February 2008

Pathways Co-Facilitates Training at NCCEP Capacity Building Workshop
More than 1,200 GEAR UP leaders convened in Las Vegas from February 11-14th to participate in NCCEP's Capacity Building Workshop which offered five informative training tracks. The most heavily subscribed three-day workshop track, “Maximizing GEAR UP’s Impact: Improving Student Outcomes through Research, Planning, and Practice,” featured the tools and resources found in Pathways’ web-based College Readiness for All Framework. Ruth Sherman, Director of Pathways, co-facilitated this training track.

Examples of ¡Excelencia! 2008
Excelencia in Education is now accepting nominations for its 2008 Examples of ¡Excelencia! awards. This national initiative identifies and promotes programs and institutional departments that demonstrate significant evidence of improving educational achievement for Latino students in higher education. Selected programs or departments will receive a $5,000 award and recognition at the Excelencia Celebración to be held in conjunction with the National College Access Network (NCAN) Annua Conference in Houston next September. The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2008. For more information, visit www.edexcelencia.org.

Achieving the Dream State Policy and Strategic Planning Institutes
The Achieving the Dream (AtD) State Policy and Strategic Planning Institutes were held in Atlanta, GA from February 4 – 8th. TERI, in collaboration with three Massachusetts-based foundations, formed a funding consortium to support four MA community colleges’ participation in this national initiative focused on increasing successful outcomes among underserved students. Ruth Sherman of TERI participated in these Institutes on behalf of the Massachusetts AtD Funders’ Consortium.

College Goal Sunday Best Practices Forum
Many state leaders, including governors, legislators, and commissioners, have actively encouraged families to attend NASFAA’s College Goal Sunday. This annual event provides low-income, first generation students with assistance in how to file their federal financial aid application. This month College Goal Sunday held its annual Best Practices forum, a four day event, in Charleston, SC bringing together several of the states’ program leaders. Discussion focused on sharing effective program strategies and generating ideas to sustain and grow the success of College Goal Sunday. For more information on College Goal Sunday and the forum, please visit www.collegegoalsundayusa.org.

Winning the Skills Race and Strengthening America's Middle Class: An Action Agenda for Community Collegese
The College Board’s National Commission on Community Colleges recently released its timely report: Winning the Skills Race and Strengthening America’s Middle Class: An Action Agenda for Community Colleges. Noting that community colleges enroll nearly 47 percent of individuals who attend higher education, the report recommends a national commitment to universal access to two years of education beyond high school and highlights the vital role community colleges playing ensuring America’s economic competitiveness, building opportunity, and strengthening our middle class.
[Read the report]

The Perkins Act of 2006: Connecting Career and Technical Education with the College and Career Readiness Agenda
This new policy brief by Achieve, Inc. is designed to inform leaders, particularly those who are implementing the American Diploma Project (ADP) agenda in their states, about the opportunities to align and coordinate strategies between ADP and the Perkins Act. It addresses the major components of the new Perkins Act, discusses CTE career and technical education more broadly in the context of the ADP agenda, and offers a number of specific complementary and mutually supportive strategies state ADP leadership teams could employ to implement the ADP agenda and the Perkins Act.
[Read the report]

A Culture of Evidence: An Evidence-Centered Approach to Accountability for Student Learning Outcomes
This report is the third in a series from the Educational Testing Service (ETS). This paper provides a framework to improve, revise and introduce comprehensive systems for the collection and dissemination of information on student learning outcomes. It presents a practical approach to help the educational community respond to accountability concerns while respecting the diverse attributes of students, faculty and the institutions.
[Read the report]

Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis
A new study by researchers from Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin, indicates that the Texas public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act, contributes directly to low graduation rates, with a disproportionate number of dropouts being African American, Latino, and English Language Learners. The study analyzed student-level data on more that 271,000 students in one of Texas’ large urban districts over a seven-year period and included an analysis of the policy and its implementation along with extensive observations in the district high schools and interviews with students, teachers, administrators, and students who left school without graduating. The researchers found that 60 percent of African American students, 75 percent of Latino students, and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five years and found an overall graduation rate of 33 percent.
[Read the report]

Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America
The Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts, just released its new report, Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America. The report examines the trends and issues impacting economic opportunity for Americans and finds that across every income group, Americans are more likely to surpass their parents’ income in absolute terms if they earn a college degree, reinforcing the conventional wisdom that higher education provides a means for opportunity. In addition, the report finds that 84 percent of Americans born into the bottom quintile who earn a college degree move up at least one rung on the economic ladder—and 10 percent make it to the top. This compares to only 5 percent of those born into the bottom that make it to the top without a college degree.
[Read the report]

School Strategies and the ‘College-Linking’ Process: Reconsidering the Effects of High Schools on College Enrollment
Researcher Lori Hill looks at school effects on college enrollment in her paper, School Strategies and the ‘College-Linking’ Process: Reconsidering the Effects of High Schools on College Enrollment. Published in Sociology of Education, the paper examines strategies that schools use to facilitate college transitions and whether these strategies influence different outcomes for students from different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Hill analyzed three “college-linking” strategies: traditional, clearinghouse, and brokering.
[Read the report]

Fourth Annual AP Report to the Nation
The College Board released its 4th Annual AP Report to the Nation, which looks at participation in Advanced Placement (AP) programs by state, placing the AP participation and performance data within the context of a state’s population and racial/ethnic demographics. Appendices provide state-by-state data for multiple years on the numbers of students who took an AP exam in high school as well as information broken out by race/ethnicity on the proportion of students that earned a score of 3 or higher on AP examinations.
[Read the report]