largest contributors to the “perception gap” is the lack of computer technology in many classrooms, making it harder to assess students in such a way that makes peer comparison possible. The problem is especially acute in high schools where lack of access to a computers makes it less likely that a school will administer assessment exams meant to judge how well a student is prepared for college and likewise makes it less likely that students have the computer skills to take them.

But that hasn’t stopped teachers from feeling confident that students leave their classrooms equipped to take on more challenging coursework. Despite the rift between feelings and reality, teachers seem to embrace a realignment with standards that will close the gap:

Nevertheless, K–12 teachers tend to be generally optimistic about the value and potential effectiveness of college- and career-ready standards. This suggests that most of these teachers support the effort to improve standards and will work to help make it a success in the classroom.

There’s reason to believe that the gap between college preparedness and assessment of that preparedness will narrow with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards which are slowly being rolled out all over the country. The bad news, however, is that on another recent survey, teachers reported being too unfamiliar with Common Core to teach it successfully.

The authors recommend that K-12 and post-secondary educators collaborate to align course material so that more graduating high school students are ready for the rigors of college. And they call for more and better professional development for K-12 teachers about college- and career-ready standards.

The report was issued by ACT, the nonprofit organization that owns the ACT colleges admissions test and also provides assessment, research, information, and program management services in education and workforce development. ACT, it should be noted, has its own set of college readiness standards.

The report is based on replies to surveys collected from thousands of primary and secondary school teachers as well as instructors from colleges across the country in subjects like English, mathematics, reading, science and technology. In total, the survey drew nearly 10,000 respondents.

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In Oregon, newly passed House Bill 2995 will allow students faculty and staff to identify their sexual orientation on forms used to collect demographic information that includes gender, race and ethnicity in public universities and community colleges, reports Queenie Wong of the Statesman Journal.

The idea originated from Steven Leider, an Oregon State graduate student, who has researched lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students who have been disassociated from their parents after coming out.

Leider proposed the idea for the bill to Rep. Sara Gelser in order to collect more data about LGBTQ students — data Leider says is currently lacking and could help close gaps in higher education research about the LGBTQ community, from recruitment and student retention to graduation and drop out rates.

“This dearth of demographic data severely hinders any kind of empirical research from being conducted about this largely invisible student population,” Leider told the Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee.

According to Basic Rights Oregon, currently it is not prohibited for public colleges to ask questions about sexual orientation on college applications and other forms, but supporters of the bill hope that it will create more consistency and interest in data collection in the future.

According to supporters of the bill, answers about sexual orientation given by students, teachers and faculty will be kept anonymous and answering these questions will be optional.

Student organizations support the bill and feel it will help with bullying on campuses, which, according to a 2008 survey conducted by the Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance and Basic Rights Education Fund, is a very real problem. They identified a hostile climate surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity as a post-secondary education barrier for LGBTQ students.

It may also prove helpful for schools to have more of a feel for the schools LGTBQ population so they can properly address their needs.

“Not everyone wears a big neon sign to explain their sexuality to others so it can be difficult to accurately assess the needs and experiences of students without making a concerted effort to hear from them, especially those students who choose to conceal their identity,” said Dave Coburn, the legislative director for the Associated Students of Portland State University.

The bill was passed on April 17 by a 41-19 vote with opposition coming from Republicans. Now the bill is in the Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee for review.

Elmhurst College in Illinois became the first college in the country to ask prospective students about sexual orientation and gender identity on applications in 2011, and in 2012 the University of Iowa and the first public university to ask applicants about sexual orientation.

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When doling out financial aid, schools are increasingly bypassing low-income students in favor of their peers from wealthier families by offering merit-based rather than need-based grants, claims a new report from The New America Foundation based on data released by the U.S. Department of Education.

TNAF reports that in order to boost their position in the prestigious US News & World Report college rankings, schools are increasingly offering financial aid in the form of merit scholarships for high-achieving students. Applicants from low-income families tend to be underrepresented in that group.

According to NBC News, merit-based aid doesn’t take into account the applicants’ financial need. So to make themselves more attractive high-achievers – who tend to be wealthier than an average student – schools prefer, for example, to offer 4 $5,000 student grants based on academic performance rather than one $20,000 grant based on income.

While the federal government issues guidelines on distribution of its grants, it doesn’t regulate aid from an institution’s coffers. Colleges have fiercely fought efforts by lawmakers to force greater transparency in financial aid practices. Colleges, many under tighter budgets as they offer more amenities and hire the best professors, are under pressure to raise revenues and are using tuition prices to do so.

At the same time the cost of attending a four-year college has gone up substantially, with four-year public universities reporting a 5.2% increase in tuition every year for the past ten years. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tuition increases are significantly outpacing inflation.

This is considered one of the chief contributors to the student loan debt crisis, with the total amount carried by college students and graduates hitting $1 trillion this year.

The New America Foundation analyzed net price data — the amount students paid after all grant aid was exhausted — to conclude that hundreds of colleges expect the neediest students to pay an amount equal to or even greater than their families’ yearly earnings. For instance, of the 479 private, nonprofit colleges examined, 89 percent charged students with family incomes of $30,000 or less more than $10,000 in net prices and 22 percent expected students to pay about $20,000 or more each year. Needy students then rely more heavily on student loans, either drop out or take on full-time jobs, which diminishes their chances of completing school, the study said.

Stephen Burd, the foundation’s education policy analyst, worries that this approach to aid by the schools could lead to more social stratification in higher education in general and more serious problems with some schools in particular. Although merit aid is mainly favored by private colleges, according to the study, there’s a trend of public colleges increasingly focusing on merit aid as they struggle to balance their budgets in the face of continuing state budget cuts.

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Those familiar with the Supreme Court are saying that it’s looking increasingly likely that affirmative action in college admissions is on its way out. The New York Times explores the ways in which states that are now looking for a different way to maintain diversity on their college campuses can emulate one of the first states not to use affirmative action at all – California.

In 1996, after the passage of Proposition 209, California became one the first states to do away with affirmative action in college admissions entirely. In the first few years after Prop 209 was adopted, the impact on minority enrollment in the University of California system was undeniable. The number of Latino students fell by 3% from 15% to 12%. The percentage of the student body that was African-American also declined by a single percentage point from 4% to 3%. At some of the most prestigious campuses in the system like Berkeley and UCLA, the declines were even steeper.

But after a few years the numbers rebounded — and then some.

Until last fall, 25 percent of new students were Latino, reflecting the booming Hispanic population, and 4 percent were black. A similar pattern of decline and recovery followed at other state universities that eliminated race as a factor in admissions.

Since considering race in admissions was no longer an option,the public university system in California – and other states where affirmative action is no longer on the books like Florida, Michigan and Washington – instead look for traits that are frequently its proxy. For example, admissions procedures on UC campuses give students points for “overcoming disadvantages” such as being from low-income families or from families where English isn’t the first language. Applicants from underperforming schools also get a leg up, as well as those from crime-ridden neighborhoods.

The approach has helped maintain the level of diversity on UC campuses, but is that necessarily a good thing?

Not according to Heather Mac Donald, writing for the City Journal. Mac Donald asks if at a time when the public university system in California is claiming poverty, can it justify spending millions of its budgets to fix a problem that doesn’t really exist?

UC Two captured the admissions process long ago. Ever since the passage of Proposition 209 banned racial discrimination at public institutions, UC’s faculty and administrators have worked overtime to find supposedly race-neutral alternatives to outright quotas. Admissions officials now use “holistic” review to pick students, an opaque procedure designed to import proxies for race into the selection process, among other stratagems.

Nor, according to Mac Donald, is this diversity push really serving those it was designed to help the most – the students. Mac Donald cites Richard Sander’s “mismatch theory,” which demonstrates how admitting students who are academically unprepared to tackle the work to a school where an average student has the skills to meet the challenge merely sets them on a road to failure.

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Regrets. According to Business Insider, many recent college grads have had a few. And specifically, when considering their chosen school or major.

The results of a recent survey by McKinsey and Chegg – an ed-tech company also running a textbook rental business – which shows that nearly half of those polled wished that they had made different choices upon graduating high school – is likely to add to an increasingly loud debate about whether higher education is ultimately a worthwhile investment.

Among its other troubling findings, the report says that nearly half of college graduates are currently working jobs that don’t require a college degree. Roughly 30% felt that college didn’t adequately prepare them for the job market.

The most alarming conclusion appears to be that a full 41% of graduates from America’s top 100 ranked colleges and universities couldn’t get employment in their field after they graduated. When looking at all colleges and universities around the country, the percentage goes up to nearly half.

Students don’t ask the questions they need to, like how often students graduate in four years, what percentage of students are employed within six months of graduating, and what percentage of students get jobs in their major. They need to be encouraged to do so, and schools need to have those answers.

And schools are evaluated by things like selectivity, not how they help students prepare for the workplace or support their job search.

Students in liberal arts were particularly prone to regrets. They were more likely than their STEM-graduate peers to be under- or unemployed and were deeper in debt, were paid less and were overall less happy with the higher education choices they made.

The findings illuminate the fact that schools are not doing a very good job of filling their students’ needs. Instead of expanding programs that lead to higher paid jobs and more steady employment, it appears that many schools are cutting back due to budget cuts.

As a result, students are not only feeling more regrets about where they enrolled and the major they chose, but are also graduating with higher debt loads and fewer options.

Things are moving in a troubling direction. Instead of expanding curriculums to include the skills students really need now, many institutions, particularly public ones, are cutting back. That means students have to spend longer to graduate and go deeper in debt, without getting an education that’s any better suited to the world we live in. The key to solving it, Rosensweig says, is using technology to break down some of the barriers and habits that have held higher education back and kept it from adapting, to focus more on specific skills, and creating more entrepreneurial students.

 

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Wake Forest University is offering Chinese students who dream of enrolling in college in the United States an opportunity to prove they’re ready. Rogan Kersh, the provost of Wake Forest, views the new program as bridging the gap between instructional approach at American and Chinese schools.

The service provided by Wake Forest is timely. The number of Chinese applicants to US schools is up more than 135% over the past five years – and increasingly admissions officers tasked with handling the increased load are struggling to come up with ways to validate credentials granted in schools around China.

Admissions officers around the US find themselves dealing with concerns surrounding fake transcript, letters of recommendation and test scores – and lack of resources to truly check into the validity of each. Wake Forest will handle such concerns – for a fee – and provide incontrovertible proof of the legitimacy of each candidate.

The program, called the Wake Forest Advantage curriculum, will be provided in partnership with EdisonLearning.

Wake Forest has partnered with the company EdisonLearning, and will be offering the curriculum in several formats. It will offer a two-week intensive summer academy, taught by its own education faculty and teacher education alumni and students; it will employ and train local teachers to deliver the curriculum in an after-school setting; and it will train instructors at partner high schools to teach the content during the normal school day. In the latter case, Wake Forest enters into a financial relationship directly with the high school; otherwise, the 72-hour summer academy costs $1,500 (£970), while students who take a 90-hour after-school programme pay $2,500.

Student participants will get a “digital portfolio” which will be forwarded to admissions officers at schools around the country. The videos of students participating in courses will be individually evaluated by an instructor, sealed in an envelope with a gold, silver or bronze seal, and forwarded to the schools of the students’ choice.

Parke Muth, a consultant for the University of Virginia, is not impressed. Calling the program nothing more than “a gold star,” Muth questioned the value for the money that the students will get for $2,500 they spent. Muth called it “a good moneymaking venture potentially,” but not a good investment.

Wake Forest has partnered with the company EdisonLearning, and will be offering the curriculum in several formats. It will offer a two-week intensive summer academy, taught by its own education faculty and teacher education alumni and students; it will employ and train local teachers to deliver the curriculum in an after-school setting; and it will train instructors at partner high schools to teach the content during the normal school day. In the latter case, Wake Forest enters into a financial relationship directly with the high school; otherwise, the 72-hour summer academy costs $1,500 (£970), while students who take a 90-hour after-school programme pay $2,500.

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The college admissions game is not for the faint of heart, and if forewarned is forearmed, then Parent College – a program started by Partnership for Los Angeles Schools – hopes to put power into the hands of parents who have never had a college experience of their own so they can help their kids achieve their higher education dreams.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Parent College is an unusual effort spread over 15 Los Angeles Unified campuses. The group sponsoring the program was founded in part by the current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and and it takes as part of its mission a goal of undoing the myth that working class parents care less about their children’s education.

Some of the information imparted in the Parent College workshops might seem pretty basic to those who’ve already been there. Participants learn how to read school report cards and get an idea of what college life is like on a day-to-day basis. Yet there appears to a be a need for exactly this kind of information. More than 800 people participated in the program’s annual college tour this year – a record .

Martinez is typical of the parents the program seeks to help. One of 14 children raised on a small farm outside the town of Irapuato in Guanajuato state in Mexico, she had no formal education as a child, and was 15 before she learned how to read on her own.

“Every so often, my father would enroll us in school, but we didn’t have money for notebooks or even a pencil,” Martinez said. Embarrassed, she would soon drop out, she said.

Education was not a priority for the family. Instead, Martinez and her sisters were expected by their father to “do women’s work,” she said — cooking, cleaning, and more of the same later for their husbands and children.

The American attitude to education filtered into her family slowly, too. Her youngest siblings were all enrolled in school, and although Martinez herself was then too old to benefit, a high school diploma followed by a college degree was a dream she held for her own kids.

Yet the oldest of her five kids never even considered this path, choosing employment right after high school like a lot of their uncles and aunts did. It wasn’t until her third child started showing real academic promise that Martinez got specific about her goals for him.

In Sergio’s junior year, his Advanced Placement literature teacher told him about Parent College, and Martinez enrolled. In the monthly classes, she learned about college requirements and how to apply for financial aid.

Even after months of classes, participants in the program sometimes remain befuddled by the complexities of the U.S. education system. “It’s uncharted territory for them,” said Graciela Fernandez, director of the Student Outreach and Retention Center at UC Irvine.

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by Joe Nathan

Mindi Askelson of Riverland Community College calls it a “win-win-win” collaboration.  Scott Gengler of Irondale High School in Mounds View District reports it’s “very rewarding.”  John McDonald of Kingsland School District believes it’s “a better way of meeting student and family needs.”

Joe Nathan

“It” is the encouraging, growing collaboration between high schools and colleges providing greater challenge for students, while saving them and their families thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars.  Before graduating from high school, students earn free college credits, even a one-year career/technical certificate or two -year Associate Arts degree.

Bob Wedl, former Minnesota commissioner of education, recently recommended in a newspaper commentary  that we should:  “Abandon the 20th-century goal that high school graduates must be ready for postsecondary. The 21st-century goal must be that students will be well on their way to what they intend to do next with their lives when they exit high school. A redesigned system will have many students already completing a year of postsecondary learning or even an associate degree. Others will have completed their one-year career certifications.”

Last year I described a collaboration between Central Lakes College in Brainerd and the Long Prairie/Grey Eagle School District.  Students can earn enough credits in the high school to receive an A.A. degree before graduation.  Principal Paul Weinzierl explained: “This not only  helps us retain the funds, but also the leadership that some students take with them if they participate in Post-Secondary Enrollment Options.”

That 1985 law allows Minnesota 11th and 12th graders to take courses on college campuses, or “online” courses, full or part time, with state funds paying their tuition, books and lab fees.  Last year, PSEO was expanded.  Tenth graders now may take a career/technical course on a college campus.  Sophomores earning a “C” or higher, may take additional career/technical courses during their second semester.

Last year U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited and praised Irondale High School, which built on Long Prairie/Grey Eagle/Central Lakes collaboration.   Scott Gengler, Irondale principal, told me “the biggest takeaway so far is that we have far more kids capable of college level rigor than have participated (in dual high school/college credit courses) in the past.”

This means, for example, that some Irondale ninth graders take Advanced Placement courses.  Others start in the 10th, 11th or 12th grade. Some also take “Dual enrollment courses” developed in collaboration with Anoka-Ramsey Community College.  The school also has students taking “foundational classes” that help prepare them to take college level academic and or career technical classes.

Doing well means earning college credits.  Taking challenging courses also decreases changes students will have to take remedial courses on entering a post-secondary institution.  This is a huge, costly problem.  A report completed several years ago showed that at that time, more than half of the students entering the Minnesota’s two year public colleges had to take at least one remedial course in reading, writing or math.

Richard Rosivac, in his 15th year of teaching, helps coordinate Irondale’s program.  For him, “this is not just about access, it’s about results.”  He reported that approximately 53 percent of the school’s 1,631 students are enrolled in one or more Dual Credit courses. “We expect that percentage to grow,” he said.

Meanwhile, at Kingsland High School, Superintendent John McDonald says about half of the high school’s 102 juniors and seniors are in one or more Dual Credit courses.  Starting fall, 2013, juniors can take enough courses to earn an A.A. Degree before high school graduation.  Students are taking both “Project Lead the Way” (applied “STEM”) courses, and courses from Riverland Community COllege.

Mindi Askelson, Riverland’s director of placement and K-12 relations, explained the partnership with Kingsland, and a growing number of other high schools.  Riverland faculty members are training and mentoring high school teachers to offer the college level courses.  Riverland faculty also offers college level courses “on-line” and via television.  She explained, “Providing a seamless transition between high school and college is one of the strategic values of the MnSCU system.”

For most students, this will mean taking college level courses while staying in their high school. However, as Askelson notes, ” for those academically and socially ready, we host Post-Secondary Options students on campus.”
Minnesota’s Department of Education, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system are actively promoting these collaborations.  So is the University of Minnesota system.

Askelson is right.  These are win-win-win collaborations.

Joe Nathan, formerly a public school teacher and administrator, directs the Center for School Change. Reactions are welcome, and he can be reached at joe@centerforschoolchange.org.

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The issue of whether race should be a consideration in college admissions has been debated hotly for decades, and the Supreme Court will revisit the issue once more.

In Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, No. 12-682, the Court will consider a 2006 initiative supported by 58% of Michigan voters that banned the use of racial preferences in government and public education, including college admissions. Objections and appeals mounted quickly:

The appeals court said the constitutional amendment is illegal because it prohibits affirmative action supporters from lobbying lawmakers, university trustees and other people who ordinarily control admissions policies. Instead, opponents of the ban would have to mount their own long, expensive campaign through the ballot box to protect affirmative action, the court said.

That burden “undermines the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change,” the court said.

The issue the court will evaluate is whether the legislation strips those who would challenge or modify the law of a realistic way to do so.

Those eager to pore over the merits of both sides will have to wait as the case will be heard in October. But gratification will come more swiftly for those waiting for a decision in Fisher v. Texas, which will rule on whether the University of Texas can use racial preferences as a factor to increase the diversity on its campuses. The decision is expected this week.

Fisher v. Texas has caught the interest of politicos and Constitutional scholars as well as the broader higher education community. The court as it stands now is different in makeup than in 2003 when it ruled 5-4 in Gruter v. Bollinger, a landmark ruling that allowed public universities to use race as a factor in admissions. Since then, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has been replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, who is far more critical of such programs.

And, interestingly, the result may be a 4-4 tie, as Justice Elena Kagen excused herself because of her prior work on the case as solicitor general.

The stakes are high and the implications broad for Fisher v. Texas:

A decision forbidding the use of race at public universities would almost certainly mean that it would be barred at most private ones as well under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids racial discrimination in programs that receive federal money.

Abigail Fisher, now 22, argues that she was the subject of discrimination by University of Texas – Austin’s admissions policies that favored other, lesser-qualified students. In Texas, the top 10% of a school’s graduating class is accepted to study at UT, while students in Texas and across the United States — as well as international applicants — compete for the remaining slots.

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