Universities have a problem with sexual assault and harassment: here’s how to fix it

Universities in Australia have a serious problem with sexual assault and sexual harassment. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s survey, to be released today, documents that large numbers of students have experienced sexual assault and harassment.

This is no surprise. National and international studies have already established that the risks of sexual and dating violence are highest among university-aged populations. And key risk factors for sexual violence, including sexist norms and gender inequalities, thrive in some campus contexts.

Universities are already adopting systems and policies for responding to victims and survivors. But they also must act to prevent sexual assault and harassment from happening in the first place.

Education is a key response

It may be tempting for universities to adopt tokenistic measures aimed largely at placating parents and reassuring international student markets. But a real effort demands more comprehensive strategies to prevent violence among students and staff.

A key element of campus prevention efforts should be violence prevention education. Teaching and learning strategies are the most widely used tools of violence prevention.

There is significant scholarship in this field, including more than 100 published evaluations of university-based prevention programs. These show that face-to-face education programs are effective in violence prevention and reduction.

If done well, they can reduce students’ adherence to attitudes that support rape, decrease victim-blaming, increase students’ willingness to intervene, and even lower rates of actual perpetration. However, if poorly designed and implemented, some programs produce no positive impact or even make things worse.

It will be useless, and indeed harmful, if universities adopt programs that fall short of standards for effective practice in violence prevention education.

Some Australian universities already host programs on sexual consent, healthy relationships, bystander intervention, and related topics. These programs are of varying quality. Few if any meet well-established criteria for effective practice.

Most are far too brief to make change, comprising only one or two hours of instruction. Most are not designed to be sustained or integrated into the institution. And none have been subjected to robust impact evaluation (although some are based on other, evaluated programs).

Importance of a holistic approach

Effective practice in violence prevention education on campus has five essential elements:

• a whole-of-institution approach

• a long-term vision and funding

• effective curriculum delivery

• relevant and tailored practice

• evaluation.

Whatever means a university adopts to educate its students about violence, these must be embedded in a whole-of-institution approach. This includes educating students and staff, changing organisational policies and practices, and building an equitable university culture.

Reviews of violence prevention and relationships education are unanimous in advocating a whole-of-organisation or institution-wide approach. This includes in the university context, in particular.

This also requires systems of response to victims and perpetrators, stakeholder involvement (including from students and community violence-focused agencies), accountability systems, and reporting on outcomes.

Prevention requires a long-term approach, including resourcing, staffing, and senior-level leadership.

What is an effective program?

What does the effective delivery of violence prevention curriculums look like?

They must tackle the factors known to drive violence, including violence-supportive and sexist attitudes and gender inequalities.

They also must tackle both physical and sexual violence. In practice these often overlap and co-occur, as do their risk and protective factors.

Effective programs are interactive, participatory, and involve small-group learning. They include activities focused on skills development (seeking consent, resolving conflict, and so on). They have protocols in place for responding to disclosures of victimisation and perpetration.

To work well, programs must run for long enough and intensively enough to produce change. While brief, one-session programs among students are common, none have demonstrated lasting effects on risk factors or behaviour.

Lengthier programs have greater impacts, as a wide range of reviews and analyses have shown. At least five classroom sessions is a reasonable minimum.

Both mixed-sex and single-sex classes have advantages and disadvantages, and the optimum strategy may be a sequenced mix of both.

Finally, it should be university staff who teach violence prevention education on campus. This facilitates a whole-of-institution approach, enables more effective integration of curricula, and fosters student wellbeing.

While some recommend using peer educators (other students), a review and meta-analysis find that peer educators are no more effective or less effective than professional presenters.

The fourth essential element of effective violence prevention on campuses is relevant and tailored practice. Good-practice programs are informed by knowledge of their audiences and local contexts, and are tailored for particular campus populations.

Finally, universities must evaluate and improve their violence prevention efforts, gathering robust data on their impacts on violence-related attitudes and behaviours.

Australian universities have a critical opportunity to adopt world-leading initiatives in campus-based prevention. There are already strong prevention frameworks available such as Change the Story and national plans of action.

Overseas, university bodies such as the Universities UK Taskforce have shown national-level leadership. It is time for Australian universities to step up and adopt a comprehensive, long-term, and multi-pronged prevention strategy.

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If you need support, help is available.

* National university support line: 1800 572 224 (From July 31 to November 30, 2017)

* 1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732

* Lifeline: 13 11 14

* Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636

Policy Levers Leading the Way to Reentry for Incarcerated Students

By Julie Ajinkya, Allison Beer and Caroline Cox

This post is the fifth in a new series, Beyond the Margins: Meeting the Needs of Underserved Students.

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We know that postsecondary education changes lives and provides a stepping-stone to prosperity. Though we recognize education’s transformative power, those who stand to benefit the most are often cut off from access. This is especially true for individuals impacted by the criminal justice system and looking for ways to improve their livelihood upon release. At the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), we are committed to driving commonsense policy reforms to support greater postsecondary access and success for the most underserved students, which certainly includes currently and formerly incarcerated individuals.

As part of this effort, IHEP recently launched College Not Prison, a social media and public awareness campaign to educate policymakers, campus leaders, and the public about the financial aid barriers faced by justice-involved youth when pursuing postsecondary education. We also are working to engage policymakers at the federal, state, local, and institutional levels in critical conversations about how to better support reentering citizens in accessing postsecondary education, pursuing high-quality employment, and contributing to their communities as full citizens.

On a recent research trip to Washington, we learned more about how that state is leading efforts to expand postsecondary opportunity for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals so they can move on with their lives and make a decent living. Below we offer examples of strategies and evidence-based practices being employed in Washington to drive reform through legislation, to build partnerships to better align postsecondary education and workforce programs, and to improve reentering citizen’s education and employment outcomes.

Legislative Levers

The early 1990s ushered in a “tough on crime” era that focused on punishment instead of rehabilitation. Most notably, the 1994 crime bill introduced a federal ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students, which resulted in hundreds of programs shutting down almost overnight. While some programs were able to procure state and private funding to continue offering courses to incarcerated students, some states also pursued the punishment paradigm and placed restrictions on state funds being used for postsecondary education in correctional facilities.

Recently, however, we have finally started to see some policy makers reach the realization that tough on crime policies are not effective strategies to improve public safety and rebuild strong, prosperous communities. In Washington, for instance, legislators in the state House and Senate recognize the need for reform and are working to overturn their 1995 ban on using state funds for college degree programs in correctional facilities. By passing these bills and with the Governor’s signature, lawmakers restored the ability to use state funding for workforce-centered associate degree programs in correctional facilitates and expand incarcerated students’ access to career training.

Not only is this a big step forward for Washington – where similar bills have failed to gain traction in the past—but this could also serve as an example for states across the country seeking strategies to both promote criminal justice reform as well as postsecondary completion agendas. Expanding access to postsecondary opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals could help close significant equity gaps for some of the most underserved members of our community.

Learning and Employment Partnerships

In 2016, the Washington legislature established the Statewide Reentry Council to reduce recidivism and encourage collaboration between policymakers and families impacted by reentry of incarcerated individuals. Given that successful reentry requires healthy partnerships among many different stakeholders—including community organizations, the business sector, and higher education institutions—the Governor appointed fifteen members from the community to represent a variety of constituencies and organizations on the council.

One of the council’s strategies has been to establish a partnership between the Department of Corrections and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. Through this partnership, they work to align career training programs inside correctional facilities with those offered on community college campuses and uphold transfer agreements to support students who would like to pursue further education. As a result, students are able to take credit-bearing courses within correctional facilities and transfer their work to campus-based programs upon reentry. While many of the programs currently available to students within correctional facilities are centered on building industry credentials, policymakers and institutional leaders should also employ strategies to provide incarcerated students with opportunities to explore their academic interests as well as develop skills necessary for gainful employment.

Learning from the Field

In designing prison education programs, policymakers and practitioners can look to existing evidence-based practices to consistently improve measurable student outcomes for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. For instance, campus-based developmental education programs offer a wealth of information about interventions that are most likely to improve rates of student success. Just as students who have remained outside of the criminal justice system must develop college-readiness skills to be successful once they reach campus, students in correctional facilities also need academic supports and benefit from evidence-based developmental education programs.

In Washington, most incarcerated individuals need additional support to improve basic reading and math skills necessary to be college and career ready. Correctional facilities in Washington are supporting these students by offering courses through evidence-based Integrated Basic and Education Skills Training (I-BEST) programs developed by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. By participating in these programs, incarcerated students are able to build foundational knowledge and hands-on job experience. To be sure, developmental education programs need to be tailored to meet the unique circumstances of delivering curriculum within a correctional facility. Nevertheless, incarcerated students, and our communities, stand to benefit greatly from developing academic and occupational skills needed for successful reentry.

Washington is one state leading the way for policy reform at the intersection of the criminal justice system, postsecondary learning, and workforce training. Ideally, we will be able to use their stewardship in this field to build out the evidence-based foundation for better connecting currently and formerly incarcerated students to postsecondary education and careers. States should invest in sending more students to college. These investments will be a shared win for lawmakers, institutions, students, and communities. We must take this opportunity to change lives and create careers, which will ultimately boost our nation’s economy and foster strong communities.

Competency Frameworks: Blueprints for Strong Learning Structures

Title: Competency Frameworks: Blueprints for Strong Learning Structures

Author: Holly Zanville

Source: Lumina Foundation

A recent blog post from the Lumina Foundation discusses how frameworks act as blueprints to ensure all credentials are of high quality. Author Holly Zanville argues that redesigning the credentialing process to use learning frameworks in the creation of such systems will help build pathways for learners to earn high-quality credentials, and in turn, secure employment.

Who determines what is of high quality? Zanville states that multiple stakeholders share this role, including higher education faculty, employers and accrediting bodies. Frameworks can help create strong foundations for learning, but also require other components such as faculty development, time and resources for framework building and useful assessment tools to evaluate learning in order to create high-quality credentials.

To read the full post, please see the Lumina Foundation’s website.

Eight Tips for Establishing Successful International Higher Education Partnerships

Terra Dotta’s July article, “Creating Global Partnerships,” offers tips for establishing successful international relationships from the experts—including Heather Ward, associate director of ACE’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement.

Ward, along with Tim Barnes of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Dale LaFleur of the University of Arizona, presents advice on staffing, reciprocal relationships, and being flexible while forming new relationships.

Those tips have been reprinted below—and find the full article here.

Eight Tips for Establishing Partnerships

If you’re considering international partnerships with educational institutions, consider the following advice:

Understand the partnership landscape—“Before you start working on your portfolio, you’ve got to collect information and understand where your university currently stands,” says Barnes. He spent his first few years at the University of Illinois reviewing all the historical agreements and talking to faculty about which ones have lasted and why.

Hire a dedicated staff person—“Along with the growth in volume and complexity of partnerships has come the need to support that with a professional role,” says Ward. About 30 percent of the respondents in ACE’s Mapping study indicated that they employ a staff member whose primary responsibility is developing and managing international partnerships.

Keep your campus in the know—“My biggest piece of advice is to actively communicate with your faculty and researchers on campus,” says LaFleur. Make sure they know about existing partnerships and how to work with you to expand them or add new ones. Barnes creates an annual presentation on the University of Illinois’ partnership portfolio that he shares with departments, deans, provosts and other stakeholders. He also maintains detailed information in a self created database so he can let an environmental engineering professor know where Illinois has partnerships related to clean water projects, for example.

Involve the faculty—“To make these relationships truly faculty-driven, you’ve got to establish an international advisory committee across your campus to provide an effective way for faculty to come forward and contribute to your goals,” says Barnes. Participants will vary depending on your institution, but they should include several faculty members who are international champions, such as those who lead study abroad programs.

Photo courtesy of Terra Dotta.

Look for mutually beneficial partnerships—“Both institutions need to get value from the arrangement,” says Ward. “How you measure that value can be different, but you need to articulate it so that everyone is clear on the expectations.” If your sole reason for the alliance is to attract students from the partner country who will pay full tuition at your university, for example, then it’s not a reciprocal relationship.

Tie your goals to larger institutional ones— “To be strategic about your partnerships, you must have some overall internationalization plan and it should tie into even broader institutional goals,” says Barnes. For example, if your university strives to be a leader in developing aerospace engineers for regional aircraft, then your international partnerships should focus on that as well.

Build multidimensional relationships—Focus on a handful of universities with which you can create strategic partnerships. For instance, the University of Arizona and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico have been partners since 1980. Together, they have pursued multiple academic and research projects, including dual degrees in engineering and a binational consortium to research arid-lands issues facing the southwest and Mexico. The consortium is supported by funding from Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology, also known as CONACyT. In the last two years, dedicated offices were established on each university’s campuses.

Allow for new opportunities to bubble up—While it’s important to have a partnership strategy—and to invest time and resources in managing partnerships that have proven successful—there should still be room for new relationships to form. “You don’t want to squelch faculty members’ enthusiasm for making international connections,” says Ward.

The D.A.R.E. Sessions wants is better than D.A.R.E.

The SDGs won’t be met without active citizens fortified with new knowledge

Outside a courthouse in Cape Town in South Africa demonstrators performed a short skit to draw attention to the dangers of a “secret nuclear deal” that could cost the country more than a trillion rand and indebt citizens for many decades to come, while no doubt enriching a handful of well-connected elites.

The performers acted out well-known corruption scenarios, and then invited discussion among the protesting spectators.

A week later, the same performance, this time in a community hall, formed part of a popular education workshop where experts interacted with citizens, focusing on the pros and cons of nuclear, solar and wind energy. 75 people, young and old, participated enthusiastically. Most had never learnt about different sources of energy – despite the fact that energy prices and environmental concerns are very much their business.

The workshop was organised by the Popular Education Programme and the South African Faith Community Environmental Institute. Both are part of a coalition of organisations united under the #StopCurruptNuclearSA banner. It’s trying to stop the deal from being pushed through without proper citizen engagement and participation.

The initiative recognises the opportunity that the nuclear deal gives to engage large number of citizens in education, experimentation and debate about various energy scenarios. It aims, literally, to put power in the hands of the people.

It also shines an important light on the relationship between lifelong learning and its essential role in achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The link is this: the SDGs are unlikely to be met without the active participation of ordinary people. But for that to happen, communities need to learn a range of new skills, understandings and attitudes. That can only happen if they’re in a constant cycle of learning – whatever their age.

Sustainable development is everyone’s business

The UN has adopted 17 SDGs, each with specific targets to be achieved by 2030. The goal is “to end poverty, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda”.

Sustainable development is about using the world’s resources in a way that doesn’t permanently destroy but regenerates them. It’s about society consuming and producing in a way that recognises the world’s limits.

The SDGs are contested. Some critics argue that sustainability can’t be achieved without tackling capitalist growth – the fundamental cause of poverty and ecological crisis.

Whatever way you look at it energy issues are at the heart of the sustainable development question. This is reflected in SDG 7, which aims to ensure access to “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. The UN website states that

Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today. Be it for jobs, security, climate change, food production or increasing incomes, access to energy for all is essential.

Energy solutions profoundly affect the economy, politics and the environment – from agriculture to waste management, food security, sanitation, transport, housing, health, jobs and forms of governance.

These issues affect all citizens. And it is low-income communities and communities on the periphery that tend to be the most seriously affected by polluting and costly energy systems. They are, of course, the vast majority.

The fact is that citizens can’t depend on governments alone to make the right decisions. The way that the South African government, along with other vested interests, is pushing for nuclear energy is a perfect example.

Of course SDGs need to be engaged at the level of the UN agencies and governments. But it’s essential that they are also engaged on the ground – by social movements and organisations of women, men, girls and boys across social class, age and geography. It’s here that new knowledge is often created through participating actively in the struggles for social and environmental justice.

As University of Pretoria professor Lorenzo Fioramonti argues in his book Wellbeing Economy, “participatory governance is key to achieving sustainability and well being”.

For this to work the majority of people need to be educated about energy options so that they can participate in decisions that affect their lives. But to be able to do this they need to be fully informed and engaged in the issues at hand, regardless of age or formal educational background.

This is consistent with SDG 4, which stresses the need to:

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Rethinking lifelong learning

The UN’s commitment to lifelong learning certainly sounds hopeful, but the responses of governments and funders to similar commitments made in the UN’s Millennium Development Goals were underwhelming. For the most part, lifelong learning has been understood in a very limited way. The focus has been on young people and anyone not at school, college or university is often discounted, unless they pay for it themselves.

This means that the majority of citizens are left out. What this adds up to is that socio-economic relations will remain the same and the SDGs are unlikely to be met.

Instead, we need adult and popular education to be accepted as integral to lifelong learning and essential to the empowerment of local communities.

This can be achieved if more pressure is brought to bear on governments and funders to support, for example, mass popular education programmes in which experts and grassroots people of all ages engage actively on issues that matter.

School uniform policies need to accommodate students’ cultural practices

Can a school impose a uniform policy that does not take into account a student’s religious or cultural beliefs and practices? This is an issue currently being considered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).

Sagardeep Singh Arora, on behalf of his five-year-old son Sidhak Singh Arora, is challenging Melton Christian College’s decision not to enrol his son unless he agrees not to wear his patka, a Sikh head covering.

Despite being a Christian school, Melton Christian College accepts children of all faiths “as long as they don’t wear clothing that promotes other religions”. Its stated reason for its stance is it doesn’t “want children standing out as different”.

Protections for freedom of religion in Australia are notoriously weak. The Victorian Equal Opportunities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of a person’s religion, but also grants a wide exemption for schools in relation to uniforms. Section 42(1) states:

An educational authority may set and enforce reasonable standards of dress, appearance and behaviour for students.

This is qualified by Section 42(2), which states:

In relation to a school, without limiting the generality of what constitutes a reasonable standard of dress, appearance or behaviour, a standard must be taken to be reasonable if the educational authority administering the school has taken into account the views of the school community in setting the standard.

Earlier this year, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commissioner, Kristen Hilton, commented on cases where schools were refusing to allow students to wear their hair in braids, even when done so for cultural reasons. She said:

There is a clear difference between students who have had their hair in braids for their entire life and whose hairstyle connects them to their culture, and students who have gotten braids or cornrows on an overseas holiday.

The principal of Melton Christian College, David Gleeson, has failed to draw a distinction between headwear worn for reasons of fashion and Sikh headwear worn for reasons of faith. He has been reported as drawing an analogy between Sidhak’s patka and a student who wished to wear a New Balance cap but was not allowed to do so.

The patka is a smaller version of the turban, or dastar, worn by most Sikh men. It is an important article of faith. It therefore forms an important part of a Sikh child’s identity. It is not simply a piece of clothing.

An analogy may also be drawn with a UK case in which a Muslim student challenged the decision of Denbigh High School to prohibit her from wearing a form of Islamic dress known as a jilbab. While the House of Lords was split on whether the school uniform policy had infringed the student’s religious freedoms, all agreed there were justifiable grounds for doing so.

Female Muslim students at Denbigh High School were permitted to wear the shalwar kameez, an alternative form of Islamic dress. The school had agreed on this accommodation for its Muslim students in consultation with the local community. The school’s aim in requiring compliance with its uniform policy was to promote social cohesion in a multicultural, multi-faith school.

On the one hand, the Denbigh High School case supports Melton Christian College’s position. Like Denbigh High, the stated aim of its uniform policy is inclusivity – ensuring individual students “don’t stand out”.

On the other hand, Denbigh High had already sought to accommodate the needs of its Muslim students in consultation with the local community – something it appears Melton Christian College has not done for its Sikh students.

It will be for the VCAT to determine whether the uniform policy of Melton Christian College falls within the exceptions granted by Section 42. However, whether the policy is legal is arguably not the point. In a religiously diverse, multicultural society, the attitude taken by the school is unhelpful.

The school’s principal is reported to have commented that:

I think one of the real strengths of the college is that we’re blind to … everyone is blind to religious affiliations.

This is similar to the colour-blind approach to racism. The difficulty with this approach is that it does not accommodate or acknowledge difference, it simply pretends it’s not there. Refusing to acknowledge Sidhak’s Sikh faith, and refusing to allow him to acknowledge it, does not mean it’s not there.

Similarly, the school’s claim that its policy is neutral is equally unhelpful.

The problem with neutrality is that it tends only to in fact be neutral for the majority. It is only those from minority groups that are asked to compromise. Equality does not always equal equity.

A policy requiring all students to take the stairs is neutral, yet has a negative impact on students who use a wheelchair. Similarly, a school uniform policy that prevents students from wearing any form of headwear is neutral – but it has a negative impact on Sikh, Muslim and Jewish students.

Providing some form of accommodation for Sidhak, and other students in a similar position, does not require Melton Christian College to abandon its uniform policy. The students can still be required to comply with all other aspects of it. The school could also place requirements on students’ religious dress in terms of colour and fit with the existing uniform.

The school could look to the example set by the Victoria and Western Australian police in finding ways to accommodate both the Sikh turban and Islamic hijab within their existing uniform policies.

Minority Serving Institutions Perform Better Than Federal Graduation Rates Suggest

By Morgan Taylor

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Minority serving institutions (MSIs) are critical to this country’s higher education landscape and to the communities they serve. In providing access to postsecondary education for millions of students of color who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, MSIs stand to play a paramount role in disrupting myriad forms of inequity. In 2014-15, roughly 700 institutions received federal MSI designation, representing approximately 14 percent of all degree-granting, Title IV-eligible institutions of higher education. Collectively, these MSIs enrolled nearly 5 million students of color, or about 28 percent of all undergraduates enrolled in American higher education.

While institutions often grouped together under the term “MSI” differ in terms of institutional mission, characteristics, student body demographics, and the legal terms under which they gain federal recognition, they all share a common link in their commitment to providing access for and educating low-income students of color. As the higher education student population continues to diversify, we predict the number of MSIs will grow, calling for higher education researchers, leaders, practitioners, and policymakers to better understand how these institutions serve their students and provide a unique space for student success.

Our new report out from ACE’s Center for Policy Research and Strategy, Pulling Back the Curtain: Enrollment and Outcomes at Minority Serving Institutions, uses data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) to examine enrollment and outcomes of students who begin their college education at an MSI in 2007. The first study to utilize these data in examining outcomes at MSIs, the report aims to provide a more complete picture of the contributions MSIs make to the higher education landscape and the communities within which they reside. We examined data for four of the seven MSI types: Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).

What We Found

Taking enrollment and outcomes separately, we first found that students who attend MSIs do not fit the profile of traditional college students captured through the federal graduation rate: someone who enrolls full time in college, typically the fall after graduating from high school. Rather, the majority of students who enroll at MSIs fit a non-traditional student profile, and may be transfer, returning, or part-time students. Students at MSIs, in fact, predominantly enroll through “mixed enrollment,” meaning they move between full-time and part-time enrollment status.

Looking to student outcomes, we next found that completion rates for MSIs are higher than the federal rate suggests. As with other institutions who primarily enroll non-traditional students, the federal graduation rate of MSIs captures only a small segment of the total student population. Across all two-year and four-year MSIs included in the study, the total completion rate for students enrolled exclusively full time—the NSC sub-cohort most comparable to the cohort used to calculate traditional graduation rates—were higher than the federal rate. This is because data from NSC allow for tracking students across institutions and states, providing a more complete understanding of how students who begin at MSIs move through higher education than what federal data can capture. Importantly, we also found that the total completion rate for all students, regardless of enrollment intensity, was higher than the federal graduation rate in many cases.

Some highlights include:

• The NSC total completion rate for public four-year Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) was 43 percent, and increased to nearly 62 percent for students who enrolled exclusively full time. Comparatively, the federal graduation rate was 34.1 percent.

• Using NSC data, exclusively full-time students at private four-year HBCUs had a completion rate of 66.7 percent, compared to a federal graduation rate of 43.9 percent.

• The NSC total completion rate for all students at public four-year Predominantly Black Institutions was 34.1 percent. Students enrolled exclusively full time had a higher completion rate of nearly 52 percent, compared to a federal graduation rate of 16.6 percent.

• The completion rate for exclusively full-time students at public two-year Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) was 40.3 percent using NSC data, compared to the federal graduation rate of 25.5 percent.

• The NSC total completion rate for all students public four-year HSIs was approximately 50 percent, and increased to 74.1 percent for exclusively full-time students. In comparison, the federal graduation rate was 42.7 percent.

• NSC data reveal a completion rate of nearly 88 percent for exclusively full-time students at public four-year Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions, compared to 66.2 percent using to the federal graduation rate.

Beyond the Numbers

These findings call for both the improvement of student outcomes data, as well as greater transparency and understanding of what data do and do not tell us, especially for policy- and other decision-makers. And while the data speak volumes, we know that data alone do not tell the whole story of how MSIs work to ensure the success of their students. Therefore, interspersed throughout the report, essays from scholars who study MSIs provide a deeper understanding of MSIs beyond the data, highlighting what makes each MSI type unique in creating spaces for their students to thrive.

Beyond the numbers, MSIs have implemented policies and practices that work to increase student success. Some examples include:

• HBCUs that utilize peer-to-peer mentoring to create a sense of community among students where they support one another both with their academic work and in their personal lives;

• PBIs who invest their MSI grant funding into the creation of student support centers and establishing financial counseling services to support at-risk students;

• HSIs that develop partnerships with their community’s local high schools to create dual enrollment programs and who provide cultural competency professional development opportunities for faculty to better understand the backgrounds and needs of their students, and;

• AANAPISIs who use learning communities to create environments that provide assistance for students transferring from remedial to college-level courses.

However, sustaining and expanding upon these practices requires the institutional capacity and resources with which to do so. MSIs’ role in the higher education landscape is critical for the education of millions of students of color. If higher education is the vehicle for upward socioeconomic mobility, we must increase investment in MSIs. Doing so will allow these institutions to strengthen their capacity to provide greater access to college and help their students succeed. Ensuring the success of students of color requires further investment in the very institutions that educate them.

To review the full analysis and learn more about what makes MSIs unique in serving students of color, access the report here.

Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility

Paper: Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility

Author: Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, Danny Yagan

Source: The Equality of Opportunity Project

In their recently updated working paper, Mobility Report Cards: the Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility, authors Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan analyze the role colleges play in upward income mobility. The analysis uses estimates of students’ earnings in their early thirties and their parents’ income for each institution of higher education in the United States. According to the findings of their analysis, income segregation across institutions is comparable to that across neighborhoods in American cities. In addition, the authors find little evidence that students from low-income backgrounds are “mismatched” at selective institutions. They further find that mobility varies across institutions.

The authors’ revised working paper can be found here along with accompanying fact sheet, non-technical summary, data and interactive tool to explore the data.

To learn more, please see The Equality of Opportunity Project website.

Helping your student with disabilities prepare for the future

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Do challenges make school seem impossible or worthwhile?

Fulfilling the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Major Matters Most: The Economic Value of Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Texas System

Report: Major Matters Most: The Economic Value of Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Texas System

Author: Anthony P. Carnevale, Megan L. Fasules, Stephanie A. Bond Huie, and David R. Troutman

Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

The University of Texas System (UT System) and the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce (GCEW) have released a study examining the earnings patterns of UT System graduates and the economic impact of earning a UT System degree.

The study, Major Matters Most: The Economic Value of Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Texas System, found that three years after completing college a graduate from a UT System institution has median earnings of $39,600, which is more than all Texas workers with a bachelor’s degree ($36,800), and all workers nationally with a bachelor’s degree ($34,000). The report also highlighted the important role that major choice can play in narrowing the earnings gap between low-income and high-income students, and white and Latino students.

The relationship between employment, earnings, and postsecondary educational attainment is growing. Providing students and families with the kinds of insight found in this report is more important than ever. Partnerships, like the one between the UT System and GCEW, offer a model that more institutions should consider adopting as they seek ways to inform students.

To read the full report, please see Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce website.

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Artificial intelligence holds great potential for both students and teachers – but only if used wisely

New From the American Association of Community Colleges: Fast Facts Infographic

The American Association of Community Colleges has released its annual Fast Facts infographic, which covers data on community colleges including headcount enrollment, demographics of students enrolled, employment status and financial aid information.

According to the infographic, community colleges enroll 41 percent of all U.S. undergraduates. Latinos are the largest racial/ethnic group (23 percent), behind whites (48 percent). Over a third (36 percent) of all students are the first in their families to attend college, 17 percent are single parents, and 12 percent are students with disabilities. Looking at financial aid, 35 percent received Pell Grants and 24 percent received federal student loans.

To view and download the infographic, visit the American Association of Community Colleges’ website.

Why the US doesn’t understand Chinese thought – and must

When it comes to kids and social media, it’s not all bad news

While we often hear about the negative impact social media has on children, the use of sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is not a one-size-fits-all activity. Children use it in a wide variety of ways – some of which are adding value to their lives.

There are risks associated with social media use. But it’s also important to understand where the value is, and how to guide children to get the most out of their time online.

Social media can encourage learning

Social media is a platform for sharing ideas, information and points of view. This can have important educational value: it extends the information young people can access while also giving them insight into how others think about and use that information.

For example, an Instagram image can give first-hand insight into how an artist today – or many artists around the world – interprets and applies Picasso’s cubist technique. This insight makes the information about Picasso real for the child. It supports a deeper understanding of his techniques, and a deeper appreciation that learning about them is worthwhile.

With so many trending topics online, young people can be exposed to “insider” knowledge across many different subjects they are familiar with, as well as introducing them to new ones.

Maximum educational benefit comes from combining factual information with shared reflection. This can support a balanced, varied and “real” input for kids, which can help deepen their understanding of a subject.

Health benefits

Research shows social media can have significant benefits for children with a medical condition.

A dedicated online Facebook group can help kids connect with others who understand and relate to their condition. This can support them with a sense of belonging, a safe space for expression, and opportunities to better understand and cope with their condition.

Social media can also raise community awareness about certain health problems. While it’s not a replacement for reliable, medically sourced information, a thought-provoking image, or first-hand Facebook account posted by someone with depression, or multiple sclerosis, can spark new thinking for others about the condition and how it affects people’s daily lives.

Sharing health information in this informal way has been found to help combat the stigma about such conditions in the community.

New social avenues

One of the benefits of using Snapchat or Instagram is that the regular online connection can help to strengthen the friendships young people have formed offline.

For those children who feel marginalised in their local community, social media can help them connect with other people who share the same interests or outlook on life.

In some cases, teenagers with critical problems can turn to social networks for fast support and guidance. There are plenty of groups that offer such help online.

Social media is also an important platform for driving social issues, such as racial issues, to greater national and international attention. For example, The Books N Bros online book club was established by an 11-year-old boy who wanted to make reading fun for kids while highlighting African-American literature.

The Black Lives Matter movement started as a Twitter hashtag before it became a major political movement and a noteworthy issue in the 2016 US presidential election.

What should parents do?

An awareness of social media’s benefits can help adults understand why technology is so attractive to young people, the potential positive uses of these online spaces, and how to talk to children about their social media use.

When approaching a conversation with kids about social media, it’s important not to have an “us-versus-them” attitude. Understanding and accepting that different generations use technology differently is a good starting point. It provides opportunities for understanding each other as technology users, to be more aware of when issues arise, and how to guide children to positive and empowering uses of technology.

Preparing the Next Generation of Leaders

By Everette J. Freeman

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“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”—Mahatma Gandhi

As a first-time community college president, I find one of Mahatma Gandhi’s most lasting legacies to be his impact on leadership theory. Gandhi was an equalizing force for a legion of people whose voices were not being heard, and, through no choice of their own, had to fight for their right to dignity.

Gandhi’s lessons are a daily reminder to me that the success of Community College of Denver (CCD) hinges on our ability to serve at the highest level to those who face the greatest odds. Many of our students confront daunting obstacles before they even come through our doors.

CCD, a Hispanic-Serving Institution with nearly 30 percent of our students of Hispanic descent, has one of the most diverse student populations of any college in Colorado. Many of our students are the first in their family to attend college, and English may not be their first language. Our students often have children at home or are homeless. Frequently, they lack the family structure or support to help them navigate higher education. Nevertheless, they persevere and succeed. These students are highly self-motivated, and it doesn’t take long for them to realize that we are uniquely positioned to support them as a learning community.

A study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison¹ showed that there are 16 attributes identified to building and sustaining a learning community, including a diverse student population like ours. Of those, CCD has embraced modeling educators, small group learning, a supportive culture, one-on-one relationships and meaningful discussion, all to expand our students’ opportunities and leadership skills. The basis of this research shows that Gandhi’s leadership style of walking your talk is crucial.

CCD also has put into practice—or revamped—a half dozen support programs to increase student retention and degree completion. Most recently, we revised academic advising around a “one student, one advisor” approach and redefined our math pathways so students can enroll in the college-level math course that best fits their educational pathway. Outside the classroom, we offer students support mechanisms like TRIO Student Support Services, a food pantry and mental health resources.

Aside from our programs and services, CCD thrives on open-door communications. Many of our students require one-on-one attention, and they get that attention because faculty and staff open their doors when students need help, regardless of office hours.

The Power of Persistence

Recent CCD graduate Lisa Marie Fertman is a perfect example of how intentionality in supporting students bolsters student success. Lisa achieved a measure of professional and financial success after her lifelong struggle with anorexia sent her to the hospital with heart complications. Extensive treatment left her penniless and homeless with no support. Still struggling with her disease, she turned to the Denver Rescue Mission. A facility administrator suggested that enrolling in CCD would help her get back control of her life.

Through scholarships and part-time work-study, combined with her own persistence, Lisa secured an apartment and got off the streets. Three and a half years later, she graduated with high honors with her associate degree in human services, was president of the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Honor Society and a member of National Society of Leadership (NSL), Si Beta and other student groups. Lisa is transferring to a four-year Colorado university this fall in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in human services.

Lisa shared with me how critical the CCD community was in providing her with the support and guidance that led her to this next stage in her education—it was a gateway to freedom, independence, self-acceptance and strength.

The View from the President’s Chair

Before graduation this spring, I invited Lisa to sit in my chair and experience what it would be like to be a college president. As a labor studies instructor and assistant professor at Rutgers University (NJ) from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, I was introduced to the power of the president’s chair by then-President Edward J. Bloustein. Bloustein had given a speech where he quoted the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. When I asked him about the quote, he invited me to retrieve the specific citation from a book on his desk. He also suggested that while I was in his office I sit in his chair.

The far-reaching impact of that invitation resonates in me still. It was not about the act of sitting in his chair; it was about the invitation, and the impact was enormous. It was about the honor to sit in a chair that took him decades to earn. It was about elevating my aspirations so that I could dare to dream bigger. It was about him emulating Gandhi and equalizing his status so that he was more relatable to me; it was about his unshakable conviction that futures can be shaped in the smallest ways and with the smallest gestures. And it was about feeling safe and welcome in an office that could easily be perceived as intimidating.

The lesson Bloustein taught me that day was so impactful I instituted it during my first presidency at Albany State University, and I continue it today at CCD. For students who have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds in pursuit of their own vision and goals, it is a powerful affirmation to think bigger.

Talk Less, Listen More

A college president’s job is to inspire, lead and listen. Through the simple act of listening, we invite students to express—often for the first time in their lives—their deepest fears and grandest aspirations. This act of listening to students is at the heart of the education enterprise at CCD because education at its best self-discovery.

Angela “Angel” Martinez is a Hispanic second-year CCD work-study student who stopped by my office to help out on a project during the spring semester. She shared how she is a single mom of two beautiful daughters, cares for her disabled mother and struggles with her confidence after a brief stint in jail for a minor offense. She proudly shared how she has achieved a 4.00 GPA, is a member of PTK and NSL, and has a clear path ahead of her.

One of the things to which she attributes her success at CCD is being a member of W.I.S.E., or The Women Intentional about Success and Excellence program, which offers leadership development and social engagement opportunities to women. CCD also offers the Urban Male Initiative (UMI) leadership development program for male students.

I asked her what qualities she believes make a good leader. Here are the three that I believe are the most relevant:

1. Offer constructive encouragement. When times are tough, it helps others find their own path through the situation.
2. Know the goals of those around you. It will help you understand how best to support them.
3. Be approachable. It tells students that our future is important to the leader.

The community college model is a necessary and purposeful one to the higher learning ecosystem for students like Lisa, Angel and thousands of other students across the United States. Many students in this sector have been underserved academically, yet with guidance, their leadership potential is limitless.

The Voice of the Student

While listening is important, it is also a powerful tool to give students a platform to share their stories—and they all have powerful stories to tell. As educators, we tend to rely heavily on data and surveys for decision-making when the source of some of the greatest insights to enrich our analysis are sitting right across the desk from us: The voice of the student.

One of the ways CCD empowers students to do this is through our Digital Storytelling program, which offers a means to create a short video that tells their story in their own voice. These short, real-life snippets are sometimes heart-wrenching accounts of their losses, struggles and journeys to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.

The stories are then shared across the community through a Digital Storytelling festival, online and through social media, empowering students to recognize the power of their own voice. Digital Storytelling increases students’ engagement and retention and has become an invaluable tool, helping them learn leadership skills through the art of collaboration, shared responsibility and accountability for their projects.

I believe that leadership begins with a simple conversation. As leaders in the community college environment, we must initiate a cultural shift that flips the script and allows our students a voice and a perspective we might not have otherwise considered.

The community college student is unlike most postsecondary learners. Most have extraordinary personal stories of perseverance that should be shared and celebrated. Through active listening, encouragement, leading by example and giving students a sense of belonging and community, we can create a foundation to help them become part of the next generation of leaders.

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Citations

(1) Eich, Darin. “A Grounded Theory of High-Quality Leadership Programs Perspectives From Student Leadership Development Programs in Higher Education.” University of Wisconsin-Madison. November 2008: Online Article.

The Impact of Year-Round Pell Grants on Academic and Employment Outcomes of Community College Students

Report: The Impact of Year-Round Pell Grants on Academic and Employment Outcomes of Community College Students

Author: Vivian Yuen Ting Liu

Source: Community College Research Center

Year-round Pell Grants were recently reinstated, having previously been implemented for the 2009-2010 and 2010-11 academic years. A timely working paper released by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University examines the effect of year-round Pell Grants on the likelihood of completing an associate degree.

In the paper, author Vivien Yuen Ting Liu uses a difference-in-difference model to examine credit, credential completion and labor market outcomes for year-round Pell. According to the findings, for every $1,000 of year-round Pell Grant funding per eligible student, the likelihood of summer enrollment increases by 27 percentage points and the likelihood of associate degree completion increases by 2.2 percentage points.

To read the full working paper, please see the Community College Research Center website.

How building your child’s spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read

New Evidence on Integrated Career Pathways

Report: New Evidence on Integrated Career Pathways

Source: The Urban Institute and The George Washington University

The Urban Institute, in partnership with The George Washington University, recently released an impact analysis of the Accelerating Opportunity (AO) initiative across four states. The program, created by Jobs for the Future, helps students and adults enroll in integrated career pathway programs at community and technical colleges.

The report found that every state experienced an 11 to 20 percent increase in the likelihood that AO students would earn any credential when compared to similar students not enrolled in the initiative. In Illinois, AO students were more likely to persist beyond 12 credits than others. Beyond credits, Kentucky students recruited from adult education had 43 percent greater earnings than the comparison group after eight quarters of enrollment.

However, it should be noted that the report did not find any statistically significant gains in earnings across all states during the follow-up period.

With most students earning more credentials while taking fewer credits, the AO model may serve as a more efficient and accelerated model for giving adults the skills to succeed. However, the report encourages policy makers to explore how to translate these increases in credential attainment into long-term earnings gains, perhaps by strengthening links with employers.

Read the full report here.

Student employment and inflexible university policies drive online drop out

Employment is the main reason students drop out of online degree courses, our new research shows. This is despite claims that online university programs offer greater flexibility to workers and employers who want to up-skill.

Most online dropouts occur due to students’ changing employment commitments, which affect their ability to complete assessments on time.

However, the assessment policies of many universities offer no concession for work-related challenges, so working students often fail to resume their studies. To tackle the biggest driver of attrition, university policies must offer flexibility around employment and assessment. Only then can universities truly provide the flexible online learning experience that workers and industry require.

What is the problem?

Our research shows the assessment policies of many online courses are no more flexible than their on-campus counterparts. Some vaguely mention that employment and leave extensions are subject to course co-ordinator discretion. Others explicitly state that work is not a valid reason for granting extensions for assignments.

Some universities have merely adopted traditional on-campus policies for their online programs. This approach highlights the disconnect between university policymakers and the needs of online students.

Retention is the biggest challenge facing online educators. For example, Open Universities Australia, a provider with more than 41,000 online students, experienced attrition rates above 20% for its introductory online units.

A recent Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency report stresses that such high attrition represents huge revenue loss and creates reputational issues for governments and institutions.

Retention rates are often mistakenly used as a measure of a university’s quality.

Since online education serves nontraditional students, it automatically experiences higher attrition compared to traditional on-campus learning. Using completion rates as a benchmark for education quality therefore places institutions with higher proportions of online students at an unfair disadvantage.

What should universities do?

Considerable research and investment has sought to improve the retention of online students by focusing on the design and curriculum of learning websites.

However, this focus alone will not really help retention; it ignores the key driver of online attrition. What we need is fundamental change in the way universities think about online education.

Online students are offered flexibility in terms of study location, separate learning activities, and study progression. But considerable scope exists for improving retention by effectively accommodating the needs of online students in relation to assessment.

Or, at the very least, institutions could better manage student expectations by clearly communicating exactly what – if any – flexibility is offered in relation to employment.

Rather than imposing traditional on-campus student assessment extension policies, online students’ employment commitments should be taken into consideration. This could come in the form of assessments aligned with workplace challenges by offering a choice of assessment options and flexible deadlines.

A more radical move would be to allow online students to drop out and pick up again where they left at a later date.

What is the chance universities will change?

Potential opposition to such suggestions could be anticipated from institutions that want to be seen as fair by treating on-campus and online students equally.

However, this argument is flawed. It merely illustrates universities’ unwillingness to move beyond their comfort zones.

Other potential challenges relate to resource planning. Teaching staff would be required to process assessments and grades over a longer period. Administrators would also find it difficult to apportion revenues and costs to students who study a unit across more than one semester given current management practices.

Regardless of the challenges posed, reviewing online assessment policy in relation to student employment, and offering more flexibility around assessment, is essential. This would not only enhance student satisfaction, but enable universities to overcome – or at least lessen – the biggest driver of online student attrition.

Horsing around with young children makes them laugh – and helps them learn

How to maintain the balance between boundaries and freedom in secondary school parenting

How can parents best help their children with their schooling without actually doing it for them? This article is part of our series on Parents’ Role in Education, focusing on how best to support learning from early childhood to Year 12.

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There are four people central to secondary school students’ learning and achievement: the student, the parent (or carer), the teacher, and the peers. Without question, the most influential of these is the student themselves.

It is the student who must engage in class, do homework, complete assignments, study, and sit exams. My research shows the next two most influential people are parents and teachers. While I have previously discussed the role of teachers, there is also much to be said regarding the role of parents and parenting.

Parents influence secondary school outcomes in numerous ways, including providing or arranging for help, encouraging the child, valuing effort and education, and creating a home environment conducive to study.

Parenting style

During secondary school, students will move through different stages of adolescence. Over this time they will experience enormous social, physical, emotional, and cognitive changes. In addition to the major academic task of completing school, students also have the major developmental task of establishing their autonomy, self-responsibility, and self-directedness. Meanwhile, parents will need to maintain a delicate balance between providing support as needed and “letting go” as needed.

Research indicates there are four parenting styles:

1. An “authoritarian” style adopts clear boundaries, consequences, routines, structure, and expectations – but little warmth and acceptance of the child.

2. A “laissez-faire” or “permissive” style has very few boundaries, consequences, routines, structure, and expectations – but a good deal of warmth and acceptance.

3. A “neglectful” style is characterised by very few boundaries, consequences, routines, structure, and expectations – and very little warmth and acceptance.

4. An “authoritative” style has clear boundaries, consequences, routines, structure, and expectations – and also a good deal of warmth and acceptance of the child.

Overall, it is the “authoritative” parenting style that is linked to positive academic outcomes. Adolescents are best able to establish their autonomy, self-responsibility, and self-directedness when they are raised in a secure and predictable environment.

Undoubtedly, they will push and exceed the boundaries, but that and its consequences are part of the development of their identity and understanding the social “norms” to which they will be held to account in adulthood.

When to support and when to let go

The line separating each parenting style can be blurry. As young people move into later adolescence, the “optimal” style will tend to slide between “authoritative” and “permissive”.

There will be times when it is appropriate to let go and even allow the child to “fail”. In other situations, however, rules and routines must be observed and consequences administered if not. This may be because “failing” would present too much of a risk to the young person’s wellbeing.

Knowing when to let go also depends on the individual teenager. For example, there are some students with learning challenges that necessitate relatively more support, structure, and routine.

Some of my recent research, for instance, has focused on students with ADHD. These students experience significant executive function deficits (for example, planning, organisation and working memory) that impede their academic development. As a result of these challenges, I found these students were significantly less likely to complete schoolwork and significantly more likely to be suspended, expelled, change schools, or repeat a grade. These students therefore benefit from relatively more parental involvement and support than other students.

Making the most of your child’s strengths and abilities

Effective teachers will take the time to understand their students so they understand who they are teaching and how to optimise their academic outcomes. They will differentiate and individualise instruction to make the most of each student’s attributes.

Similarly, parents who can understand and accept their adolescent’s temperament, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and interests, are in a far better position to know when and how to support them. They will also more accurately know when and how to let go as necessary.

Indeed, social researchers have suggested we have some key needs that are critical to be met for our optimal functioning. One of these – the need to be taken seriously – is considered paramount, as is the importance of feeling understood and accepted by others.

Adolescents place high value on being taken seriously, feeling understood, and feeling accepted. Parents who strive to understand and accept their child are in a terrific position to provide tailored support as it’s needed. This is also the basis for a good relationship and an adolescent’s further growth and personal development.

50% of something is better than 100% of nothing

Given adolescents’ drive for autonomy, it is natural for them to push back from parents and overstep boundaries. How parents respond to this is critical. Under-reaching or over-reaching is often undesirable. When the chips are down, I often ask parents to identify what they consider “minimally acceptable” to them and seek a compromise around this.

For example, a parent might want four hours study each weeknight leading up to Year 12 exams, but if the child is doing nothing, then two hours each night is an improvement. Not only are these two hours a potential basis for three hours down the track, but the parent has kept the lines of communication open, along with the likelihood of future compromise and negotiation.

The long game

Adolescence is a time when a young person and their parent are figuring themselves and each other out. It is not easy and the journey will vary from family to family. Becoming autonomous, self-responsible, and self-directed will not happen at the last minute at the end of high school. Rather, it is a long game and to play it well, the parenting style will need to adjust over the course of high school and in response to the individual attributes of the adolescent.

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Podcast: How Is the Current Political Climate Affecting Higher Education?

ACE’s Senior Vice President Terry Hartle recently joined former Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) for a discussion about how the current political environment is affecting higher education and what we might expect in the months ahead from the Trump administration.

The conversation was part of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s Government Relations podcast series.

To listen to the podcast, click here.

From the Brookings Blog: The For-Profit Student Debt Dilemma

Title: From the Brookings Blog: The For-Profit Student Debt Dilemma
Author: Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Rajeev Darolia
Source: The Brookings Institution

A recent blog post from The Brookings Institution discusses findings from their report on trends in student borrowing across sectors. Overall, the authors found that patterns for borrowing in the for-profit sector are similar to the private nonprofit sector in that students enrolled in these institutions are much more likely to borrow, tend to borrow larger amounts, and supplement federal funding with money from non-federal sources. However, student demographics at for-profit institutions most closely mirror that of students at community colleges. According to the report, for-profit institutions have the highest proportion of female students and students of color, and their students are more likely to come from low-income backgrounds and be single parents.

What sets for-profits apart is that students enrolled in this sector have higher average levels of federal grants than other sectors and much lower levels of other grant aid—especially institutional grant aid—leaving a gap typically filled by student loans. The report also includes a breakout of the difference in borrowing rates between for-profit institutions and community colleges into “explained” and “unexplained” variations, such as observable demographics, student financial independence, and student financial literacy.

To read the full post, please see the Brookings Institution website.

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Malawi set out to give students skills to support democracy. But it’s not been easy

Like many other countries, Malawi was caught in the wave of democratic change that swept sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s. The wave was triggered by the fall of communism along with military and civilian dictatorships around the world. In Malawi, it brought to an end nearly a century of authoritarian colonial and one-party rule.

Other factors combined to bring about the rapid shift, including resistance to the oppressive one-party rule. These protests were backed by western governments and donor organisations which imposed aid conditions to force democratic reforms.

What this meant was that when change finally came it was largely seen as an external and western imposition. As a result, those who held power adopted democracy reluctantly.

Nevertheless, democratic reforms came with the promise that citizens would be empowered. Central to this was decentralisation of decision making. And citizenship education for democracy was introduced in secondary schools in 1998 in the social studies curriculum. The stated aim was to improve the involvement of citizens in the democratic processes.

But official rhetoric hasn’t been matched with practice. Educational policies, curriculum development and standardised national assessments are all still decided and designed at the centre. This means that there’s little or no effort to empower people at local level. It also means that there is limited space for schools to practice democracy.

Top-down curriculum innovations, for example, pose a challenge when it comes to relevance and ownership. They also undermine the government’s policy designed to develop skills and attitudes needed to uphold and support democracy.

An added difficulty is that cultural norms in Malawi militate against children having a say. A study I undertook in a rural community day secondary school in southern Malawi illustrated this. The tension between the development of democratic citizenship skills and the cultural role of students as children was on view. There were contradictions between what students learned in class and how they were expected to behave.

Resistance to school democratisation

It’s often said that democracy is best learned by practice. This supports the notion that schools should become sites where democracy is practised both in and outside the classroom. This is the basis for government’s several policy documents advocating the involvement of students in educational decisions and issues that affect them.

But there are tensions in Malawi’s education system which militate against this. Subtle resistance prevents it from taking root.

Traditionally, decision making is the preserve of adults in Malawi. Children are brought up to conform to dictates of adults and are cautioned against questioning their decisions. When this is extended to teachers in schools, it can become a recipe for authoritarian practices.

Schools don’t exist in a vacuum. The hierarchical relations between adults and children that exist in the wider African society are, therefore, reflected in the relations between teachers and students on the school landscape.

Teachers are likely to resist school democratisation because it would empower students and threaten their authority. Teachers are therefore likely to see avenues for democratic participation by students as a loss of authority and cultural privilege.

My study showed that students had taken on board the principle that all suspected offenders had the right to be heard before being judged. But many were suspended from school without getting an opportunity to be heard. And the stand taken by teachers had the support of most parents. Parents encouraged teachers to rid the school of any forms of misbehaviour using any means available.

This inconsistency, described by Henry Giroux as the hidden curriculum, is likely to undermine what students learn in class. A further consequence is that students will acquiesce to authoritarian practices from people in positions of authority.

In addition, they may begin to think that classroom learning is only meant to prepare them for national examinations and has no bearing on their lives. This may result in democratic citizenship appearing as a facade. And it could facilitate the resilience of autocratic practices – in schools and beyond.

What can be done to make school democracy acceptable

If Malawi is going to develop democratic citizens, experience with democracy in school is important. It’s therefore essential that teachers get sensitised to this.

It should still be acknowledged that school democratisation, in a patriarchal society, will require time before it’s accepted. Efforts towards democratisation therefore need to be acknowledged and encouraged. Deliberate action should be taken to promote democracy at national and school levels.

As a starting point, schools could set up committees to oversee the process. This will ensure translation of national policy into practice. The committee could also work to resolve tensions between the roles of students as young citizens and as children.

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Evaluating a Scalable Solution for Enhancing Teaching Practice

By Steven Taylor

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Effective teaching is a critical component of students’ educational experience. The benefits of quality instruction extend far beyond the classroom into students’ co-curricular experiences and contribute to student achievement—retention, persistence and success—which helps smooth their transition to and through college. Thus, ACE is committed to advancing effective teaching as a critical component of institutional success.

The goals of post-secondary teaching and learning centers in the 21st century are, by necessity, interconnected and fluid, embodying rapidly shifting roles for faculty, their students and the institution. Teaching and learning centers and faculty developers provide opportunities for faculty to acquire knowledge and skills to improve the curricular experience and improve teaching practice over time.

There are a variety of ways in which faculty learn, and continue to learn, about teaching. This development occurs formally through teaching and learning center programming, activities and consultations, and informally through peer networks (faculty learning communities) and self-reflection.

Given the increase in contingent faculty—part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty—who now comprise about 75 percent of all college and university instructors, the critical question is, “How do we scale faculty development efforts to reach a greater number of faculty?”

The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE)’s Course in Effective Teaching Practices, comprised of 25 online teaching modules aligned with ACUE’s Effective Practice Framework, is designed as a scalable solution to help teaching and learning centers reach greater numbers of faculty. Through these cohort-based modules, the ACUE course provides research-based content and a reflective experience for instructors, which complements development activities offered by teaching and learning centers. Faculty developers continue to play a critical role in cultivating a community of practice and facilitating ongoing development to build instructors’ capacity and confidence to teach, and ultimately improve instructional practice.

For nearly a century, ACE has remained committed to preparing campus leaders, supporting the work of colleges and universities and assisting institutions in strengthening student learning, persistence and completion. So it was a natural fit for ACE and ACUE last year to launch a national effort to advance effective college instruction with the goal of enhancing student success. The Council’s collaboration with ACUE aims to provide institutions and individuals with the tools and resources they need to make excellent teaching a strategic driver of student success.

As part of this collaboration, ACE drew upon its decades-long experience in quality assurance to review and evaluate the ACUE course. ACE selected 23 independent experts in teaching and learning to ensure the quality and supporting research of ACUE’s program. A subset of this group worked with my team and me at ACE to develop an evaluative rubric to gauge the quality of ACUE’s Course in Effective Teaching Practices.

Throughout 2016, teams of experts used the evaluation rubric to assess every component of the course’s learning modules. During this process, the evaluators helped to determine if the modules were of the quality necessary for faculty to learn about and implement the evidence-based pedagogical skills and knowledge that constitute effective instruction.

The evaluation of the modules completed in December 2016. The outcome: 93 percent of the modules received “exemplary” or “effective” marks from the independent experts.

This in-depth review process identified strengths and provided ideas for further refinements to the modules. ACUE utilized this feedback, made adjustments that further enhanced the supporting research for the course, increased the clarity of course expectations, and more clearly aligned course assessments to learning objectives. The completion of this evaluation using independent experts further enriched ACUE’s program and validated our belief that ACUE built a high-quality and scalable program based on their comprehensive Framework.

To further our work on effective teaching, ACE is collaborating with Strada Education Network to research the connections between instructional quality, student outcomes and institutional efficiency. A focus critical component of this work is on elevating the important role faculty development plays in supporting students. This research will unpack the intended goals, impacts and outcomes of and measurement methods for assessing faculty development.

Already, the collaboration with Strada has led to the publication of two white papers highlighting the connections between instructional quality and student outcomes and institutional efficiency. Following the publication of promising practices for assessing faculty development impacts and outcomes this fall, ACE will conduct an impact study using a select group of institutions that implement assessment practices identified in the publication.

ACE’s collaborations with ACUE and Strada are important to help institutions leverage their unique assets (e.g., faculty expertise, educational technologies, academic advising) to design and implement student-centered, attainment-focused instructional approaches and practices that can lead to improved student outcomes and timelier postsecondary credential completion.

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Electronic games: how much is too much for kids?

Most parents view their children’s playing of electronic games as potentially problematic – or even dangerous. Yet many children are engaging with electronic games more frequently than ever.

Concerns about electronic gaming do not stack up against the research. So, how much gaming is too much for young children?

Electronic games (also called computer or digital games) are found in 90% of households in Australia. 65% of households have three or more game devices. Given this prevalence, it’s timely to look more closely at electronic game playing and what it really means for children’s development and learning.

A study of more than 3,000 children participating in the Growing Up in Australia: Longitudinal Study of Australian Children explored children’s electronic gaming. This national sample was broadly representative of the Australian population.

The study had two phases:

• parents reported on their children’s use of electronic games when their children were eight or nine years of age; and

• teachers reported two years later on these children’s social and emotional development and academic achievement, when the children were 10 or 11.

How much time do kids spend gaming?

As the table below shows, there was wide variation in the number of hours per week the children spent playing electronic games.

Most children (52%) played electronic games for four or fewer hours per week. But nearly one-year of the children (24%) were reported as playing electronic games for more than seven hours per week.

How much time should kids spend gaming?

Taking into account family background and parental education, the good news is that low-to-moderate use of electronic games (between two and four hours per week) had a positive effect on children’s later academic achievement.

However, over-use of electronic games (more than seven hours per week) had a negative effect on children’s social and emotional development.

Children whose parents reported they played electronic games for two-to-four hours per week were identified by their teachers as showing better literacy and mathematical skills.

Surprisingly, children who were reported as playing electronic games infrequently or not at all (less than two hours per week) did not appear to benefit in terms of literacy or mathematics achievement.

However, children whose parents reported that they played electronic games for more than one hour per day were identified two years later by their teachers as having poor attention span, less ability to stay on task, and displaying more emotional difficulties.

As the graphs below show, moderate game playing was associated with the most benefits both academically and emotionally.

Are some games better than others?

It is likely that the relationship between the use of electronic games and children’s academic and developmental outcomes is far from straightforward. The quality of electronic games and the family context play important roles.

Electronic games known as sandbox games are recognised as offering opportunities for collaboration with others while engaging in creative and problem solving activities. One of the well-known examples of a sandbox game is Minecraft.

Social interactions are important in supporting children’s engagement in electronic games. A closer examination of children’s experiences at home may be beneficial in understanding the context of gaming in everyday life.

Often viewed as a leisure activity, studies show that when parents and siblings participate in the game playing, they offer opportunities to negotiate with each other, and engage in conversations and literacy practices. All of these potentially contribute to the child’s language, literacy and social development.

It is important to note that while we know the amount of time children spent playing electronic games, we do not know the detail of the kinds of games that were being played, with whom they were being played, or even the device on which they were played.

This contextual information is clearly relevant for consideration in any further research that explores the relationship across children’s electronic game playing, learning, and wellbeing.

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Students’ test scores tell us more about the community they live in than what they know

Every year, policymakers across the U.S. make life-changing decisions based on the results of standardized tests.

These high-stakes decisions include, but are not limited to, student promotion to the next grade level, student eligibility to participate in advanced coursework, eligibility to graduate high school and teacher tenure. In 40 states, teachers are evaluated in part based on the results from student standardized tests, as are school administrators in almost 30 states.

However, research shows that the outcomes of standardized tests don’t reflect the quality of instruction, as they’re intended to. Colleagues and I have conducted studies in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa and Michigan.

The results show that it’s possible to predict the percentages of students who will score proficient or above on some standardized tests. We can do this just by looking at some of the important characteristics of the community, rather than factors related to the schools themselves, like student-teacher ratios or teacher quality.

This raises the possibility that there are serious flaws built into education accountability systems and the decisions about educators and students made within those systems.

Students’ scores on mandated standardized tests have been used to evaluate U.S. educators, students and schools since President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002.

Although more than 20 states had previously instituted state testing in some grade levels by the late 1990s, NCLB mandated annual standardized testing in all 50 states. It required standardized mathematics and English language arts tests in grades three through eight and once in high school. State education officials also had to administer a standardized science test in fourth grade, eighth grade and once in high school.

The Obama administration expanded standardized testing through requirements in the Race to the Top grant program and by funding the development of two national standardized tests related to Common Core State Standards: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers (PARCC).

Forty-five states initially adopted the Common Core in some form. Approximately 20 are currently part of the PARCC or SBAC consortia. Key portions of Race to the Top applications required states use student test results to evaluate teachers and principals.

It’s already well-established that out-of-school, community demographic and family-level variables strongly influence student achievement on large-scale standardized tests.

For example, median family income is a strong predictor of SAT results. Other factors strongly linked to achievement on state standardized tests include parental education levels, percentage of lone parents in the school community and percentage of families living in poverty in the community.

We decided to see if we could predict standardized test scores based on demographic factors related to the community where a student lived. By looking at three to five community and family demographic variables from U.S. Census data, we have been able to accurately predict the percentages of students who score proficient or above on standardized test scores for grades three through 12. These predictions are made without looking at school district data factors such as school size, teacher experience or per pupil spending.

Our models can identify how much a particular variable affects students’ scores. That allows us to identify the most important demographic characteristics as they relate to the test results. For example, by looking at just one characteristic – the percentage of families in a given community living in poverty – we can explain almost 58 percent of the test’s score in eighth grade English language arts.

Our most recent study explored three years of test scores from grades six through eight in more than 300 New Jersey schools. We looked at the percentage of families in the community with income over US$200,000 a year, the percentage of people in a community in poverty and the percentage of people in a community with bachelor’s degrees. We found that we could predict the percent of students who scored proficient or above in 75 percent of the schools we sampled.

An earlier study that focused on fifth grade test scores in New Jersey predicted the results accurately for 84 percent of schools over a three-year period.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that money determines how much students can learn. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, our results demonstrate that standardized tests don’t really measure how much students learn, or how well teachers teach, or how effective school leaders lead their schools. Such tests are blunt instruments that are highly susceptible to measuring out-of-school factors.

Though some proponents of standardized assessment claim that scores can be used to measure improvement, we’ve found that there’s simply too much noise. Changes in test scores from year to year can be attributed to normal growth over the school year, whether the student had a bad day or feels sick or tired, computer malfunctions, or other unrelated factors.

According to the technical manuals published by the creators of standardized assessments, none of the tests currently in use to judge teacher or school administrator effectiveness or student achievement have been validated for those uses. For example, none of the PARCC research, as provided by PARCC, addresses these issues directly. The tests are simply not designed to diagnose learning. They are simply monitoring devices, as evidenced by their technical reports.

The bottom line is this: Whether you’re trying to measure proficiency or growth, standardized tests are not the answer.

Though our results in several states have been compelling, we need more research on a national level to determine just how much test scores are influenced by out-of-school factors.

If these standardized test results can be predicted with a high level of accuracy by community and family factors, it would have major policy implications. In my opinion, it suggests we should jettison the entire policy foundation that uses such test results to make important decisions about school personnel and students. After all, these factors are outside the control of students and school personnel.

Although there are ideological disputes about the merits of standardized tests results, the science has become clearer. The results suggest standardized test results tell more about the community in which a student lives than the amount the student has learned or the academic, social and emotional growth of the student during a school year.

Although some might not want to accept it, over time, assessments made by teachers are better indicators of student achievement than standardized tests. For example, high school GPA, which is based on classroom assessments, is a better predictor of student success in the first year of college than the SAT.

This change would go a long way to providing important information about effective teaching, compared with a test score that has little to do with the teacher.