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Thursday, March 31, 2011

224.Unstack the Odds--Academic Prep, Part 1


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!


by


Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


12. Academic Prep, Part 1

“Keeping schools open from dawn to dusk, six days a week — offering youngsters a raft of medical, social and psychological supports, academic help, sports and activities — also has a demonstrable effect on academics. For starters, “community schools” keep kids off the streets after school — that’s critical, because the amount of time young people hang out on street corners with their friends is a better predictor of failure in school than family income.”--David L. Kirp, “There are ways to bridge the achievement gap in schools,” The Vindicator, October 19, 2010, p. A11. http://www.vindy.com/news/2010/oct/19/there-are-ways-to-bridge-the-achievement/?newswatch As for academic preparation, it is important to emphasize those measures found effective in reducing the achievement gap. As David Kirp summarized them, “Good preschools, smaller elementary school classes, a focus on reading, altering attitudes about intelligence, linking schools to their communities and paying attention to character-building — there’s nothing pie-in-the-sky in this agenda. If these crib-to-college reforms shift the public conversation away from “you can’t educate these kids” fatalism and toward investing in what’s been shown to work, the biggest achievement gap may finally start to shrink.” (Ibid.) I am occasionally asked what courses high school students need for college; I respond—with only slight exaggeration—“four years of everything.” That’s not just my view; according to Carol Frey, writer in the U.S. News Best Colleges 2011, “. . . educators do agree on the courses that students should take in high school: four years of English at the college-preparation level; four years of science including two lab sciences; four years of social sciences such as history and economics; and, increasingly, four years of math. ‘If you take a year off from math, when you take your college math placement exam, you could find yourself in a remedial class that doesn't qualify for financial aid or count toward graduation,’ warns Jacqueline King, who directs the American Council on Education's Center for Policy Analysis. To be ready for the college-level algebra required of most freshmen, for example, means taking algebra I and II courses and trigonometry in high school.” (Carol Frey, “Crash Course in Preparedness,” U.S. News & World Report, September 2010, p. 38.) http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/16/a-crash-course-in-college-preparedness To be sure, additional coursework in music and art as well as various electives are also a benefit to students aspiring to college. Massachusetts recently increased its mathematics requirement for students seeking places in state universities. According to an article in The Boston Globe, “The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted unanimously yesterday to require high school students seeking admission to a state university to take four years of math in high school, in an effort to boost college completion rates and to expose students from low-income communities to a more rigorous curriculum that better meets the expectations of colleges. Studies have linked the level of math taken in high school to a reduced need for remediation in college and a better chance of graduating.” According to that article, “Nationally, 10 states require four years of math for public college admissions, and more are expected to do so, said higher education officials.” (Tracy Jan, “State board boosts math requirement,” The Boston Globe, March 23, 2011.) http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/23/state_board_boosts_math_requirement/

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

223.Unstack the Odds--Cost, Part 5


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

11. Cost, Part 5


“Self help” refers to the kind of financial aid people love to hate--because a student or parent often has to pay it back! We may not like it, but colleges expect both students and parents to "help themselves" pay for their higher education--hence, the term "self-help." The most common variety consists of a loan—for many, the four-letter word in college financial aid! Loans, of course, must be repaid (with interest), which results in students' loan-debt.


Today, many students--and their parents--will likely consider loans to pay for higher education. To learn more about borrowing for college, Lynn O'Shaughnessy has compiled several of her blog-posts on loans, "Best College Loan Advice: 9 Tips for Borrowing for College," at this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/best-college-loan-advice-9-tips-for-borrowing-for-college/1864/?tag=col1;blog-river


Before a student takes out loans to pay for college, he or she and their family should investigate available options (i.e., “shop” for student loans.) Specifically, they need to consider the kinds of loans offered as well as interest rates and repayment obligations. To become aware of these possibilities, read the blog-post by Lynn O'Shaughnessy, entitled "Find the Right Student Loan," at this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/find-the-right-student-loan/371/?tag=col1;blog-river


Students and their parents who need to borrow to pay for college who research their options for loans often wonder whether they are better off taking out federal student loans or private loans. More than simply interest rates and terms of repayment are involved in this consideration. To see some comparisons between government and private loans, read the post by Sandra Block on May 4, 2010, in USA Today at this link: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/block/2010-05-04-yourmoney04_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip


Both students--and their parents--often have to borrow money to pay for college. Despite taking out all federal student loans for which they qualify, some still consider private student loans. To get the best (lowest) rates of interest on these loans, shop around! In her blog-post from May 14, 2010, Lynn O'Shaughnessy states: "The interest rates that lenders offer on private student loans are wildly different even for borrowers with the same credit scores." To read her entire post, click this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/private-student-loans-the-good-bad-and-ugly/2078/?tag=col1;blog-river


An important question students need to ask in regard to college loans is "How much should I borrow?" With the hazards of loan-debt so well-publicized today, this is an important question to ponder. Lynn O'Shaughnessy addresses this issue in her blog-post "College Debt: Don’t Borrow More Than $27,000" at this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/college-debt-dont-borrow-more-than-27000/1521/?tag=col1;blog-river


Even after considering all elements a student may receive in his/her financial-aid package, they may still need more money to pay for a particular college or university. In that case, parents often consider taking out loans to assist their child. However, how much parents should borrow is often not addressed. Lynn O'Shaughnessy confronts this issue in her blog-post "College Loans: How Much Should Parents Borrow?" at this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/college-loans-how-much-should-parents-borrow/1510/?tag=col1;blog-river


Borrowing to pay college expenses is becoming a necessity for more students. The percentage of students who have college loans is growing, as Lynn O'Shaughnessy discusses in her blog-post "The Soaring Popularity of College Student Loans" at this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/the-soaring-popularity-of-college-student-loans/545/?tag=col1;blog-river


Borrowing for college is an important issue today, as student loan-debt increases--sometimes to scary levels. To read a report by Sandy Baum and Patricia Steele for The College Board entitled "Who Borrows Most? Bachelor's Degree Recipients with High Levels of Student Debt," click this link:http://advocacy.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/Trends-Who-Borrows-Most-Brief.pdf




Despite all the information available, mounting loan debt of college students is a financial crisis affecting many college students today. Indeed, according to a post in The New York Times, average student debt for college graduates is over $23,000—and rising. According to that article by Jacques Steinberg, “Students who graduated from college in 2008 with loans carried an average debt of $23,200 — an increase of nearly 25 percent, or $4,550, when compared with those who graduated just four years earlier. These figures appear in the latest study by the Project on Student Debt, an initiative of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit organization.” (Jacques Steinberg, "Average Debt for Graduating College Seniors Rises to $23,200," The New York Times--The Choice: Demystifying College Admissions and Aid, December 2, 2009.) http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/debt/?src=twt&twt=NYTimesCollege


To read first-hand, student accounts of being in debt from college expenses, click on this series from HuffPost College: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/college-debt_n_471023.html?slidenumber=1mvKlgmw4aI%3D&&&slideshow#slide_image


To read additional articles about the hazards of taking on too much loan-debt for college, click on the following links:


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

222.Unstack the Odds--Cost, Part 4


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

11. Cost, Part 4


When it comes to cost of college, students and their parents must remember the old adage: “Let the buyer beware.” Today, horror stories abound of students who have gone into debt, often failed to earn a degree, and are still unable to find a job. One such student is Becky Loring, who attended Westwood College, a proprietary (for-profit) school in Florida. According to a Tampa newspaper article, “Loring, 32, now owes the government and private lenders more than $100,000. Working in sales, she is far from the graphic design job she studied for, barely able to make her college loan interest payments."When I think about it, I just feel nauseated," she said. "How did I let this happen?" (Lindsay Peterson, “For-profit colleges leave many with debt but no jobs,” The Tampa Tribune, March 27, 2011.) http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/27/for-profit-colleges-leave-some-with-debt-but-no-jo/news-breaking/

For information on the sector of higher education alternatively referred to as "for-profit/private sector/corporate," you can access data released by the U.S. Education Department on April 6, 2010, at this link from Inside Higher Ed: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/07/enroll

On June 24, 2010, Chairman Tom Harkin opened hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions regarding for-profit higher education. At the outset, a report was issued, containing the following conclusions:

“The Federal government and taxpayers are making a large and rapidly growing investment in financial aid to for-profit schools, with few tools in place to gauge how well that money is being spent. Available data show that very few students enroll in for-profit schools without taking on debt, while a staggering number of students are leaving the schools, presumably many without completing a degree or certificate. To boost enrollment, some for-profit schools recruit large numbers of new students each year. In some cases, schools enroll more students over the course of the year than were enrolled at the beginning of the year. To ensure these enrollment increases, it is necessary for the schools to devote very large shares of Title IV dollars and other Federal financial aid to marketing activities, not education."

"These schools are increasingly relying on Federal financial aid dollars for revenue. When all Title IV, Department of Defense and Veteran’s Administration funds are included, many of these schools are receiving nearly all of their funds from Federal sources. While increasing their reliance on Federal dollars as a source of revenue, for-profit schools are at best spending only slightly more than half of revenues actually educating students, and in several cases are shrinking the amount spent on instruction. Yet these same schools are reporting profit margins of 20 percent and higher to investors."

"Students at for-profit schools are also taking on higher amounts of debt than their peers at public and nonprofit schools. Nearly half of student loan borrowers who entered repayment in 2007 and defaulted by 2009 attended for-profit schools (44 percent), even though less than 10 percent of students attend these schools.The publicly available data, in tandem with mounting reports of questionable practices and poor student outcome, yields a mixed portrait of the for-profit higher education sector that calls into question the taxpayers return on their multi-billion-dollar investment, and leaves many unanswered questions with regard to whether a sufficient number of students receive an education that provides them with the knowledge and skills they need to obtain jobs to repay their student debt.” (Emerging Risk?: An Overview of Growth, Spending, Student Debt and Unanswered Questions in For-Profit Higher Education, p. 11) http://harkin.senate.gov/documents/pdf/4c23515814dca.pdf

To access the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled "FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices," dated August 4, 2010, click the following link:http://pervegalit.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/gaomarketing.pdf

According to that GAO report, you can watch video clips of applications by undercover investigators and listen to voicemail messages from proprietary educational institution recruiters at this link:http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-948T

To see the annual revenue and number of students enrolled by some of the largest for-profit companies/universities, click this link to an article in The Wall Street Journal, dated August 30, 2010:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703418004575455773289209384.html?mod=WSJ_article_related

To read the article by Stephanie Chen, "For-profit college risk: Huge debt, questionable degree," posted on 9/2/10, at CNN online, click this link: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/02/for.profit.college.debt/index.html?hpt=C2


Monday, March 28, 2011

221.Unstack the Odds--Cost, Part 3


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


11. Cost, Part 3


To keep a student’s cost for college as low as possible, they may want to consider the option of matriculating to a community college before transferring to a four-year school. Sometimes, financial incentives make this route hard to pass up. In the state of Massachusetts, for example, a transfer program for community college grads offers a most reasonable college cost. According to an Associated Press article, “A new program is aimed at making it easier for graduates of two-year community colleges to attend--and afford--the University of Massachusetts flagship Amherst campus. Community college students with a grade point average of 3.0 or better would be guaranteed admission to UMass-Amherst with free tuition. Those with a GPA of at least 2.5 percent would also be guaranteed admission and would be eligible for financial aid and other services. The current in-state tuition at the university is $1,714 a year.” ("Umass woos community college grads,” The Boston Globe, March 23, 2011.) http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/23/umass_woos_community_college_grads/


Another financial alternative to consider is attending the regional campus of a state university; these local campuses can often have lower costs. An illustration of this approach can be seen in the case study I collaborated on regarding Kent State University in Ohio. According to that analysis, students with an expected family contribution (EFC) of $0 on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) could attend the regional campuses of KSU at Salem, East Liverpool, or Trumbull at no cost, based on the full federal Pell grant of $5,350 in 2009-10. (That full Pell amount of $5,350 annually would be split between the fall and spring semesters, for $2,675 in financial aid per term.) Given tuition at KSU regional campuses for freshmen and sophomores at $2,469 per semester, students would not only get their entire tuition paid by the Pell Grant but also get money back--that could be used to buy books. (“EFC of $0? Go to College in the Valley for Free—or Almost,” MVCAP blog post, November 29, 2009.) http://mvcap.blogspot.com/2009/11/21-efc-of-0-go-to-college-in-valley-for.html


Interestingly, when it comes to student views on cost, it was not their most important consideration in choosing a college. According to a survey of 21,000 high school seniors, done of its registrants by Fastweb.com with consulting firm Maguire Associates in January 2011, “total cost” was the fourth most frequently-cited factor (by 87% of respondents)--and tied with “Availability of need- or merit-based scholarships” (87%)--after “quality of major” (94%), “’value’ of education, including quality and cost” (92%), and “employment opportunities after college” (91%). (Jacques Steinberg, “Economy Is Growing Factor in College Choices, Poll Finds,” The New York Times, The Choice: Demystifying College Admissions and Aid, March 23, 2011.) http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/economy-2/

Friday, March 25, 2011

220.Unstack the Odds--Cost, Part 2


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

11. Cost, Part 2

Often, students and parents are dissuaded from applying to a particular college or university because it seems high-priced. As Lynn O'Shaughnessy said in her post on this issue, “For lots of families that’s nonsense. Published college costs are meaningless. Most families face college expenses that are much lower than a school’s sticker price.” Per O’Shaughnessy, “A new study of recent college applicants illustrates just how widespread the sticker price myth is. Fifty nine percent of students said they only looked at college price tags when deciding which schools they should send applications. According to the Student Poll, which was produced by the College Board and Art & Science Group, a higher-ed consulting firm, only 28% of applicants considered the net cost of college. That’s the actual cost that families pay after they receive grants and other financial aid.” (Lynn O’Shaughnessy, “Biggest Financial Aid Myth: I Can’t Afford This College,” CBS MoneyWatch, May 25, 2010.) http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/biggest-financial-aid-myth-i-cant-afford-this-college/2143/?tag=col1;blog-river

Therefore, instead of focusing on the stated "sticker price," a prospective applicant needs to determine his or her own "net cost"--that is, what they would have to pay after all financial aid for which they are eligible has been deducted from the published cost of attendance. Indeed, the only line that should matter to students regarding college is the bottom line (i.e., net price): how much they’ll have to pay after all financial aid (need-based and merit) is subtracted from a school’s total cost of attendance.

By October 29, 2011, the federal government requires that all colleges and universities which participate in its financial-aid program have posted a net-price calculator on their school’s website. A requirement of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, these calculators will need two parts, according to the U.S. Department of Education website:
“The Department’s template is made up of two components: (1) the institutional data maintenance application and (2) the user application. In the first component, institutions input the following data:
· Price of attendance
· Median amounts of grant and scholarship aid awarded to, and accepted by, first-time, full-time degree/certificate-seeking students by EFC range

In the second component, users are asked nine questions to establish the following:
· Their dependency status
· Their estimated cost of attendance
· Approximated EFC.”

The website explained that “The template uses a “look-up” table populated with data from the FAFSA applications database to identify a median EFC. Median EFC is then matched with the median grant and scholarship aid amount entered by the institution for the corresponding EFC range to determine the student's estimated amount of total grant aid. Estimated net price is calculated by subtracting estimated total grant aid from the estimated total price of attendance.” (“Net Price Calculator Requirement,” National Center for Education Statistics—Integrated Postsecondary Data System website.) http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/resource/net_price_calculator.asp

An early examination of these calculators, done in the spring of 2011, noted the following:
“By providing estimates for cost of attendance, grant aid, and net price (defined as cost of attendance minus grant aid), those calculators are intended to ‘help current and prospective students, families, and other consumers estimate the individual net price of an institution of higher education for a student.’ Net price calculators will provide individualized results, based on the student’s family, financial, and other circumstances.” (Adding It All Up: An Early Look at Net Price Calculators," The Institute for College Access & Success, March 2011, p. 4.) http://ticas.org/files/pub/adding_it_all_up.pdf

Interestingly, the University of California schools have offered calculators on their websites since 2008. These devices, called “financial aid estimators,” ask 11 questions of applicants and satisfy the federal mandate. (Kathleen Pender, “College websites adding net price calculators,” SFGate, March 24, 2011.) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/23/BU9P1IHVFV.DTL

Thursday, March 24, 2011

219.Unstack the Odds--Cost, Part 1


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

11. Cost, Part 1

When it comes to cost, it’s helpful to consider the view of Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, President Emeritus at The George Washington University, who described higher education pricing as follows: “Colleges and universities have been using the sales model for years: it is called ‘scholarships’ and other forms of financial aid. And most admissions officers can tell you their school's ‘discount rate,’ a term of art that comes from the merchandising sector. Statements like, ‘Our tuition is $42,000 a year but 48 percent of our students receive aid,’ tells us that 52 percent pay full price and all the others get a markdown.” (Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, “Price Does Not Equal Cost,” The New York Times, February 22, 2011.) http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/21/cutting-tuition-a-first-step/reducing-college-tuition-a-patch-on-a-leaky-roof

For the underrepresented students with odds stacked against their access to college and reduced chances of success, these financial discounts are often irrelevant, however, since their high school grade-point average, class-rank, and score on the ACT or SAT will often not qualify them to receive much—if any--merit aid (i.e., scholarships.) Therefore, securing need-based aid is critical. Indeed, the Roadmap (cited earlier) offered this recommendation in regard to reducing the cost of college for Latinos: “Guarantee need-based aid for qualified students.” [emphasis in original] As it explained, “Finding and receiving sufficient financial aid to pay for college are complex and cumbersome processes. Providing potential and current students with a guarantee of their eligibility for financial support has been effective for enrolling and retaining low-income students at several institutions and has the potential to be effective on a larger scale.” (Roadmap for Ensuring America’s Future By Increasing Latino College Completion, Excelencia in Education, March 2011, p. 15.) http://www.edexcelencia.org/initiatives/EAF/Roadmap

Also from the Roadmap regarding cost of college was its recommendation to “Make college accessible and affordable for students of all economic backgrounds.” [emphasis in original] “Policy efforts” offered included the following:
“Market state scholarship programs more intentionally targeted at students from economically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities to increase their application of federal and private financial aid resources to pay for college.
Create financial incentives for low-income students to remain continuously enrolled in higher education until degree attainment. This could include loan forgiveness, textbook waivers, or tuition discounts to students who remain continuously enrolled. . . .
Expand need-based funding from the state for low-income students. [and]
Charge leaders of public higher education institutions to develop a coordinated action plan to increase capacity, access, and degree attainment . . . .” (Ibid., p. 17.) http://www.edexcelencia.org/initiatives/EAF/Roadmap




Wednesday, March 23, 2011

218.Unstack the Odds--A Plan of Action


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


10. A Plan of Action

Necessarily, any plan of action would be based on these sound guidance principles and seek to overcome the aforementioned obstacles and barriers. But first and foremost, any plan would start early, long before students are in high school—indeed, considerably before they even enter kindergarten. Or preschool. Ideally, this early start would mean advising expectant mothers—particularly, unwed teenagers--during the critical prenatal period of their children. To be sure, there are many challenges and difficulties involved in this early approach: for example, a co-worker of mine once confronted a high school advisee, asking if she were expecting. The young lady admitted she was seven months pregnant; my co-worker then assisted her, phoning the girl’s stepmother to inform the parent! No prenatal care had been received. (The new mom returned some weeks later to show us her healthy new baby!)

Therefore, it may be more likely that measures would commonly occur during children’s school-age years. Regardless, a first step would be to encourage early reading for all children. An update of the report by Grad Nation, relating to its “Civic Marshall Plan,” emphasized importance of this reading as follows:

“Not being able to read proficiently by the end of fourth grade can put students on a path to dropping out by triggering academic difficulties resulting in grade retention. In 2009, more than 90 percent of low-income students failed to score proficiently on national reading exams. Half of all low-income fourth graders did not even reach the basic level. This foundational skill must be mastered to succeed in high school.” (Robert Balfanz, et. al., Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic—2010-2011 Annual Update, America’s Promise Alliance, March 2011, p. 20.)
http://www.americaspromise.org/Our-Work/Grad-Nation/~/media/Files/Our%20Work/Grad%20Nation/2011%20Summit/Reports/GradNation-rd6-FINAL.ashx


Another focus would be on encouraging regular attendance at school. Again to quote the Grad Nation Update,

“In recent years, there has been a growing awareness that communities with low graduation rates often have very high rates of chronic absenteeism from the early grades onward. Research shows that three out of four students who are severely chronically absent in the sixth grade never graduate from high school. (Ibid., p. 20)

Also, per the Update, is an emphasis on “early warning and intervention systems” and an emphasis on the middle grades. Indeed, according to that report:

“Research has shown that students who eventually leave high school before graduating exhibit strong predictive warning signs of dropping out, such as infrequent attendance, behavior infractions, and course failure. These warning signs — the ABCs of dropout prevention — more accurately predict whether a student will drop out of high school than any other socioeconomic factors and can be used to predict high school graduation as early as the start of middle school. Given this reality, states are enhancing the quality of the data they are collecting and are building longitudinal data systems. This is prompting the adoption of early warning systems throughout the country at the state, district, and school levels.” (Ibid., p. 21.)

Two other factors cited in the original report Building a Grad Nation are also important to emphasize. The first was parental engagement, of which that first report stated the following:

“Research has shown that students with involved parents, regardless of their family income or background, are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higherlevel classes, attend school and pass their classes, develop better social skills, graduate from high school, attend college, and find productive work. The opposite is true for students whose parents are less engaged.” (Robert Balfanz, et. al., Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic, America’s Promise Alliance, November 2010, p. 52)

Another factor cited in the original report was “teacher training and effectiveness.” As that report emphasized, “Research shows that a knowledgeable and engaging teacher is the single greatest advantage a student can have to raise their academic potential.” (Ibid., p. 48.) Indeed, having served in public education for 30 years—13 years as a classroom teacher of high school social studies and 17 years as a building and district administrator—I know the importance of effective instruction and am convinced that caring and conscientious educators are probably the sine qua non to enabling all students—particularly, those at-risk—to gain college access and success.


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

217.Unstack the Odds--Where to Begin?


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

9. Where to Begin?

Certainly, any plan of action would begin with the individual student. Much of the foregoing discussions have dealt with groups and averages; what we know, however, is that each student is unique in his or her family background, academic preparation, information about college admissions and financial aid, social capital, etcetera. Therefore, we must start where that students is and go from there.

In a research paper written for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, Barbara Schneider, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in the College of Education at Michigan State University, “. . . suggested that students proceed through adolescent development at varying paces, and that a one-size-fits-all approach to early marketing and communication may not yield optimal results for students or colleges. Schneider emphasized individualized college counseling in high schools, as well as a commitment to counseling in the admission office, as important tools for ensuring that admission practices do not ignore differing student interests in or perspectives on the transition to postsecondary education.” (Barbara Schneider, College Choice and Adolescent Development: Psychological and Social Implications of Early Admission, National Association for College Admission Counseling, 2009, NACAC Research Web page, in Staff Report to the NACAC Assembly: Early Notification Study, National Association for College Admission Counseling, September 2010, p. 7.) http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/Reports/Documents/EarlyNotificationStudy2010.pdf
Labeled a “key finding” of Schneider’s paper, available on the NACAC Research Web page to members, was the following: “The prospect of paying for college, the complexity of financial aid applications, and varied requirements for admission applications continue to constrain the college decision process. Between the technical nature of information requested and the procedures students are required to follow, the college decision process has become profoundly complicated, with most adolescents depending on parents and counselors to help make post-high school plans for them.” (National Association for College Admission Counseling, 2009, NACAC Research Web page.)
Another reference cited on the NACAC research web page was the Special Adolescent Development Issue of The Journal of College Admission, Number 198, Winter 2008. According to the NACAC site, all five of the featured articles “. . . stress the importance of individualized counseling in the college admission process. The key to understanding the effects of college admission practice on adolescent development, according to many of the authors, is for college admission counseling professionals to understand and appreciate the physical, social, and psychological contexts in which students exist.” (Staff Report to the NACAC Assembly: Early Notification Study, National Association for College Admission Counseling, September 2010, p. 7.) http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/Reports/Documents/EarlyNotificationStudy2010.pdf

Monday, March 21, 2011

216.Unstack the Odds--Obstacles to Access & Success


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

8. Obstacles to Access & Success

If the odds seemed stacked against some children when it comes to college access and success, what are hurdles they must confront? Harvard professor Bridget Terry Long and consultant Erin Riley summarized the obstacles such students face:
"Although there are many barriers to college access and success for low-income and minority students, most can be grouped into three major categories. The first set of major barriers [emphases added] relates to cost . . . . A second major set of barriers to college enrollment and persistence is academic preparation . . . . The third major impediment to higher education for many students, particularly those from low-income families, is the complexity of the college admissions process and financial aid systems, as well as a lack of accurate information about higher education costs. College attendance is the culmination of a series of steps and benchmarks, and this current landscape is too complex and difficult for many families to decipher and navigate." (Bridget Terry Long and Erin Riley, “Financial Aid: A Broken Bridge to College Access?” Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 77 No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 40-42)
http://www.hepg.org/document/19/ )

Another view of the obstacles students face was expressed in the brief From Access to Success: A Funder’s Guide to Ensuring More Americans Earn Postsecondary Degrees, by Grantmakers for Education. The barriers cited “at the student level” included the following:
Inadequate academic preparation at the K-12 level
Incomplete information about college [and]
Difficulty understanding the costs and accessing adequate financial aid.
(From Access to Success: A Funder’s Guide to Ensuring More Americans Earn Postsecondary Degrees, Grantmakers for Education, 2010, p. 2) http://edfunders.org/downloads/GFEReports/GFE_FromAccessToSuccess_FundersGuide.pdf

Regarding the inadequacy of pre-college academic preparation for some students, a recent article posted by Lisa W. Foderaro illustrated this issue at the City University of New York (CUNY), which must “. . . take every student with a high school diploma or equivalency degree”; as she stated: “About three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects. In the past five years, a subset of students deemed “triple low remedial” — with the most severe deficits in all three subjects — has doubled, to 1,000.” (“CUNY Adjusts Amid Tide of Remedial Students,” The New York Times, March 3, 2011.) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/nyregion/04remedial.html?_r=1&hp

Friday, March 18, 2011

215.Unstack the Odds--Latinos:Another Crisis, Pt 2




Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


7. Latinos: Another Crisis, Pt 2


The nonprofit organization Excelencia in Education released its report Roadmap for Ensuring America’s Future By Increasing Latino College Completion in March 2011. That report summarized the higher education situation of Hispanics, stating “Latino educational attainment is currently lower than that of other groups (only 19 percent of Latino adults have earned an associate or higher degree.” (Roadmap for Ensuring America’s Future By Increasing Latino College Completion, Excelencia in Education, March 2011, p. 7.) http://www.edexcelencia.org/initiatives/EAF/Roadmap

Regarding Latino college preparation, Roadmap presented these data:
“The high school completion rate for Hispanics overall increased from 60 percent in 1987 to 69 percent in 2009.
Latinos are more likely to be placed into lower academic tracks throughout their secondary
schooling, which affects their college preparation.
Many Hispanic students have taken remediation courses. In 2007-08, 45% of Hispanic students
had taken a remedial course compared to 38% of all students.” (Ibid., pp. 8-9.)

As for the college enrollment of Hispanic males, these statistics were offered:
“Latino’s college-going rate is lower than other groups. The college-going rate for Latino high school completers between 18-24 years of age was 37%. In comparison, the rate was 40% for black and 49% for white high school completers. . . .
Many Latinos are the first in their family to enroll in college. In 2007-08, about 50% of Hispanics enrolled in college had parents whose highest level of education was a high school diploma or less. In comparison, 45% of black and 28% of white students were the first in their family to go to college. . . . “ (Ibid., p. 9.)

Regarding Hispanic economic background, this profile was presented:
“Latinos are more likely to be low-income. In 2007-08, almost 25% of Latino students (dependents) have family incomes less than $40,000, compared to 11% of white students. . . .
Latinos, on average, received lower amounts of total financial aid or any type of aid than all
students—except for work-study—in 2008. Latino students received a lower average financial aid award ($7,925) than all students ($9,114).” (Ibid.)

Finally, as for Latino college completion, the data offered were these:
“ In 2008, Hispanics 25 years and over in the United States were less likely to have earned a postsecondary degree (19 percent) than blacks (29 percent), whites (39 percent), and Asians (59 percent).” (Ibid.)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

214.Unstack the Odds--Latinos:Another Crisis, Pt 1




Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


7. Latinos: Another Crisis, Pt 1


A posting by Peter Schmidt on the 2010 A Call For Change commented on the data relating to Hispanics, saying “The latest report covers new ground, however, with a special section focusing on the nation's Hispanic population, which has the lowest rate of high-school completion and the lowest level of educational attainment of any minority group, and has made the least progress in recent decades in the growth of its share of young people going on to college . . . . “ Schmidt commented further: “Unlike many other immigrants, most Hispanic immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, come from underachieving economic and educational backgrounds, the report notes.” (Peter Schmidt, “Educational Difficulties of Men and Immigrants Hinder Efforts to Improve College Attainment,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 20, 2010.) http://chronicle.com/article/Educational-Difficulties-of/125015/


For the itinerant farmworkers’ children—American citizens by virtue of their birth in the U.S.--whose families pick the produce crop, which may involve moving frequently, their education can be disrupted. Patricia Leigh Brown described one such young male in this posting: “One boy in Mr. Ramos’s class did not attend school for five months. He spent his time on PlayStation. This year, his father will move for work. But his mother is staying in Salinas, worried, she said, that “my son is falling behind.” Almost half of these children become high-school dropouts. (Patricia Leigh Brown, “Itinerant Life Weighs on Farmworkers’ Children,” The New York Times, March 12, 2011.) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/us/13salinas.html?pagewanted=2&adxnnl=1&hpw&adxnnlx=1300104036-wFj/nGS5VdhLTnVazFb7Sw

As for Latino boys, an opinion column in USAToday offered what might be termed this “reverse pyramid” of academic achievement: “According to a study by the Center for Community Development and Civil Rights at Arizona State University, out of 100 Latino males who start elementary school, 49 leave before high school graduation. Of those who finish high school, only 10 complete college. Our high school dropout rate (29%) surpasses that of white males (7%) and African-American males (14%).” (Raul Reyes, “Education progress eludes Latinos,” USA Today, August 17, 2007, p. 11A.)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

213.Unstack the Odds--Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 4




Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


6. Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 4

“He says the biggest revelation he had reading his own autobiography came in the parts about his father, who abandoned the family when Jay was 11. ‘It was still wrong, at the end of the day, that he left.’ Jay says, ‘but he did stick around at a time when it wasn’t cool or popular—he married my mom at a time when guys were just leaving, and you’d never even meet your dad. So it made me ease up a little bit in how I felt about him.”--Mark Binelli, “King of America: From Coachella to the White House, How Jay-Z Runs the Game,” Rolling Stone, June 24, 2010, p. 47.

Dakarai Aarons also commented on the release of the report A Call for Change, which examined data from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). As he stated: “The council's report suggests that the underperformance of black male youths is nothing short of a national emergency, and it calls for the convening of a White House conference.”

Aarons quotes Michael Casserly from an interview as saying, "This is not just an education issue, and it is not just an urban issue. It is a broader national issue that is going to require sustained and coordinated effort on the part of a lot of people.” (Dakarai Aarons, “Black Male Achievement in a 'State of Crisis,' Study Says,” Education Week, November 9, 2010.) http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2010/11/black_male_achievement_paints.html
Chauntel Riser, coordinator of the African-American Resource Center at California State University Fullerton (CSUF), put it this way: “So it’s not that they don’t want to, they just don’t know how to graduate . . . .” According to Christina Lunceford, assistant director of the Center for Research on Education Access and Leadership at CSUF, “We are in a crisis across the country especially with African-American males. There are not a lot of African-American males going to college and even fewer are graduating.” (Soyoung Kim, “Achievement Gap Persists in African-American Graduation Rates,” Neon Tommy, March 5, 2011.) http://m.neontommy.com/news/2011/03/achievement-gap-persists-african-american-graduation-rates

Regarding the graduation gap involving Black male college athletes, Lynn O’Shaughnessy offered a posting on the graduation rates of men’s basketball teams competing in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. She drew statistics from the annual report issued by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida and commented as follows: “The gap between white and African American players, however, grew by four percentage point[s] to 32%. Ninety one percent of white basketball players graduate, but only 59% of African-American basketball players graduate. Obviously, that’s unacceptable.” (Lynn O’Shaughnessy, “2011 March Madness: Best and Worst Graduation Rates,” The College Solution: CBS Moneywatch, March 15, 2011.) http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/2011-march-madness-best-and-worst-graduation-rates/4787/?tag=col1;blog-river

By contrast, among participants on teams in the 2011 Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, the graduation gap was much smaller between the races, as “. . . 92 percent of white players graduate, compared to 84 percent of black players, or a gap of just 8 percent.” (“Women’s NCAA Teams Outdo Men in Classroom,” The Huffington Post: College, March 16, 2011.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/15/womens-ncaa-teams-outdo-m_n_836240.html

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

212.Unstack the Odds--Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 3




Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


6. Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 3


Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, also commented on the report A Call for Change in his posting, “This Raging Fire,” of November 15, 2010. As Herbert stated:
“We know by now, of course, that the situation is grave. We know that more than a third of black children live in poverty; that more than 70 percent are born to unwed mothers; that by the time they reach their mid-30s, a majority of black men without a high school diploma has spent time in prison. We know all this, but no one seems to know how to turn things around. No one has been able to stop this steady plunge of young black Americans into a socioeconomic abyss.” (Bob Herbert, “This Raging Fire,” The New York Times, November 15, 2010.) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/opinion/16herbert.html?_r=1&hp


The columnist continued: “Now comes a report from the Council of the Great City Schools that ought to grab the attention of anyone who cares about black youngsters, starting with those parents who have shortchanged their children on a scale so monstrous that it is difficult to fully grasp. . . .” (Ibid.)


Herbert then linked the report to the current U.S. recession--and attitudes in our nation's capital: “The terrible economic downturn has made it more difficult than ever to douse this raging fire that is consuming the life prospects of so many young blacks, and the growing sentiment in Washington is to do even less to help any Americans in need. It is inconceivable in this atmosphere that blacks themselves will not mobilize in a major way to save these young people. I see no other alternative.” (Ibid.)


The writer ended with this proposal: “The first and most important step would be a major effort to begin knitting the black family back together. There is no way to overstate the myriad risks faced by children whose parents have effectively abandoned them. It’s the family that protects the child against ignorance and physical harm, that offers emotional security and the foundation for a strong sense of self, that enables a child to believe — truly — that wonderful things are possible.” (Ibid.)

Monday, March 14, 2011

211.Unstack the Odds--Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 2





Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


6. Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 2

“Albert Taylor remembers seeing a Youngstown man blow marijuana smoke in the face of his child to make the child hungry because the boy was sick and did not want to eat. That the father felt it OK to blow marijuana in the direction of his child, who has sickle-cell anemia, demonstrates a difficulty young black people have in raising the next generation.” (John W. Goodwin Jr., “Youth and Violence,” The Vindicator, March 13, 2011, p. A1.)

In his article “Proficiency of Black Males Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected” on the release of the report A Call for Change, reporter Trip Gabriel of The New York Times cited this striking fact:
“Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys. Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.” (Trip Gabriel, “Proficiency of Black Males Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected,” The New York Times, November 9, 2010.) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=2&hpw

Further, Gabriel quoted Ronald Ferguson, who directed the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard, as follows:
“There’s accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten,” said Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard. “They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have.”

Those include “conversations about early childhood parenting practices,” Dr. Ferguson said. “The activities that parents conduct with their 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. How much we talk to them, the ways we talk to them, the ways we enforce discipline, the ways we encourage them to think and develop a sense of autonomy.” (Trip Gabriel, “Proficiency of Black Males Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected,” The New York Times, November 9, 2010.) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=2&hpw

Friday, March 11, 2011

210.Unstack the Odds--Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 1




Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


6. Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 1


“Every dude wanna be da "hardest," every girl wanna be "the baddest bitch," okay, koo, tell me where u gon be in 10 years when u tryna make ends meet, no job, no future for yaself......U still wanna be "Hood???" I understand I got a lil bit in me, but I will NEVER go back to that mentality!!”—J____ F_____, posting on Facebook, March 7, 2011.


Rapper and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z said, regarding his song “American Dreamin,’” that “our aim is the same as everyone, shooting for the American dream of success and wealth, but the target is a little different: Instead of trying to land in college or in a good job, I’m trying to get rich in the streets.” (Jay-Z, Decoded, New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010, p. 33.) As the entertainer put it, “but it’s just a rational response to the reality we faced. No one was going to help us. Not even our fathers stuck around.” (Ibid. p. 86.)

Donna Ford had earlier studied variances in achievement between gifted Black males and female adolescents. Ford summarized those differences as follows: “Black males were more likely than females to be underachievers; they exerted considerably less effort in school and held more negative attitudes about school than females. They found school less relevant and personally meaningful than did their female counterparts. Further, Black males were more pessimistic about social factors than were Black females. For example, several of the early adolescent Black males spoke with anger and disappointment about the injustices Blacks must wrestle with.” (Donna Y. Ford, Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students: Promising Practices and Programs, New York: Teachers College Press, 1996, p. 128.)

In October 2010, The Council of the Great City Schools issued its research report called A Call For Change: The Social And Educational Factors Contributing To The Outcomes Of Black Males In Urban Schools. In his preface, Executive Director of the Council Michael Casserly pulled no punches: “The nation’s young Black males are in a state of crisis. They do not have the same opportunities as their male or female counterparts across the country. . . . At almost every juncture, the odds are stacked against these young men in ways that result in too much unfulfilled potential and too many fractured lives.” (A Call For Change: The Social And Educational Factors Contributing To The Outcomes Of Black Males In Urban Schools, The Council of the Great City Schools, October 2010, p. iii.)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/A-Call-For-Change.pdf

The report summarized the situation in which Black kids may find themselves:
In 2008, Black children ages 18 and under were three times more likely to live in single-parent households than White children. Nearly two-thirds of all Black children lived in a single-parent household.
In 2007, one out of every three Black children lived in poverty compared with one out of every ten White children. (Ibid., p. 3)

Further, it supported the summary statement that “Black males continue to perform lower than their peers throughout the country on almost every indicator” (Ibid., p. 2) with these facts:
Between 2003 and 2009, the average reading scale of large city (LC) Black males was lower than the average score of White males in national public shools (NP) by at least 28 points at grade 4 and 29 points at grade 8. (Ibid., p. 3)
In 2009, the average reading scale score of large city (LC) Black males who were not eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (Non-FRPL) was one point lower at grade 4 and seven points lower at grade 8 than the score of White males in national public schools (NP) who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL). (Ibid., p. 4)
In 2009, the average mathematics scale score of large city (LC) Black students in grade 4 and 8 was significantly lower than Hispanic students in large cities (LC). Both were lower than White students in national public schools (NP). (Ibid.)

As for the report’s “Factor 4: College and Career Preparedness,” Black males were, once again, found to be behind, as these data indicate:
Black males were more likely, compared with White males, to drop out of high school and not graduate. Fewer Black males take Advanced Placement exams or enroll in two- or four-year colleges after graduation. Furthermore, the average SAT and ACT scores of Black males were lower than those of White males. (Ibid., p. 5)
Three out of 10 Black males enrolled in a four-year institution, compared with four out of 10 White males. (Ibid.)
Approximately 15 percent of Black males graduated in four years and about one-third graduated in five years compared with 33 percent of White males graduating in four years and one-half graduating in five years. (Ibid., p. 6)

Executive Director Casserly anticipated the reaction to this report. As he stated: “This report is likely to make people angry, and it should. We hope that this is a louder and more jolting wake-up call to the nation than this country is used to hearing. The fact that the previous calls have fallen on so many deaf ears is not encouraging, but we are convinced that we must ring the alarms one more time and play a larger role in setting this situation right.” He finished by saying this: “With so many of our citizens lacking access to the fruits of the richest nation on earth, our aspirations as a truly just nation are called into question.” (Ibid.)

Thursday, March 10, 2011

209. Unstack the Odds--What About the Guys?



Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

5. What About the Guys?

The 2010 Met Life Teacher Survey, conducted by Harris Interactive in the fall of 2010 on a national sample “. . . of middle and high school teachers, students, parents of public school students, and business executives from Fortune 1000 companies . . . .” indicated a gender gap regarding students’ desire to access college; indeed, the Survey found the following:
In high school, a gender gap in college expectations emerges that does not exist in middle school. [emphasis in original.] In middle school, seven in ten girls (73%) and boys (72%) plan to get at least a bachelor’s degree. However, in high school, the number of girls planning to get a college degree increases to 83%, while the number of boys planning to get a college degree remains the same as the middle school number.” (The Met Life Survey of the American Teacher: Preparing Students for College and Careers, Part 1: Clearing the Path, Fall 2010, p. 9.)
http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/contributions/foundation/american-teacher/MetLife_Teacher_Survey_2010.pdf

A Time article by David Von Drehle discussed the performance of boys in the U.S.; the author indicated lower male performance, as related to college access and success. As he put it: “Meanwhile, fewer boys than girls take the SAT. Fewer boys than girls apply to college. Fewer boys than girls, in annual surveys of college freshmen, express a passion for learning. And fewer boys than girls are earning college degrees.” (David Von Drehle, “The Myth About Boys,” Time, August 6, 2007, p. 42.) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1647452,00.html
Von Drehle elaborated on the situation of young males in the U.S.--based on a report of the federal government, entitled America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007--as follows: “Statistics collected over two decades show an alarming decline in the performance of America’s boys—in some respects, a virtual free fall. Boys were doing poorly in school, abusing drugs, committing violent crimes and engaging in promiscuous sex . . . . The standardized NAEP test, known as the nation’s report card, indicates that by the senior year of high school, boys have fallen nearly 20 points behind their female peers [in reading].” (Ibid., pp. 43-44.) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1647452-2,00.html

As for matriculation rates by gender, an online post commented on the U.S. Labor Department’s report regarding high school graduates in the Class of 2009. Although 70.1% of all students matriculated, the gender breakdown was 73.8% of females but only 66% of male graduates. (Sara Murray, “Grads Head to College In Record Numbers,” The Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2010.) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703832204575210244203411342.html

Regarding enrollment figures, based on the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 43.1% of undergrads from 2007-8 in the U.S. were men, while 56.9% were women. According to an online posting, “women outnumber men at colleges and universities, though their numbers are more even at more selective institutions. Community colleges, less-selective private colleges, and especially for-profit colleges are heavily female.” (“Who Are the Undergraduates?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 12, 2010.) http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Are-the-Undergraduates-/123916/

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

208. Unstack the Odds--More Views on Learning







Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!

by

Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)


4. More Views on Learning


University of Chicago researcher Benjamin Bloom, who edited the classic work Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals—Handbook I: Cognitive Domain (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1956) and was later recognized as an authority on mastery learning, succinctly expressed this view:
“It is the history of the individual learner which in large part determines his present learning, and it is this accumulated history (past and present) which will have major consequences for his future learning.” (Benjamin S. Bloom, Human Characteristics and School Learning, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1976, p. 202.)


Bloom elaborated on his view of learning this way: “The central thesis of this book is that variations in learning and the level of learning of students are determined by the students’ learning history and the quality of instruction they receive. Appropriate modifications related to the history of the learners and the quality of instruction can sharply reduce the variation of students and greatly increase their level of learning and their effectiveness in learning in terms of time and effort expended.” (Ibid., p. 16.)


The importance of the home and a family on the achievement of children was famously observed by another in the pantheon of researchers on education, Johns Hopkins sociologist James S. Coleman, who stated:
“Taking all these results together, one implication stands out above all. That schools bring little influence to bear on a child’s achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that the inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school [emphasis added.] For equality of educational opportunity through the schools must imply a strong effect of schools that is independent of the child’s immediate social environment, and that strong independent effect is not present in American schools.” (James S. Coleman, “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” in Equality and Achievement in Education, ed. Marta Tienda and David B. Grusky, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990, p. 119 in Peter Sacks, Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007, p. 15.)

Richard Rothstein, former national education columnist for The New York Times and visiting lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University, commented on Coleman’s findings: “Nonetheless, scholarly efforts over four decades have consistently confirmed Coleman’s core finding; no analyst has been to attribute less than two-thirds of the variation in achievement among schools to the family characteristics of their students. (Richard Rothstein, Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap, New York: Teachers College Economic Policy Institute, 2004, p. 14.)

Furthermore, Rothstein compiled a list of “the many ways in which social class differences prepare children differently to learn.” As he summarized: “These differences appear not only in how families can support children from current income, but also in how families support children from other economic resources like savings for college, home equity, or access to stable rental housing; in their varied childrearing philosophies, conversational styles, literacy practices, role modeling, and parental social networks; in children’s health that impacts learning, with differences in vision, hearing, dental care, lead poisoning, asthma, immunizations, birth weight and maternal smoking and alcohol use; in the ethnically and racially patterned cultural expectations about the payoff to education; and in the athletic and other enriching experiences that children enjoy in the afterschool hours, and in the summer.”

Rothstein concluded that “each of these contributes only a tiny bit to the learning gap between lower-class and middle-class children, but combined, the effects could be huge, and it is hard to see how even the greatest schools could overcome them.” (Ibid., p. 61.)

Finally, Donna Y. Ford, Professor of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University, summarized issues faced by Black youth in her book’s chapter entitled “Social Factors as Correlates of Underachievement” in this way: “Several social factors place Black students at risk for educational disadvantage on a consistent basis—poverty, residing in a single-parent family, mother’s low level of education, racial minority status, and English as a second language.” (Donna Y. Ford, Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students: Promising Practices and Programs, New York: Teachers College Press, 1996, p. 70.)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

207. Unstack the Odds--Early Childhood Learning


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

3. Research on learning in early childhood

“Ferguson also noted that the gap develops rapidly as young minority students approach kindergarten. Though there is ‘not much of a gap’ around the first birthday, a divergence in test scores is already apparent by age three, he said.”-- Ronald F. Ferguson, director of Harvard’s Achievement Gap Initiative, quoted in Rediet T. Abebe, “Panel Discusses Educatin Gap,” The Harvard Crimson, February 24, 2011.) http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/2/24/gap-achievement-ferguson-students/#

Some indicate the odds begin stacking in a child’s first years. An discussion of this phenomenon was done by then editor Paul Tough in a seminal—and provocative—article entitled “What It Takes To Make a Student: Can teaching poor children to act more like middle-class children help close the education gap?” in The New York Times Magazine of November 26, 2006. In that masterful synthesis of research, condensed into but a few pages, the native Canadian cited a number of studies—and seemed to connect their dots. First, was research on language acquisition published by University of Kansas child psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley in 1995 on 42 Kansas City families with newborns. For three years, these two researchers “. . .visited each family once a month, recording absolutely everything that occurred between the child and the parent or parents.” (Paul Tough, “What It Takes To Make a Student: Can teaching poor children to act more like middle-class children help close the education gap?” The New York Times Magazine, November 26, 2006, p. 47.)

According to Tough, the researchers learned “. . .first, that vocabulary growth differed sharply by class and that the gap between the classes opened early. By age 3, children whose parents were professionals had vocabularies of about 1,100 words, and children whose parents were on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words. The children’s I.Q.’s correlated closely to their vocabularies. The average I.Q. among the professional children was 117, and the welfare children had an average I.Q. of 79.” (Ibid.)

As for the reason for those differences, the writer cited Hart and Risley’s finding as follows: “By comparing the vocabulary scores with their observations of each child’s home life, they were able to conclude that the size of each child’s vocabulary correlated most closely to one simple factor: the number of words the parents spoke to the child [emphasis added.] That varied greatly across the homes they visited, and again, it varied by class. In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 ‘utterances’—anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy—to their children each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour. (Ibid., pp. 47-48.)

Not only did the number of “utterances” vary in homes by class, according to Tough, so, too, did “the kinds of words and statements that children heard varied by class.” As he put it:
The most basic difference was in the number of ‘discouragements’ a child heard—prohibitions and words of disapproval—compared with the number of encouragements, or words of praise and approval [emphasis added.] By age 3, the average child of a professional heard about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. For the welfare children, the situation was reversed: they heard, on average, about 75,000 encouragements and 200,000 discouragements. Hart and Risley found that as the number of words a child heard increased, the complexity of that language increased as well.” (Ibid., p. 48.)

As for the payoff, Tough indicated the following:
Hart and Risley showed that language exposure in early childhood correlated strongly with I.Q. and academic success later on in a child’s life [emphasis added.] Hearing fewer words, and a lot of prohibitions and discouragements, had a negative effect on I.Q.; hearing lots of words, and more affirmations and complex sentences, had a positive effect on I.Q. The professional parents were giving their children an advantage with every word they spoke, and the advantage just kept building up.” (Ibid.)

Other research summarized by the reporter was from a team led by Columbia professor Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, who “. . .has overseen hundreds of interviews of parents and collected thousands of hours of videotape of parents and children, and she and her research team have graded each one on a variety of scales.” According to Tough, they concluded the following: “Children from more well-off homes tend to experience parental attitudes that are more sensitive, more encouraging, less intrusive and less detached—all of which, they found, serves to increase I.Q. and school readiness [emphasis added.] They analyzed the data to see if there was something else going on in middle-class homes that could account for the advantage but found that while wealth does matter, child-rearing style matters more.” (Ibid.)

Tough continued his survey of research on early childhood learning by citing the work of Martha Farah, from the University of Pennsylvania, who “. . . has built on Brooks-Gunn’s work, using the tools of neuroscience to calculate exactly which skills poorer children lack and which parental behaviors affect the development of those skills. She has found, for instance, that the ‘parental nurturance’ that middle-class parents, on average, are more likely to provide stimulates the brain’s medial temporal lobe, which in turn aids the development of memory skills [emphasis added.]” (Ibid.)

The writer also described the anthropological research of Annette Lareau, which looked at the culture of early childhood. As he summarized:
“Over the course of several years, Lareau and her research assistants observed a variety of families from different class backgrounds, basically moving into in to each home for three weeks of intensive scrutiny. Lareau found that the middle-class families she studied followed a simlar strategy, which she labeled concerted cultivation. The parents in these families engaged their children in conversation as equals, treating them like apprentice adults and encouraging them to ask questions, challenge assumptions and negotiate rules. They planned and scheduled countless activities to enhance their children’s development—piano lessons, soccer games, trips to the museum [emphasis added.]” (Ibid., p. 49.)

Tough described Lareau’s findings as follows: “The working-class and poor families Lareau studied did things differently. In fact, they raised their children the way most parents, even middle-class parents, did a generation or two ago. They allowed their children much more freedom to fill in their afternoons and weekends as they chose. . . but much less freedom to talk back, question authority or haggle over rules and consequences. Children were instructed to defer to adults and treat them with respect. This strategy Lareau named accomplishment of natural growth.” (Ibid.)

The reporter related Lareau’s research to the cultural attitudes and behavior children develop. As he states it: “In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop. Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.” (Ibid.)

As for the assets some children will possess compared to others, Tough characterizes them in this way: “But the real advantage that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents—and the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages [emphasis added.] As Lareau points out, kids from poor families might be nicer, they might be happier, they might be more polite—but in countless ways, the manner in which they are raised puts them at a disadvantage in the measures that count in contemporary American society.” (Ibid.)

Paul Tough commented on the achievement gap simply—and starkly: “There had, in fact, been evidence for a long time that poor children fell behind rich and middle-class children early, and stayed behind.” (Ibid., p. 47.)
Writing more recently about a study of 750 pairs of identical and fraternal twins tested on mental ability at 10 months and 2 years of age done by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia, columnist Jonah Lehrer underscored the importance of early learning as follows: “When it came to the mental ability of 10-month-olds, the home environment was the key variable, across every socioeconomic class. But results for the 2-year-olds were dramatically different. In children from poorer households, the choices still mattered. In fact, the researchers estimated that the home environment accounted for approximately 80% of the individual variance in mental ability among poor 2-year-olds. The effect of genetics was negligible [emphasis added.] (Jonah Lehrer, “Why Rich Parents Don’t Matter,” The Wall Street Journal, January 22-23, 2011, p. C12.)

Monday, March 7, 2011

206. Unstack the Odds--Families & Access, Part 2


Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

2. How may a child’s family background correlate with their access to college?

Observers on whether a child’s family background affects access are not confined to those typically viewed as being on the left of the political spectrum. In his online posting of August 29, 2010, “For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life,” conservative Washington Post op-ed columnist George Will highlighted the importance of families on many facets of children’s lives.
Citing the Educational Testing Service (ETS) report The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped, by Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, Will states: “Only 35 percent of black children live with two parents, which partly explains why, while only 24 percent of white eighth-graders watch four or more hours of television on an average day, 59 percent of their black peers do.”

Will also observes that “Black children also are disproportionately handicapped by this class-based disparity: By age 4, the average child in a professional family hears about 20 million more words than the average child in a working-class family and about 35 million more than the average child in a welfare family — a child often alone with a mother who is a high-school dropout.”

The columnist again cites the ETS report on overcoming the achievement gap: “It is very hard to imagine progress resuming in reducing the education attainment and achievement gap without turning these family trends around — i.e., increasing marriage rates, and getting fathers back into the business of nurturing children.”

He ends his column by pointing out the observation of ETS researchers Barton and Coley in their work America’s Smallest School: The Family. Will indicates they “. . . estimated that about 90 percent of the difference in schools’ proficiencies can be explained by five factors: the number of days students are absent from school, the number of hours students spend watching television, the number of pages read for homework, the quantity and quality of reading material in the students’ homes — and, much the most important, the presence of two parents in the home.”

Is George Will correct that a student’s chances in life--today, in the United States of American--are all but determined by the family into which he or she was born? (George Will, “For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life,” August 29, 2010.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082703805.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns