Friday, June 12, 2009
Starting Over
Radio station WAMU in Washington, DC, today aired the final installment of journalist Dan Charles's impressive four-part series on a year in the life of an urban school trying to leave its dismal history behind. Listen here.
Gremlins!
The Project on Student Debt has a new video out to help student loan borrowers ditch their "debt gremlin" with the new income-based repayment plan option available for federal loans. It doesn't take much to go from manageable debt to a debt gremlin (losing a job, feeding it after midnight...), but this new federal repayment option promises to provide some relief--and, given the current economic situation, the timing couldn't be better.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
FIPSE, Failure, Fraud
The United States of America spends something like $400 billion per year on post-secondary education. That's a lot of money. Yet we don't know as much about the higher education sector as we could, or should. While Clemson has justifiably taken heat for cynically manipulating the class size component of the U.S. News rankings, few people have noted that there's actually very little evidence about the impact of class size on learning in college, one way or another. The class size literature in K-12 education is exponentially richer, despite the fact that class size varies much more in higher ed.
Fixing this problem is a perfect role for the federal government, which sponsors high-level research in health, the sciences and elsewhere. And indeed the U.S. Department of Education has long maintained a Fund for the Improvement of Post-secondary Education (FIPSE), which is gets roughly $130 million per year -- not exactly NIH or DARPA money, but enough to sponsor some solid research. Once upon a time, that's exactly what it did -- applicants were subject to a rigorous review process and the imprimatur of an award often helped raise matching funds from foundations and elsewhere.
But as InsideHigherEd reports, there will be no FIPSE competition this year, because Congress has sucked up nearly all of the money for pork projects. This works about they way you'd expect: Some of the money probably goes for worthwhile purposes. Some of it, like $238,000 for "technology upgrades, including purchase of equipment" at Troy University, is probably better than burying the money in a hole in the ground but wouldn't exactly rise to the top of a rigorous review process.
And then you have people like Robert D. Felner, former dean of education at the University of Louisville, who allegedly($) took $694,000 earmarked for "Support and Continuous Improvement on No Child Left Behind in Kentucky" and promptly funneled it into a shell non-profit think tank run by a buddy who then disbursed the money between them. At least, that's what the federal indictment for mail fraud, money laundering and tax evasion says. Felner--who, incredibly, was about to leave for new gig as chancellor at UW-Parkside before his arrest--appears to have been comfortably operating as a con man within academia for most of his career.
This is what happens with pork. The U.S. Department was exercising minimal oversight because, hey, it's not really their project, is it? They'd rather decide how to disburse FIPSE money but Congress won't let them. There are are hundreds of FIPSE earmarks--how much sense does it make to spend lots of time and effort monitoring the purchase of new laptops at Troy University or what have you? But Congress--in this case, Representative Anne M. Northrup (R-Kentucky), who wangled the money--isn't set up to monitor grants. Nor do they have any incentive to root out corruption and incompetence for their own earmarks--that would just expose the underlying selfishness and disregard for the public interest that pork represents. Colleges, meanwhile, are culpable as they've increasingly decided to play the game along with everyone else by hiring special pork lobbyists etc. etc.
Testing Dropouts
Evidently, there’s a run on GED classes. Some say this is because the economy is so bad that 16-21 year old dropouts are making the rational choice for education over unemployment. Others say it’s b/c getting the GED is easier than finishing high school (and in some cases taking state exit exams). An NCES report on late dropouts shows that this view of the GED as the easier alternative to high school is one reason they leave.
On the other hand, if you talk to recent dropouts and those on the cusp of dropping out you might hear another part of the story: they're jumping in line to finish the GED because they think it's going to get harder. And they are probably right. They don’t necessarily know when the change is happening (American Council on Education, or ACE, updates the test every so often and is scheduled to do so again for 2012) or what the details are (by Dec. 31, 2011 GED-takers need to have completed and passed all five content area assessments or they need to take the whole battery of tests—about 7 hours worth in all--over). But they do seem clear on one message—if you wait another year or two, you may have to start all over with a new version that’s sure to be more difficult. Hey, it might even be faster and cheaper to re-enroll in high school and get the diploma.
Speaking of, there's a proposal called HOPE USA for ~$2 billion for locally designed small-school slash real-world learning programs to get dropouts back in the system. Described here in the same report that illustrates the scope of the dropout crisis: more than 6 million 16-24 year olds are high school dropouts (60% are men and a disproportionate percent are Black and Latino--18% and 30%).
Besides the re-enrollment approach, which is good but circles back to some testing questions, the dropout crisis has brought a lot of attention to “early warning signs” that might help predict who’s likely to drop out. This seems like the better place to start. There are long lists of early indicators, and some debate over which ones are really predictive. Personally, I’ve found that the straight question: “do you know what grade you’re in?” can cast a good early signal—any response resembling my neighbor’s “I’m not sure, I don’t know if I passed English last year” should serve as a bright red flag.
On the other hand, if you talk to recent dropouts and those on the cusp of dropping out you might hear another part of the story: they're jumping in line to finish the GED because they think it's going to get harder. And they are probably right. They don’t necessarily know when the change is happening (American Council on Education, or ACE, updates the test every so often and is scheduled to do so again for 2012) or what the details are (by Dec. 31, 2011 GED-takers need to have completed and passed all five content area assessments or they need to take the whole battery of tests—about 7 hours worth in all--over). But they do seem clear on one message—if you wait another year or two, you may have to start all over with a new version that’s sure to be more difficult. Hey, it might even be faster and cheaper to re-enroll in high school and get the diploma.
Speaking of, there's a proposal called HOPE USA for ~$2 billion for locally designed small-school slash real-world learning programs to get dropouts back in the system. Described here in the same report that illustrates the scope of the dropout crisis: more than 6 million 16-24 year olds are high school dropouts (60% are men and a disproportionate percent are Black and Latino--18% and 30%).
Besides the re-enrollment approach, which is good but circles back to some testing questions, the dropout crisis has brought a lot of attention to “early warning signs” that might help predict who’s likely to drop out. This seems like the better place to start. There are long lists of early indicators, and some debate over which ones are really predictive. Personally, I’ve found that the straight question: “do you know what grade you’re in?” can cast a good early signal—any response resembling my neighbor’s “I’m not sure, I don’t know if I passed English last year” should serve as a bright red flag.
Bankrupt
"We're looking into whether California can renege on its commitment"
--Diana Fuentes-Michel, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, in regards to a state program to repay the college loans of nurses and teachers who agree to work in-state.
The programs sound like a win-win for all sides. A student gets a portion of his or her student loans written off if he or she agrees to work in a high-need field. A state gets to direct students into fields that otherwise might not be filled, while they simultaneously reduce general fund support for colleges and universities. It's a win-win all around, except when states go broke and decide to backtrack on their promises.
Similar programs exist for other professions, but teachers are the primary targets. Teacher participants in Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia face either partial cuts or worse. Many more states are considering freezing their programs from new applicants.
Success or failure of these types of programs depends largely on their durability. A state is asking a participant to begin a career they might not otherwise pursue and, in turn, the state promises some financial assistance to do so. If states fail to uphold these promises, future students will be far less likely to participate. This is important, because if the programs are designed to attract the marginal students--the ones who need a little extra push into a given field--and not just supplement the salaries of ones who would do so anyway, the programs need prospective applicants to believe the money will actually exist down the road.
That, in fact, is the real problem with these programs: they're not really designed to affect the overall supply of teachers, even for specialty areas. They're just too small. Really they're designed to show the public that state leaders are doing something for certain underpaid and under-supplied professions. State leaders can't force school districts to modify their salary schedules to accommodate the laws of supply and demand. Legislatures have been unwilling to throw more money at colleges and universities and dubious that the postsecondary institutions would use additional money to follow state priorities. What we're left with are boutique programs that made their political point and now can fall by the wayside and only harm a few thousand teachers. That's not just financial bankruptcy; it's of the moral variety as well.
--Diana Fuentes-Michel, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, in regards to a state program to repay the college loans of nurses and teachers who agree to work in-state.
The programs sound like a win-win for all sides. A student gets a portion of his or her student loans written off if he or she agrees to work in a high-need field. A state gets to direct students into fields that otherwise might not be filled, while they simultaneously reduce general fund support for colleges and universities. It's a win-win all around, except when states go broke and decide to backtrack on their promises.
Similar programs exist for other professions, but teachers are the primary targets. Teacher participants in Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia face either partial cuts or worse. Many more states are considering freezing their programs from new applicants.
Success or failure of these types of programs depends largely on their durability. A state is asking a participant to begin a career they might not otherwise pursue and, in turn, the state promises some financial assistance to do so. If states fail to uphold these promises, future students will be far less likely to participate. This is important, because if the programs are designed to attract the marginal students--the ones who need a little extra push into a given field--and not just supplement the salaries of ones who would do so anyway, the programs need prospective applicants to believe the money will actually exist down the road.
That, in fact, is the real problem with these programs: they're not really designed to affect the overall supply of teachers, even for specialty areas. They're just too small. Really they're designed to show the public that state leaders are doing something for certain underpaid and under-supplied professions. State leaders can't force school districts to modify their salary schedules to accommodate the laws of supply and demand. Legislatures have been unwilling to throw more money at colleges and universities and dubious that the postsecondary institutions would use additional money to follow state priorities. What we're left with are boutique programs that made their political point and now can fall by the wayside and only harm a few thousand teachers. That's not just financial bankruptcy; it's of the moral variety as well.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Ranking Secrets Revealed!
College rankings are an interesting business, if for no other reason than the public loves them and the higher education intelligentsia hates them. Take the ongoing scandal at Clemson University. When it came out recently that Clemson has made increasing its US News & World Report ranking from 38 to the top 20 its sole focus, it provoked gasps and outrage in the higher education world, but barely a ripple elsewhere. To be sure, the stunts Clemson has pulled are pretty outrageous and do little to enhance the instituton's quality, but rankings are here to stay; the only question still in doubt is whether those rankings will reflect things that actually matter.
Clemson's actions are all quite rational given the incentive structure colleges currently operate under. The state of South Carolina provides little oversight to its public colleges and universities, and the federal government has few levers to demand quality. That leaves individual institutions to determine their own measures of success, and Clemson found a numeric benchmark on which it could measure itself: college rankings. The ranking magazines sell millions of copies each year, which drive applications, which in turn boosts prestige. If you're Clemson, you'd be a fool not to do everything in your power to increase your ranking.
And that's exactly what they did, in pretty stark ways. US News gives a large preference to class sizes between 1-19 students, so Clemson did everything in its power to reduce classes that were in the 20-25 range down to the magic number of 19. In turn, Clemson let every class over 50 students grow indefinitely. The magazine didn't value average or median class size--it valued the percentage under 20 and the percentage over 50. Nevermind that no good research would suggest that's in the best interests of students.
Next, because the rankings value wealth and exclusivity, Clemson raised tuition sharply and sought to increase the academic credentials of its incoming students. South Carolina is a poor state with low educational attainment; Clemson's policies made it more elite and less accessible to first-generation, minority, and low-income students.
The thing that's so galling about all this is what comes next. Despite constant criticism and constructive suggestions on how to improve, US News continues to give 25 percent weight to a peer assessment survey that's really nothing more than a measure of fame. This is by far the single most important category in the rankings, and Clemson, pursuing its own best interests, deliberately scored its peers lower. InsideHigherEd found Clemson President James F. Barker's survey response, and he rated Clemson as the best university in the country, above the likes of UC-Berkeley, Michigan, UNC-Chapel Hill, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale.
There are two things that continue to baffle me about all this. One, that the magazine continues to use such a flawed measure when it's in every institution's best interests to rate other ones poorly. The surveys are based purely on reputation and have next to nothing to do with quality. Two, that institutions have not seized the opportunity to create something better. They've focused mainly on attacking rankings themselves rather than seeing that the American public wants some objective system to evaluate colleges and universities, a system that would fairly evaluate how well a college educates the students it starts with. Until we get something better, we're left with glossy, silly, status-based nonsense. Institutions, act accordingly.
Clemson's actions are all quite rational given the incentive structure colleges currently operate under. The state of South Carolina provides little oversight to its public colleges and universities, and the federal government has few levers to demand quality. That leaves individual institutions to determine their own measures of success, and Clemson found a numeric benchmark on which it could measure itself: college rankings. The ranking magazines sell millions of copies each year, which drive applications, which in turn boosts prestige. If you're Clemson, you'd be a fool not to do everything in your power to increase your ranking.
And that's exactly what they did, in pretty stark ways. US News gives a large preference to class sizes between 1-19 students, so Clemson did everything in its power to reduce classes that were in the 20-25 range down to the magic number of 19. In turn, Clemson let every class over 50 students grow indefinitely. The magazine didn't value average or median class size--it valued the percentage under 20 and the percentage over 50. Nevermind that no good research would suggest that's in the best interests of students.
Next, because the rankings value wealth and exclusivity, Clemson raised tuition sharply and sought to increase the academic credentials of its incoming students. South Carolina is a poor state with low educational attainment; Clemson's policies made it more elite and less accessible to first-generation, minority, and low-income students.
The thing that's so galling about all this is what comes next. Despite constant criticism and constructive suggestions on how to improve, US News continues to give 25 percent weight to a peer assessment survey that's really nothing more than a measure of fame. This is by far the single most important category in the rankings, and Clemson, pursuing its own best interests, deliberately scored its peers lower. InsideHigherEd found Clemson President James F. Barker's survey response, and he rated Clemson as the best university in the country, above the likes of UC-Berkeley, Michigan, UNC-Chapel Hill, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale.
There are two things that continue to baffle me about all this. One, that the magazine continues to use such a flawed measure when it's in every institution's best interests to rate other ones poorly. The surveys are based purely on reputation and have next to nothing to do with quality. Two, that institutions have not seized the opportunity to create something better. They've focused mainly on attacking rankings themselves rather than seeing that the American public wants some objective system to evaluate colleges and universities, a system that would fairly evaluate how well a college educates the students it starts with. Until we get something better, we're left with glossy, silly, status-based nonsense. Institutions, act accordingly.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Positive Reinforcement
The ES on-line discussion on positive incentives continues today (here). Join Michael Barber, Sandy Kress, Dominic Brewer, Andy Rotherham and myself in discussing the role of positive incentives in our school system. While the conversation started off focused on positive incentives and school reward programs, we quickly broadened the scope. This is in recognition that positive incentives need to be a part of a more comprehensive education reform approach. These thought leaders saw strong ties between school rewards and performance pay. For performance pay approaches to be successful and sustainable, there needs to be significant improvements in teacher evaluation processes. The discussion has touched on national standards, quality assessments and measurement tools, school autonomy, serving special need populations and how these issues relate to positive incentives. Sandy informs us about the new Texas accountability system just adopted by their Legislature and the role of positive incentives in it. Michael and Sandy discuss the importance of positive incentive in media relations. Plus as a bonus, Michael provides some marital advice. I started applying his sage words this morning in my house. So join the discussion and get your questions answered as well.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Charter Schools and Budget Battles
ConnCAN sent out an alert last Friday about Connecticut's Governor Rell's latest budget, which includes substantial cuts to the state's charter schools. Nevermind that Connecticut's charter schools already receive less per-student than traditional public schools and face caps on the number of students they can enroll. Or that, according to this report, they have greater student achievement gains than traditional public schools. Still, charter schools are singled out for cuts in the budget.
And Connecticut charters are not alone. Charter schools in Washington, D.C., which educate 36 percent of the city's public school students are facing cuts to their facilities funding - cuts the traditional public schools are not facing. Earlier this year, charter schools in New York faced a similar fate. And the New Hampshire legislature is debating a proposal to cap the number of students enrolled in charter schools (and I thought the state motto was "Live Free or Die"?) below current enrollment levels, meaning some students would have to leave their schools.
States are facing hard times right now, and Governors and state legislators must make difficult choices, including cutting public school budgets. But, these cuts should not hurt some public schools (and charter schools are public schools) more than others - as part of the public school system, charter school students deserve the same levels of public funding and support as their traditional public school counterparts. It will be a sad day if Governors and state legislatures across the country decide to use charter schools, and the disproportionately low-income and minority students they serve, as an easy out for difficult budget decisions.
And Connecticut charters are not alone. Charter schools in Washington, D.C., which educate 36 percent of the city's public school students are facing cuts to their facilities funding - cuts the traditional public schools are not facing. Earlier this year, charter schools in New York faced a similar fate. And the New Hampshire legislature is debating a proposal to cap the number of students enrolled in charter schools (and I thought the state motto was "Live Free or Die"?) below current enrollment levels, meaning some students would have to leave their schools.
States are facing hard times right now, and Governors and state legislators must make difficult choices, including cutting public school budgets. But, these cuts should not hurt some public schools (and charter schools are public schools) more than others - as part of the public school system, charter school students deserve the same levels of public funding and support as their traditional public school counterparts. It will be a sad day if Governors and state legislatures across the country decide to use charter schools, and the disproportionately low-income and minority students they serve, as an easy out for difficult budget decisions.
Diplomas and Dropouts
Postsecondary institutions with similar student bodies do not achieve similar outcomes. Even among the most competitive institutions, where entering students must be in the top 10-20 percent of their high school class and score above 655 on each section of the SAT or above 29 on the ACT, graduation rates vary widely. These institutions accept only about 30 percent of their applicants, yet completion rates range from 60 to 97 percent. This the variance for the top high school students attending the most presitigious colleges and universitieis; it gets much worse for less qualified students and less prestigious institutions.
These differences show that improving graduation rates is not just about lack of money, student motivation, or adequate high school preparation; institutions matter too. Read this article to find out more about institutional differences, and read Kevin Carey's suggestions on how institutions can improve.
These differences show that improving graduation rates is not just about lack of money, student motivation, or adequate high school preparation; institutions matter too. Read this article to find out more about institutional differences, and read Kevin Carey's suggestions on how institutions can improve.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Dancing Around the Elephant in the Room
A few weeks ago, conservative education historian / contrarian Diane Ravitch was asked to judge a "best education reform idea" contest. The first entry came from the "Center for Union Facts," a sort of clearinghouse for union-hating agitprop. The "Center" proposed to--and I'm not paraphrasing here--"demonize" teachers unions. With billboards and radio and stuff. Ravitch noted that the highest-performing state in the nation is, by a wide margin, the strong union state of Massachusetts, and that the highest performing nation in the world is heavily unionized Finland, and concluded that the "kill the unions and everything will be great" strategy of education reform didn't seem to hold much water.
This set off a lengthy roundabout on the right side of the edublogosphere featuring a wide range of opinions, everything from "No, teachers unions are always terrible and must be stopped" all the way to "Yes, teachers unions are always terrible but it's possible to have a good school system anyway, although not as good as it could have theoretically otherwise been."
At no point did anyone note the other thing Massachusetts and Finland have in common: they're both chock-full of socialists.
Seriously, who thinks this is a coincidence? Massachusetts is a famous bastion of liberalism while Finland is a Nordic welfare state. According to the anti-tax Tax Foundation, Massachusetts has the fourth-highest corporate income tax rate and the second-highest unemployment insurance taxes. According to the pro-health Kaiser Family Foundation, Massachusetts is one of a minority of states to extend federal SCHIP health insurance benefits to tens of thousands of students from families with income above 200% of the federal poverty line. Finland, meanwhile, cheerfully provides universal daycare, healthcare, and massage therapy for all I know. It's so egalitarian that taxes are 150% of income and everyone is legally required to be friendly, Lutheran, and of equal height.
Which is not to say that teachers unions aren't sometimes--even often--barriers to smart policy. Bob Costrell, who was there, convincingly recounts the Massachusetts teachers unions' opposition to MCAS exit exams. Readers of this blog know that I disagree with teachers unions--particularly the NEA--on a host of policy issues including teacher pay, certification, schools of education, Teach for America, and No Child Left Behind.
But I've also been to Finland, and my best guess is that Finnish success is a function of four main factors: fair distribution of school funding, a strong social safety net combined with high-quality family services for all, an unusually smart and well-trained teacher workforce, and a standard, high-quality national curriculum. American teachers unions are, as a rule, in favor of the first two of these things and may yet come around on the fourth.
In other words, strong unionism may make it harder to implement good education policies, but it may also be the natural outgrowth of political and social attitudes that make children easier to educate. That doesn't mean we can't have it all--without it all, the odds of really making a dent in the achievement gap are long. But that means engaging teachers unions, not pursuing futile dreams of tearing them down.
Mine News
Newspapers, and to a lesser extent magazines, are in a downward spiral. Readership is down so they cut staff. Quality suffers so readers quit subscribing. Advertisers see dwindling readers and go elsewhere. There's a debate about where this all leads--Are we just going to rely on a mass of citizen of bloggers/ journalists? Will the government or private foundations have to step in to finance a dying industry?--but the downward spiral is not likely to stop until news outlets begin to think less about their medium and more about delivery of their content.
Increasingly we rely on RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and blogs to get our news. I don't read one newspaper in the morning; I read six, sometimes more, but only the sections and articles I care about. In other words, it's not that I'm not reading, it's that I don't count any single outlet as indispensable. If one starts charging for features that I want or need, I will take my eyes elsewhere.
Some traditional media outlets are experimenting with hybrid blends where they charge for some content and not for others. Others give free preview periods, presumably to drum up interest, where users can view the article(s) during that time only. Both of these routes are destined for failure, because all it takes to subvert them is one enterprising person who copies it, emails it to their friends, or posts it on their blog. The New Yorker blocked an article on Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot charter schools, but the author made it available elsewhere. Mother Jones gave a free preview for Dana Goldstein's sensational article on Democrats and education. The magazine has it blocked now, but Google cached the entire thing.
As bad as those experiments are, one from Time has promise. It's called Mine Magazine, and it lets users select their favorite (Time Inc.) magazines, has them answer a few questions, then signs them up for their own personalized magazine. The first 31,000 "subscribers" got a free print edition, and the first 200,000 got an online version. This trial run has only one sponsor, Toyota, but there's no reason it couldn't be rolled out on a larger scale with more participating publications and advertisers. My personal magazine would have exercise tips from Men's Health and Runner's World, recipes from Gourmet or others, news from the New York Times and Washington Post magazines, and the articles (yes, articles) and jokes from Playboy. It would have sports stories from Sports Illustrated and ESPN, but also from non-traditional sports outlets like The New Yorker. I currently pay for none of these, and probably won't in the future, but I have to think advertisers would pay for the cost to publish Mine Magazine if they knew my demographics and knew I'd read it.
We're not going back to a world where the majority of people subscribed to their local daily newspaper. Most of us have our own personalized information-gathering system already; media outlets who fail to see that will continue their decline.
Increasingly we rely on RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and blogs to get our news. I don't read one newspaper in the morning; I read six, sometimes more, but only the sections and articles I care about. In other words, it's not that I'm not reading, it's that I don't count any single outlet as indispensable. If one starts charging for features that I want or need, I will take my eyes elsewhere.
Some traditional media outlets are experimenting with hybrid blends where they charge for some content and not for others. Others give free preview periods, presumably to drum up interest, where users can view the article(s) during that time only. Both of these routes are destined for failure, because all it takes to subvert them is one enterprising person who copies it, emails it to their friends, or posts it on their blog. The New Yorker blocked an article on Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot charter schools, but the author made it available elsewhere. Mother Jones gave a free preview for Dana Goldstein's sensational article on Democrats and education. The magazine has it blocked now, but Google cached the entire thing.
As bad as those experiments are, one from Time has promise. It's called Mine Magazine, and it lets users select their favorite (Time Inc.) magazines, has them answer a few questions, then signs them up for their own personalized magazine. The first 31,000 "subscribers" got a free print edition, and the first 200,000 got an online version. This trial run has only one sponsor, Toyota, but there's no reason it couldn't be rolled out on a larger scale with more participating publications and advertisers. My personal magazine would have exercise tips from Men's Health and Runner's World, recipes from Gourmet or others, news from the New York Times and Washington Post magazines, and the articles (yes, articles) and jokes from Playboy. It would have sports stories from Sports Illustrated and ESPN, but also from non-traditional sports outlets like The New Yorker. I currently pay for none of these, and probably won't in the future, but I have to think advertisers would pay for the cost to publish Mine Magazine if they knew my demographics and knew I'd read it.
We're not going back to a world where the majority of people subscribed to their local daily newspaper. Most of us have our own personalized information-gathering system already; media outlets who fail to see that will continue their decline.
Think Positive
You get more flies with honey than vinegar. In Psychology 101 you learn that people are more responsive to positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement or punishment. While both positive incentives and punishment can be effective at modifying behavior, punishment tends to lead to other negative responses like anger and resentment. Yet, much of our current federal education policy emphasizes the negative. And, as Psych 101 predicts there has often been a lot of anger and resentment about the law. NCLB requires states to develop an accountability system that has both sanctions and rewards. Specifically,
“Each State accountability system shall … include sanctions and rewards, such as bonuses and recognition, the State will use to hold local educational agencies and public elementary schools and secondary schools accountable for student achievement and for ensuring that they make adequate yearly progress in accordance with the State’s definition.”
Yet, the focus of NCLB has been on failure – student failing to achieve proficiency, schools failing to make AYP, interventions and sanctions. States have spent little time if any on the positive incentive side of the discussion. Why have educators ignored this basic lesson of psychology?
The Department of Education's $5 billion in "Race to the Top" and innovation funds has reignited a discussion of the role of positive incentives in motivating and supporting school reform efforts. With this boost in funding, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has a chance to reward what he refers to as "islands of excellence" in school achievement and build on those proven success stories. Join us starting tomorrow through Friday (June 3–5) for an online discussion on how policymakers can use rewards and positive incentives to encourage excellence in schools. This discussion will feature: Education Sector's Andrew Rotherham and Robert Manwaring, and experts Sir Michael Barber of McKinsey & Company; Sandy Kress, a key architect of NCLB; and Dominic Brewer, associate dean and professor at the University of Southern California. Submit your questions starting June 3, and join the conversation!
More info here.
“Each State accountability system shall … include sanctions and rewards, such as bonuses and recognition, the State will use to hold local educational agencies and public elementary schools and secondary schools accountable for student achievement and for ensuring that they make adequate yearly progress in accordance with the State’s definition.”
Yet, the focus of NCLB has been on failure – student failing to achieve proficiency, schools failing to make AYP, interventions and sanctions. States have spent little time if any on the positive incentive side of the discussion. Why have educators ignored this basic lesson of psychology?
The Department of Education's $5 billion in "Race to the Top" and innovation funds has reignited a discussion of the role of positive incentives in motivating and supporting school reform efforts. With this boost in funding, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has a chance to reward what he refers to as "islands of excellence" in school achievement and build on those proven success stories. Join us starting tomorrow through Friday (June 3–5) for an online discussion on how policymakers can use rewards and positive incentives to encourage excellence in schools. This discussion will feature: Education Sector's Andrew Rotherham and Robert Manwaring, and experts Sir Michael Barber of McKinsey & Company; Sandy Kress, a key architect of NCLB; and Dominic Brewer, associate dean and professor at the University of Southern California. Submit your questions starting June 3, and join the conversation!
More info here.
Monday, June 01, 2009
The Condition of Education: Master's Degrees in Education
Over the last decade, the number of teachers in this country has increased faster than student enrollment. This is due almost exclusively to class size reductions at the elementary level: while the student/ teacher ratio in secondary schools was almost identical in 2006 to what it was in 1990, in elementary schools it has fallen by 14 percent. Since teacher salaries are by far the largest expenditure in schools, the drop in class size equates to a sizable sum in total expenditures on schools. None of this is new to someone who follows education policy closely. What is new is that teachers increasingly possess not just the traditional bachelor's degree, but many more now possess Master's degrees in education. That has significant consequences for the field.
The Condition of Education published a chart showing common undergraduate degrees awarded in 1996-97 and 2006-07. Of engineering, visual and performing arts, psychology, health professions, education, social sciences, and business, education was the only field with flat growth. A grand total of 525 more students graduated with bachelor's degrees in education in 2007 than did in 1997, a growth of 0.5 percent. This compared to 101,597 more business students, a growth rate of 45 percent.
For Master's degrees the story is the opposite. Education had the highest growth rate of all fields, with 62 percent more graduates in 2007 than in 1997.
At first blush this might seem like a good thing--more qualified people entering an important profession is a good thing, right? The trouble is that the research on the value of a Master's degree in the classroom has consistently shown little to no effect. In other words, these degrees are little more than additional credentials, credentials that cost districts around the country a lot of money. How much money? Below are the salary schedules for teachers in Santa Ana, California and Omaha, Nebraska. Scroll over the dollar signs to see how each of these districts has opted to compensate teachers according to their years of service and credentials.
The Condition of Education published a chart showing common undergraduate degrees awarded in 1996-97 and 2006-07. Of engineering, visual and performing arts, psychology, health professions, education, social sciences, and business, education was the only field with flat growth. A grand total of 525 more students graduated with bachelor's degrees in education in 2007 than did in 1997, a growth of 0.5 percent. This compared to 101,597 more business students, a growth rate of 45 percent.
For Master's degrees the story is the opposite. Education had the highest growth rate of all fields, with 62 percent more graduates in 2007 than in 1997.
At first blush this might seem like a good thing--more qualified people entering an important profession is a good thing, right? The trouble is that the research on the value of a Master's degree in the classroom has consistently shown little to no effect. In other words, these degrees are little more than additional credentials, credentials that cost districts around the country a lot of money. How much money? Below are the salary schedules for teachers in Santa Ana, California and Omaha, Nebraska. Scroll over the dollar signs to see how each of these districts has opted to compensate teachers according to their years of service and credentials.
Fortunately most districts pay their teachers more like Omaha than Santa Ana. Santa Ana's mountain is an extraordinarily strong incentive for teachers to earn a Master's degree, a degree that has been shown to matter little in educational effectiveness. Yet, even Omaha's more modest bonus for Master's degrees is an incentive that costs the district millions of dollars each year (not to mention the fact that most districts subsidize the cost of teachers going back to school to earn those same higher credentials).
At a time when district budgets are under strain, the Master's bonus should be reconsidered. If you want to learn more about how this can be done and the impacts of the way districts structure their salary schedules, read my recent report on the topic here.
More on the "Condition of Education" here, here, and here.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Words of Wisdom
As Frank Bruni notes, giving a good commencement speech isn't easy. For every brilliant address from the likes of David Foster Wallace, you get a lot of Joe Biden, or worse. Yet the form endures--people like getting advice that they can reflect back on years later and say, "You know, in retrospect, that made a lot of sense. Maybe I shouldn't have ignored it and learned it all the hard way on my own."
You want to grow up to paint houses like me, a trailer in my yard till you're 23
You want to be old after 42 years, keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears
Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing and I figured you already know
but in case you don’t or maybe forgot, I’ll lay it out real nice and slow
Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, don’t give it away.
Six months in a St. Florian foundry, they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama and I got to missing you too.
So I went back to painting for my old man and I guess that’s what I’ll always do
So don’t try to change who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man’s paint.
Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t sing with a fake British accent. Don’t act like your family’s a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, Don’t give it away.
Don’t give it away.
Turns out good advice is good advice whether you're Polonius or Wallace or a housepainter in Alabama who wants a better life for his son.
But only about 40 percent of people earn college degrees in this country and only a subset of those attend commencement ceremonies. Most people go straight to the workforce--what about them? Well, you could do much worse than recall what Jason Isbell's father told him as he set off into the world to make his way as a musician. These are the lyrics to "Outfit," from the Drive-By Truckers' tremendously good 2002 album Decoration Day:
You want to grow up to paint houses like me, a trailer in my yard till you're 23
You want to be old after 42 years, keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears
Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing and I figured you already know
but in case you don’t or maybe forgot, I’ll lay it out real nice and slow
Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, don’t give it away.
Six months in a St. Florian foundry, they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama and I got to missing you too.
So I went back to painting for my old man and I guess that’s what I’ll always do
So don’t try to change who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man’s paint.
Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t sing with a fake British accent. Don’t act like your family’s a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, Don’t give it away.
Don’t give it away.
Turns out good advice is good advice whether you're Polonius or Wallace or a housepainter in Alabama who wants a better life for his son.
Friday, May 29, 2009
He Saved the TV World. A Lot.
Let me just take this opportunity to heartily endorse the comments of Christopher Orr and every right-thinking citizen in this great land of ours by saying that remaking Buffy the Vampire without Joss Whedon is an idea so terrible that it might very well rip a Large Hadron Collider-style hole in the space-time continuum and kill us all, that's how bad it is. If there was a way to stand on line the night such a movie premiered and pay $11.00 that would be subtracted from the opening weekend box office gross, to punish the producers for their sins, I would do that. I'd buy negative tickets for my friends and relatives, too. (Come to think of it, shouldn't there be a Web site or something for this?)
I admit to no objectivity regarding Whedon, a pop culture genius of the highest order. It's not that he can do no wrong--indeed, his shows are infamous slow starters, generally taking a half-dozen episodes or so for the themes, characters, and plotting to cohere. Dollhouse was much the same this year--the pilot was boring, the next few episodes mediocre, but then came "Man on the Street" and whoosh, everything came together in the alchemy of pathos, humor, twisted genre convention and deep intellectual engagement that Whedon manages to achieve like few before him.
Dollhouse is by most accounts the lowest-rated network television show ever to be renewed, and in that respect it will probably be remembered as something of milestone: the first post-broadcast network program, still alive because it was popular on iTunes, Hulu, Tivo, DVD pre-order and pretty much every platform other than being sent out through airwaves and along coaxial cable at an appointed hour.
3-Year Degrees Are The Future, and Always Will Be
The Post ran a story recently titled "Colleges Consider 3-Year Degrees to Save Undergrads Time, Money." This is one of those ideas that gets rolled out every now and then and never goes anywhere. And I think it's pretty clear why. There are actually two distinct proposals mentioned in the article, which confusingly oscillates between them. The first is giving students a way to earn a traditional four-year bachelor's degree in three years. The second is awarding a degree for only three years of learning. Both ideas ultimately suffer from higher education's opaque and limiting convention of measuring academic progress in terms of time.
The problem with the earn-a-four-year-degree-in-three-years idea is that there's nothing really new about it. Students can already take AP classes, dual high school / college enroll, go to summer school, sign up for an extra class each semester, or otherwise try to get through more material sooner. But the financial incentives aren't always great -- summer school isn't free, so you're stilling paying for the same number of credits. Plus, many students are on the five- and six-year tracks for their 4-year degree (or longer), so three years is unlikely.
And just because a relatively small subset of students could finish early doesn't mean they will. I myself was lucky enough to go to a high school that jumped on the AP program early, back in the mid-80s, so I walked into college with 24 credits under my belt. It would have been pretty easy to finish a semester or even a year early. But why do that--college is fun! Instead, I strategically took it easy, throwing some three-course semesters into the mix and generally avoiding classes that met before noon. That still left me with only eight credits left to earn going into my last semester. So I took two classes: the last prerequisite for my major (an introductory course, incredibly) and a women's studies class, on the premise that it would be a good place to meet women.
The problem with the other proposal--awarding a degree for only three years of learning--is that three is 25 percent less than four, and so three -year degrees will be worth 25 percent less than four-year degrees in the job market, and so people won't want them. The question of transition to graduate and professional school also goes on the table.
Some might say, "No--it will be a three-year bachelor's degree." But what does that even mean?What's a bachelor's degree other than a credential certifying that you were enrolled as a full-time student at an accredited college or university for the equivalent of four years? It's true that Europe is rapidly transitioning to a standard three-plus-two bachelor's and master's system, but the last year of college prep high school there is roughly equivalent to the first year of college here.
All of this flows from the inherent vagueness and inflexibility of defining higher education credentials exclusively in terms of time--credit hours, two and four-year degrees. The basic unit is still the number of hours you spent in a room having someone teach you, not any reliable, consistent measure of what you actually learned.
And that, really, is what we need. People study a lot of different things in college. It's exceedingly unlikely that the body of knowledge, skills, experience, and attributes necessary to begin a career or graduate-level studies or some other agreed-upon milestone is exactly the same in all of them. But with a few exceptions, e.g. five-year engineering and pre-med programs, that's what we pretend. Instead of trying to stuff four years into a three-year basket, we need to start defining and differentiating courses of study while making assessment results much more transparent, so people can take their credentials into the job market with confidence, regardless of how long those credentials took to earn. This is a good start.
The Condition of School Choice
Dana Goldstein at The American Prospect wrote last week about the importance of opening up school district boundaries to allow parents in urban areas to send their kids to suburban schools, and vice-versa. Making district boundaries more porous is one step toward reducing the growing resegregation of our communities and schools, and it may be beneficial to those students who do transfer. But it doesn't address what most families fundamentally want - a good, safe school in their community.
As I wrote in this report, inter-district choice just isn't going to impact large numbers of students in many large, urban areas - there simply aren't enough good schools nearby to take transferring students. And that's assuming that suburban schools will open up a substantial number of seats - something which will require financial incentives or politically unpopular mandates. This isn't to say that inter-district choice policies aren't worth pursuing, it's just that they will take increased resources and careful attention to be done right. And for school choice to impact a large number of students in many urban areas, policymakers need to combine increased choice across district boundaries with building better schools, whether it's charter schools or traditional public schools of choice.
As a sidenote, and an addendum to Chad's great Condition of Education series, the recent report also includes some relevant information on public school choice. As one might expect, white, non-poor, and suburban parents are more likely to report moving to their current neighborhood for a school:
But among parents who reported having choice among public schools (46 percent), the patterns look different in who takes advantage of school choice, with students of minority and lower-income parents attending public schools of choice at a higher rate:
One disturbing result in the new report is that parents with less than a high school diploma reported the lowest rates of choice. And this was a drop from the 2003 survey results. It's hard to say what, exactly, the reason is for lower choice among parents with lower education levels, but it may indicate that policymakers at all levels - state, district and school - need to step up outreach efforts to ensure choice is accessible to all families.
As I wrote in this report, inter-district choice just isn't going to impact large numbers of students in many large, urban areas - there simply aren't enough good schools nearby to take transferring students. And that's assuming that suburban schools will open up a substantial number of seats - something which will require financial incentives or politically unpopular mandates. This isn't to say that inter-district choice policies aren't worth pursuing, it's just that they will take increased resources and careful attention to be done right. And for school choice to impact a large number of students in many urban areas, policymakers need to combine increased choice across district boundaries with building better schools, whether it's charter schools or traditional public schools of choice.
As a sidenote, and an addendum to Chad's great Condition of Education series, the recent report also includes some relevant information on public school choice. As one might expect, white, non-poor, and suburban parents are more likely to report moving to their current neighborhood for a school:
But among parents who reported having choice among public schools (46 percent), the patterns look different in who takes advantage of school choice, with students of minority and lower-income parents attending public schools of choice at a higher rate:
One disturbing result in the new report is that parents with less than a high school diploma reported the lowest rates of choice. And this was a drop from the 2003 survey results. It's hard to say what, exactly, the reason is for lower choice among parents with lower education levels, but it may indicate that policymakers at all levels - state, district and school - need to step up outreach efforts to ensure choice is accessible to all families.
The Condition of Education: College Wage Premium
We often talk about the college wage premium as if it's some sort of bonus you get once you've earned higher educational credentials. The chart showing average median wage by educational attainment is pretty common--each attainment level is given its own bar, they're arranged left to right in increasing education levels, and the median wage rises on the page left to right. It's a simple and effective way to say that college pays off.
What is less commonly understood is that college isn't just a bonus: it has, for a long time, been a safety net against wage decline. The chart below illustrates what this means. Since 1980, real wages for Americans with bachelor's degrees or higher have risen $3,000, or 6.7 percent. Over the same period, wages for Americans with less than a high school diploma and for those with a diploma or its equivalent have fallen 23 and 17 percent respectively. In other words, it's not so much that earnings for those with bachelor's degrees have accelerated rapidly; it's that they've held onto their market position while others have fallen precipitously.
This makes a difference in the way we think about educational attainment. If college was just a way to get a bonus, you might be content with what you have now. If, on the other hand, you understood that you would likely suffer large penalties over time if you opted not to go, you might think about college differently. You might see it as more essential.
What is less commonly understood is that college isn't just a bonus: it has, for a long time, been a safety net against wage decline. The chart below illustrates what this means. Since 1980, real wages for Americans with bachelor's degrees or higher have risen $3,000, or 6.7 percent. Over the same period, wages for Americans with less than a high school diploma and for those with a diploma or its equivalent have fallen 23 and 17 percent respectively. In other words, it's not so much that earnings for those with bachelor's degrees have accelerated rapidly; it's that they've held onto their market position while others have fallen precipitously.
This makes a difference in the way we think about educational attainment. If college was just a way to get a bonus, you might be content with what you have now. If, on the other hand, you understood that you would likely suffer large penalties over time if you opted not to go, you might think about college differently. You might see it as more essential.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Condition of Education: Economic and Racial Segregation
The National Center for Education Statistics holds an annual Condition of Education event that's sort of like a State of the Union speech, only without politics, fanfare, or clapping, and with graphs and a sole focus on education. Other than the annual "special analysis" section (this year's is on International Assessments and will come out in the summer), all the information is culled from other surveys and products that are available elsewhere. This might sound boring, but it's a nice time to think about larger trends in education nationwide and get a physical copy of the compendium of data.
Over the next few days I'll highlight some of the charts and tables I found most interesting. The one at left looks at the percentage of students, by race, who attend a high-poverty school, defined as a school where 75 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Nationwide, about a third of black and Hispanic children attend a high-poverty school, while only four percent of white children and 13 percent of Asian/ Pacific Islanders do. By contrast, only four percent of black and six percent of Hispanic children attend low-poverty schools, defined as schools with ten percent or less of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.
These numbers are in part a reflection of growing segregation in our nation's schools. Since 1990, the percentage of students attending a school with a minority population comprising at least 75 percent of the student body has risen from 16 to 24. A third of all black and Hispanic students attend such schools. 62 percent of whites attend a school where the student body is more than 75 percent white.
These conditions will not likely be addressed through school assignment policies. The Supreme Court has ruled that even non-binding race windows are unconstitutional in school assignment plans. Efforts to integrate by economic factors face their own complications, not least of which is the flight of effective teachers out of low-income, high-minority schools.
Solutions must do one of two things. Either they must attempt to address large-scale housing and location decisions that are the basis for school segregation in the first place, or they must ignore the problem entirely and address the symptoms, rather than the problem itself, head on. The former would require localities to emphasize mixed-use neighborhoods and other zoning tools to address de facto segregation. The latter would suggest focusing more resources and attention on these schools, such as providing incentives for effective teachers to work in them. Without such efforts, schools will be powerless to counter prevailing societal living patterns.
Over the next few days I'll highlight some of the charts and tables I found most interesting. The one at left looks at the percentage of students, by race, who attend a high-poverty school, defined as a school where 75 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Nationwide, about a third of black and Hispanic children attend a high-poverty school, while only four percent of white children and 13 percent of Asian/ Pacific Islanders do. By contrast, only four percent of black and six percent of Hispanic children attend low-poverty schools, defined as schools with ten percent or less of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.
These numbers are in part a reflection of growing segregation in our nation's schools. Since 1990, the percentage of students attending a school with a minority population comprising at least 75 percent of the student body has risen from 16 to 24. A third of all black and Hispanic students attend such schools. 62 percent of whites attend a school where the student body is more than 75 percent white.
These conditions will not likely be addressed through school assignment policies. The Supreme Court has ruled that even non-binding race windows are unconstitutional in school assignment plans. Efforts to integrate by economic factors face their own complications, not least of which is the flight of effective teachers out of low-income, high-minority schools.
Solutions must do one of two things. Either they must attempt to address large-scale housing and location decisions that are the basis for school segregation in the first place, or they must ignore the problem entirely and address the symptoms, rather than the problem itself, head on. The former would require localities to emphasize mixed-use neighborhoods and other zoning tools to address de facto segregation. The latter would suggest focusing more resources and attention on these schools, such as providing incentives for effective teachers to work in them. Without such efforts, schools will be powerless to counter prevailing societal living patterns.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Aligning Financial Incentives With College Success
Postsecondary institutions have few financial incentives for results. Their funding streams are either divorced from students entirely (through federal research grants or block state funding) or based only on the number of students they enroll (through per-student funding and tuition). This is true at the K-12 level as well, but K-12 schools at least have a regulatory system (like it or not) attempting to drive results. Higher education has neither the funding nor the accountability systems to hold institutions to high standards. While it's not true that institutions have no incentives to graduate students--upper-level students consume far more campus resources than their lower-division peers--they continue to operate as business-as-usual despite roll-the-die odds on college graduation. Institutions are more or less left to their own devices, with all the good and the bad that implies.
States are beginning to experiment with new ways to fund their colleges and universities that hinge funding on student success. This experimentation is a good sign, but it gets tricky really quickly.
Ohio, for instance, is about to adopt a plan to fund its public postsecondary institutions entirely on their ability to retain and graduate students. It's innovative in that the money is not based on pure raw numbers--the state will instead compute "expected" course completion and graduation rates, based on student socioeconomic factors, and reward institutions that meet or exceed these predicted rates. This is much more sophisticated than Ohio's current system of basing funding only on the number of students enrolled on the 14th day of the semester. And, it gives institutions incentives to be accountable for student success.
Yet, Ohio's plan is lacking one significant element: there's nothing to incentivize quality. The opposite is true really, because institutions would have financial motives to make their academic programs easier. More students + lower standards = more graduates = more money. That's not a formula for success.
Ohio is in a position, unlike most other states, to enhance the equation with outcomes data. Its institutions collaborate with the state’s Department of Jobs and Family Services to collect employment data on recent graduates of all postsecondary institutions in the state. The resulting data show the percentage of students who graduated between 2001 and 2006 who were employed or enrolled in more postsecondary education six months after completing their degree, as well as the number of 2002 graduates employed at the end of 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Six-month, in-state employment numbers of graduates from public universities ranged from 67 percent (Miami University) to 83 percent (Wright State and the University of Akron). Community colleges had some of the highest numbers. Graduates of the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science were found to be employed and in-state 89 percent of the time and graduates of the MedCentral College of Nursing were at 92 percent.
These data aren't perfect--they discount students who leave the state and give salary numbers for academic discipline but not by institution--but they would nonetheless be powerful in the hands of students and their parents. If such information were aggressively marketed to students and parents, the quality portion of the equation would be driven by student demand rather than institutional prerogative. That isn't possible right now, but it would make the higher education market a whole lot more focused on quality.
In the end, experiments like Ohio's are a real risk for accountability advocates. A bad or misaligned accountability system is worse than nothing at all, and as Ohio policymakers push forward they must be careful to balance quantity and quality concerns together.
States are beginning to experiment with new ways to fund their colleges and universities that hinge funding on student success. This experimentation is a good sign, but it gets tricky really quickly.
Ohio, for instance, is about to adopt a plan to fund its public postsecondary institutions entirely on their ability to retain and graduate students. It's innovative in that the money is not based on pure raw numbers--the state will instead compute "expected" course completion and graduation rates, based on student socioeconomic factors, and reward institutions that meet or exceed these predicted rates. This is much more sophisticated than Ohio's current system of basing funding only on the number of students enrolled on the 14th day of the semester. And, it gives institutions incentives to be accountable for student success.
Yet, Ohio's plan is lacking one significant element: there's nothing to incentivize quality. The opposite is true really, because institutions would have financial motives to make their academic programs easier. More students + lower standards = more graduates = more money. That's not a formula for success.
Ohio is in a position, unlike most other states, to enhance the equation with outcomes data. Its institutions collaborate with the state’s Department of Jobs and Family Services to collect employment data on recent graduates of all postsecondary institutions in the state. The resulting data show the percentage of students who graduated between 2001 and 2006 who were employed or enrolled in more postsecondary education six months after completing their degree, as well as the number of 2002 graduates employed at the end of 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Six-month, in-state employment numbers of graduates from public universities ranged from 67 percent (Miami University) to 83 percent (Wright State and the University of Akron). Community colleges had some of the highest numbers. Graduates of the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science were found to be employed and in-state 89 percent of the time and graduates of the MedCentral College of Nursing were at 92 percent.
These data aren't perfect--they discount students who leave the state and give salary numbers for academic discipline but not by institution--but they would nonetheless be powerful in the hands of students and their parents. If such information were aggressively marketed to students and parents, the quality portion of the equation would be driven by student demand rather than institutional prerogative. That isn't possible right now, but it would make the higher education market a whole lot more focused on quality.
In the end, experiments like Ohio's are a real risk for accountability advocates. A bad or misaligned accountability system is worse than nothing at all, and as Ohio policymakers push forward they must be careful to balance quantity and quality concerns together.
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