Learn About: 21st Century | Charter Schools | Homework
Home / Edifier


The EDifier

May 2, 2013

Improve college attainment rates: Invest in high school guidance counselors

A recent study by Caroline Hoxby and Christopher Avery hasn’t gotten a lot of media attention but is a must read. In fact, I just became aware of the study myself even though it was issued as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research back in December. Policymakers, educators, parents, and the general public should be made aware of this study because it has broad implications for narrowing gaps between low and higher income students.

What did the study find that was so important? It found that low-income high achieving students were less likely to not just attend a selective college but even apply to one as similar achieving higher income students. Instead, low-income high achieving students tend to attend non-selective two- or four-year colleges that have significantly lower instructional resources and graduation rates.

Why is this so important?  Too few low-income students go on to obtain a college degree. If more low-income students applied to more selective colleges that have greater instructional resources and higher graduations rates the college degree attainment gap between low- and high-income students would narrow. In the long-term the U.S. would likely climb up the international college graduation rate rankings as well.

You might be thinking low-income students may not attend more selective colleges because they cost more. This may be true if you compared sticker prices but the study found that if you take into account the difference in financial aid packages, many selective colleges would cost low-income students less than the non-selective colleges they wound up attending.

However, this isn’t likely to be common knowledge for many low –income students as many are the first in their families to attend college. This is why adults in their high schools need to help educate these students and their families about the college going process, particularly for those qualified to attend a selective college. Yet, when the national student to guidance counselor average is 350 to 1—likely much higher in many high poverty urban districts—it is nearly impossible for guidance counselors to find the time to ensure low-income high achieving students apply to selective schools.

This study provides more evidence of the importance of high school guidance counselors. As CPE found in our High School Rigor and Good Advice report last year, those students who meet regularly with counselors about college are more likely to succeed in college. The same report also found that those students who took more rigorous courses in high school were more likely to succeed in college as well. So, guidance counselors not only help low-income high achieving students by educating them about the college going process but by ensuring students take the rigorous courses they need to succeed in college.

Yes, getting more low-income students to complete a rigorous high school curriculum will increase the chances those students will attend and succeed in college. But this study shows that academic preparation can only go so far. If schools invest more in educating low-income students on the college going process by hiring more guidance counselors that will ensure students take rigorous courses and apply to higher quality colleges. Then the U.S. will likely see the college degree gap between low- and high-income students narrow and see the U.S. rise in the international college attainment rankings. – Jim Hull

Filed under: Achievement Gaps,college,Course taking,Demographics,High school,International Comparisons — Tags: , , — Jim Hull @ 11:32 am




February 22, 2013

Business buys into the common core

Maybe it’s because schools are now taking a hard look at them, maybe it’s because the countdown to common core test day looms large, but it feels like the common core standards just can’t get any love anymore. In a strange alliance of purpose, critics from both the right  and the left  are calling on states and educators to reject them, albeit, for different reasons.

Much of the criticism rests on the politics. Even though the nation’s governors and state school superintendents led the development of the CCSS, some see a heavy federal hand in getting states to adopt them through provisions in Race to the Top and NCLB waivers that ask states to have “college and career-ready” standards.  But other voices are criticizing the content of the standards themselves as either too weak or too narrow, as we have written here and here.

This week, a coalition of 72 business leaders, representing such major corporations as GE, Exxon Mobil, and State Farm, provided a counterbalance by offering their considerable voice in support of the common core. In a full-page New York Times ad (by way of Change the Equation,which boasts 42 signatories), the CEOs endorsed the standards as “meet[ing] the business community’s expectations: they are college- and career-ready, grounded in evidence and internationally benchmarked. The CCSS set consistent, focused, rigorous academic expectations for all students.”

They conclude:

We support these new, tougher academic standards that are currently being rolled out in classrooms across the country. These standards will better prepare students for college and the workplace, something of critical importance to the nation’s employers. The changes now under way in America’s schools hold great promise for creating a more highly skilled workforce that is better equipped to meet the needs of local, state and national economies.

We see a lot to admire in the content of the CCSS as well as in the state-driven process that produced them. But the proof will be in the implementation, and the capacity of school districts to provide the support and resources teachers will need to teach them. So stay tuned.

Filed under: national standards,Public education,standards — Tags: , , , — Patte Barth @ 7:33 am




January 4, 2013

Singing our song

Fareed Zakaria is calling for a “growth” agenda for the nation’s economic health, one that recognizes the importance of developing our human capital.  Writing in this morning’s Washington Post, Zakaria acknowledges the urgency — and difficulty — of getting our fiscal  house in order, yet argues that our “deeper challenge” may well be finding the collective will to invest in our infrastructure.

Zakaria is singing our song, especially when he highlights our need to invest in education. And indeed, to make the point he quotes from Jim Hull’s recent analysis on international college completions. As Jim points out, our young adults are being surpassed by their peers in other countries in college attainment, but a focus on two-year degrees will go a long way toward improving our standing and give a real boost to the economy.

You can learn more about the role for high schools in improving post-secondary completions by checking out CPE’s high school toolkit.–Patte Barth

Filed under: college,High school — Tags: , , — Patte Barth @ 11:54 am




December 13, 2012

Catching up is hard to do

NCLB called on public schools to close achievement gaps, and that focus is one thing that’s not likely to change whenever Congress gets around to reauthorizing ESEA. However, a new study by ACT shows how long the odds are for low-achieving 4th and 8th graders to eventually graduate college-ready, which should make us think about how to go about gap closing.

ACT has once again mined its considerable databases to track the progress of students as they moved from 4th to 12th grades in order to find out how many ended up “college ready.”  ACT grouped students by three achievement levels: on track to college-readiness, off track, and far off track. Here’s what they found about 8th graders’ chances:

This table means that only 10 percent of students who were far off track in 8th grade were college ready in reading by 12th grade. The analysts further found that African American and Hispanic 8th graders were twice as likely to be “far off track” than their white classmates.  Similar patterns were evident among 4th graders, too.

If there’s a silver lining in this news, it’s this: “Far off” students who attended the top 10 percent of schools were about three times as likely to become college-ready.  In reading, for example, 28 percent of “far off” 8th graders in the top schools had become college-ready by the time they were seniors compared to the overall average of 10 percent.

This shows us that there are things schools can do to reverse the downward trajectory of low achievement. At the same time, though, it underscores how hard it is to break these trends after 4th grade. As if we still needed another argument for starting early with high-quality pre-k, ACT has surely given us one.  But they also provide evidence for never giving up on kids and their capacity to learn to high levels, even in high school.

A note on methodology: ACT’s college-ready benchmark is the score at which students have a 75 percent chance of earning a C or better and a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better in the relevant college freshman course.   Their database has data for students in a half dozen states who take the ACT series of aligned tests at 4th, 8th and end of high school. You can find their report “Catching up to college and career readiness” — and I encourage you to do so — at www.act.org.

Filed under: Achievement Gaps,college — Tags: , , , , , — Patte Barth @ 3:55 pm




November 9, 2012

Hi Ho Nate Silver

It’s the Friday after Nov 6, Florida has finished its final vote tally and this election cycle has come to an end (mercifully for us swing state voters!). But the big winner in this long campaign wasn’t on any ballot. It was the numbers-crunchers, led by the 538 master Nate Silver, whose predictions turned out to be spot on by identifying changing demographics and voter attitudes better than the pundits. Mathematics — take your victory lap.

CPE is all about data and research, so we celebrate when the data geeks come out on top. That’s why it was so jarring when I came across this quote from a Johns Hopkins mathematician no less:

You never see a question about statistics or probability on a college placement exam, thus making statistics and probability irrelevant for college preparation.

W. Stephen Wilson was referring to the emphasis data, probability and statistics (DPS) get in the new common core state standards for math. He had other criticisms of the CCSS, too, but his dismissal of DPS really stood out.

Now as a poor refugee from literary criticism programs, I’m really not in a position to question a mathematician. And given his credentials, I’m sure he is speaking knowledgeably about what it takes to succeed in his academic department.  Fortunately, I have data to speak for me.

David Conley and his team at the University of Oregon surveyed over 1,800 faculty of two- and four-year postsecondary institutions nationwide. The respondents were asked about the relevance of the CCSS for freshman general education courses and workforce training programs. The mathematicians among them rated DPS at slightly over 3 on a 4-point scale of importance. The instructors overall ranked DPS 2.9, or “more important” for success in freshman courses. The importance rating for DPS was comparable to number and quantity, algebra and functions. CCSS mathematical practices had the highest math ratings, standards that Wilson also pooh-poohed by the way.

This is important for us to keep in mind because Wilson isn’t alone. Indeed, other mathematicians have also been critical of CCSS and their views are being promoted by organizations like the Pioneer Institute that have political objections to the common core.

We also need to remember that college preparation is only one purpose of public education. Knowledge of data, probability and statistics is essential to performing a growing number of jobs, as well as conducting our day-to-day lives. Plus, to this data-phile, DPS is the math of citizenship.  I think this recent election proves it–Patte Barth

 

Filed under: Data,national standards,Public education,standards — Tags: , — Patte Barth @ 1:19 pm




Older Posts »
RSS Feed