This blog focuses on my scholarship in my five research projects: learning assistance and equity programs, student peer study group programs, learning technologies, Universal Design for Learning, and history simulations. And occasional observations about life.

Web Site Bookmarks David Arendale Web Site Bookmarks David Arendale

New Internet Bookmarks for 2010-07-23

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New Web Booksmarks for 2010-07-16

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Educaction Access, Policies, Values David Arendale Educaction Access, Policies, Values David Arendale

Economics Curtailing Access at Public Universities

The headline of this blog posting is no surprise. At Berkeley they are reducing access for economically-disadvantaged students (which require institutional financial aid) and replacing them with out-of-state or out-of-country students who pay full tuition plus for being out-of-state. The article reported the dramatic change that occurred within a single year.

On one hand we have the U.S. President and the Lumina Fundation (among others) calling for a dramatic rise in college graduation rates needed for workforce needs of society and better lives for the college graduates. On the other hand, the financial support for public institutions has dramatically shrunk with little hope for reversal. The institutions are caught inbetween. They are operating with a "zero sum" financial model. To survive, the institutions replace students with financial need with those that have wealth to infuse. How long until we admit the truth, access to higher education requires an investment. Students are willing to invest their lives. Can't we invest more money for their and our collective futures.

Compounding this issue is that more institutions do not have classroom capacity for the increasing number of students that want to attend college. Another building boom is needed to increase the physical capacity of current institutions and probably to add more campuses. Distance learning does not work for everyone as an effective pedagogy, and besides, not everyone has the technology at home nor the finances for high-speed cable. 

It is a good thing that more students want to attend college. We have a collective responsibility to support them, especially those that are historically-underrepresented and economically-disadvantaged.

July 15, 2010, 12:48 PM ET U.C. Berkeley and the Access Mission of Public Universities, By Richard Kahlenberg, Chronicle of Higher Education.

The latest news involving the University of California—“Berkeley Sees Admission of Latino Students Drop and Nonresidents Jump”—pits two groups, Hispanic students and non-Californians. But of course what’s really going on is a struggle over money, economic class and the question of how dedicated public universities will be to their special mission of promoting social mobility. U.C. Berkeley is cash starved, and one way to raise money is to bring in more wealthy out-of-state students, who pay $22,000 more in fees than resident students. Berkeley didn’t make its change slowly—it more than doubled the proportion of out-of-state students in the freshman class in a single year, from 11% to 23%. And it did so with the full awareness that minority students would suffer. The drop in Latino admissions was 12%. (The data published by the U.C. system addressed changes in racial and ethnic breakdown but not income.) Berkeley has a couple of arguments in its defense. Among top colleges, it has long shouldered more than its fair share on the economic diversity front. In 2007, according to an Education Trust report, 33.0 % of Berkeley students received Pell Grants. By comparison, other leading public universities had Pell grant rates that were substantially lower, including the University of Virginia (9.5%), the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (13.4%), and the University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill (15.3%). Furthermore, Berkeley admits fewer out-of-state students than other leading institutions. Michigan and Virginia, for example routinely admit more than 30% of students from out of state. Some have noted that the big increase in non-Californian freshman may backfire politically, fueling parochial anger from state taxpayers and further reducing the public support for the U.C. system. But this debate goes beyond politics to fundamental questions about the special role of public universities in American society. As scholar Gary Berg notes in new book, Low-Income Students and the Perpetuation of Inequality: Higher Education in America, today most private universities “serve a higher percentage of students from low-income families” than do public universities, undermining the “special responsibility” of public institutions of higher education to promote access. Some will argue that in tough economic times, public universities have no choice but to make financial decisions that hurt low-income students. This sounds plausible, but what, then, is the excuse for the major decline of academically qualified low-income high school graduates at public and private four-year institutions in more financially flush years? According to a recent report of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 54% of such students enrolled in four-year colleges in 1992, but by 2004, only 40% did. U.C. Berkeley has been long been the poster child for promoting both academic excellence and economic diversity—a worthy outlier, defending the particular mission of public universities. Its special status makes the recent retreat especially poignant.

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New Web Bookmarks for 2010-07-12

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New Web Bookmarts for 2010-07-08

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21st Century Practice, Policies David Arendale 21st Century Practice, Policies David Arendale

Too Many Students Trapped in the Blender of Developmental-Level Courses

Following is a report from City College (SF, CA) about the enormous time and resources spent by students with completing years of developmental-level course sequences before enrollment in college-level courses. Much of the students' Pell Grants will have been exhausted by the time the prerequisite course sequences are completed. It is no surprise of the dismal college graduation rates. Studies consistently report the number one reason for college drop outs is financial. Few investigate WHY the students are having the financial problems. It is easy to assume that it is simply "the economy" and pass it off as unavoidable. The following report identifies a courageous college trustee that weathers the wrath of the faculty when he proposes shortening the sequence to A YEAR rather than nearly TWO YEARS of prerequisite developmental-level courses.

The story at City College is not unusal. There are other college, too many, that also have extensive developmental-level course sequences. At some institutions, there are SEVEN levels of developmental Enlish or reading courses to complete. Is is a surprise that students drop out. They come to college with hopes and dreams of a college degree leading to a meaingful career with decent pay and stability. Instead, they are trapped by institutional policies and antiquated thinking by administrators and teachers using models from the 1950s for students living in the 21st century.

So what's to do? Here are several action steps:

  1. Continue the conversations, coordinations, and articulations between high school exit competencies and entrance skills needed for local colleges that receive many of those high-school graduates. Many college systems are doing this already, but more work is needed.
  2. Limit the developmental-level course sequence to no more than two semesters. The levels of these courses should be limited to two, maybe three.
  3. Provide intense summer learning experiences for students in need of developmental-level course work to increase their academic skills.
  4. Provide better assessment of student acadmeic skills and offer learning modules targeted for specific weak areas rather than requiring everyone to enroll in the same academic term-length course. Not all students need the same set of learnign modules within a course. Uncouple the course and create learning modules.
  5. For students with extremely low academic skills in reading, math, and English, experiment with partnerships with local GED centers. This provides a low cost alternative to chewing up the Pell grant funds of the college students in academic term length developmental level courses.
  6. Think outside the box. The current system is broken and we can not continue to waste another generation of students and their precious lives. They deserve better than this from us.

At City College, a Battle Over Remedial Classes for English and Math. By CAROL POGASH
At City College of San Francisco, one of the country's largest public universities, thousands of struggling students pour into remedial English and math classes - and then the vast majority disappear, never to receive a college degree.

When Steve Ngo, a 33-year-old college trustee, learned that many minority students, among others, faced two-and-a-half years, or five semesters, of remedial English classes and a year and a half of math at the two-year college, he was shocked into action. His campaign for a one-year sequence of remedial courses ignited a campus furor, with students and a few trustees on one side and faculty members, irate about the intrusion of trustees on academic turf, on the other.

Mr. Ngo's less-than-collegial campaign was expected to prevail. On Thursday night, Don Q. Griffin, the college's chancellor, was to present a proposal for a shortened remedial curriculum, designed to get students into college-level courses more quickly.

While the battle - which Hal Huntsman, the former president of the Academic Senate, likened to a civil war - was about trustees' dictating policies to professors, everyone agreed that the achievement gap, with blacks and Latinos on one side and whites and most Asians on the other, needed fixing.
Some 90 percent of new C.C.S.F. students who take the placement test are unprepared for introductory English 1A; 70 percent are not ready for basic math. There are more remedial math and English classes at the school than college-level classes, the chancellor said.

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Social Media, Web Site Bookmarks David Arendale Social Media, Web Site Bookmarks David Arendale

Social Media Usefulness: New Web Bookmarks for 2010-07-07

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