News from the Pathways to College Network

The Pathways to College Network (PCN) recently adopted a comprehensive strategic plan to guide our future work in advancing college opportunity for underserved students. As part of this process, PCN’s Executive Committee unanimously approved a new organizational structure for the Network. One change is that the PCN alliance is now “directed by TERI.” In assuming this role, TERI, which has served as PCN’s Managing Partner since the Network’s inception, has agreed to provide greater leadership in the Network and will support its core operations. TERI’s support puts PCN in an ideal position to grow and function as a robust alliance, leveraging our partners’ collective influence and voice to catalyze action in policy and practice.

About TERI: TERI’s mission is to promote educational opportunities to change people’s lives. TERI works towards this goal as a national leader in promoting access to education at all levels, for students of all ages and backgrounds. TERI supports these efforts through its success as the nation’s oldest and largest non-profit guarantor of private student loans.

Notes From the Field

National College Access Network 2007 Conference - October 7-9, 2007
The National College Access Network's 12^th annual conference will be held October 7-9 in Los Angeles, California. College access practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers will meet to participate in professional development workshops, learn more about important issues in college access and success, and network. For more information, please visit: http://www.collegeaccess.org/NCAN/ItemPage.aspx?groupid=2853&id=2853.

Wisconsin Offers Students a College Guarantee
The state of Wisconsin recently launched the Wisconsin Covenant, an early commitment program that promises eighth-grade students admission and financial aid to attend a state college or university in exchange for earning at least a B average, taking certain college-preparatory courses, and being good citizens. More information is available at http://www.wisconsincovenant.wi.gov/. To learn more about early commitment financial aid program models and the research behind them, read the PCN paper Early Commitment Financial Aid Programs: Promises, Practices, and Policies.

Reports and Resources

Aligned Expectations? A Closer Look at College Admissions and Placement Tests
Some states seeking to raise high school standards have begun using college admission or placement tests as high school exit exams. This study from Achieve compares admission tests, including the ACT and SAT, against the American Diploma Project’s benchmarks to inform policymakers’ decisions about if, and how, these tests should be incorporated into state K-12 assessment and accountability systems.
[read the report]

A Voice from the Middle
This national survey of middle school students reveals some stark contrasts between students’ educational aspirations and their understanding of how to achieve them. Ninety-two percent of students indicated they were likely to attend college, but 68% indicated having little or no information about how to choose college-preparatory courses. While 93% of students indicated they would not drop out of high school, 83% knew little or nothing about the courses they needed to graduate.
[read the report]

Boosters, Brokers and Bridges: Real World Ideas for College Access Programs
This book provides college access professionals with lessons and ideas on program operations, service strategies, and service-delivery models from the “real world” experiences of Lumina Foundation for Education’s McCabe Fund. The programs discussed are grouped into three types: (1) Boosters are programs that provide encouragement and a belief in college possibilities; (2) Brokers provide or facilitate access to services and resources; and (3) Bridges link secondary and postsecondary education.
[read the report]

Understanding High School Graduation Rates
These state-by-state reports from the Alliance for Excellent Education examine the discrepancies in high school graduation rates reported by government and independent sources and explain why these differences are important. While the average difference between data sources is about 13%, the gap ranges from a low of 4% to a high of 32%.
[read the reports]

Academic Interventions to Help Students Meet Rigorous Standards: State Policy Options
In this report, the National High School Alliance highlights five categories of academic interventions for at-risk students: (1) Accelerated instruction; (2) Extended learning time; (3) Personalized learning environments; (4) Dropout prevention and recovery programs; and (5) Incorporating literacy instruction into the curriculum. The report examines the existing evaluation research for each category of intervention and discusses the range of available policy options for designing state-level intervention programs.
[read the report]

Enhancing Student Success in Education
This summary report synthesizes the major findings of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative’s 2006 National Symposium on Postsecondary Student Success. It connects what is currently known about student success to inform a research agenda for the future and discusses how to build stronger connections between policymakers, practitioners, and researchers interested in improving college success.
[read the report]

The Pathways to College Network
http://www.pathwaystocollege.net/