Representatives from the U.S. Department of Education stressed Friday at the 2010 ACCT Leadership Congress that the $2 billion in community college workforce training grants signed into law earlier this year can--and should--be used to help advance the completion agenda.
“What does [the Community College and Career Training Program] have to do with completion? Everything,” Amy Laitinen, policy advisor to the assistant secretary in the Education Department’s office of vocational and adult education, told Congress attendees. “Most trade-impacted students look a lot like your students.... When you create programs with those [students] in mind, we hope that many of them will impact many more students.... We want to think more broadly.”
“Looking at the federal agenda, it’s all about completion, and it’s had a real viral effect down to your campuses,” said U.S. Education Deputy Assistant for Community Colleges Frank Chong. “We know we have to make systemic change.”
While the federal government provides less than 10 percent of total community college funding through its broad array of grant programs, CCCTP has the potential to “leverage transformations in colleges,” said Laitinen. Despite the program’s auspices under the Trade Adjustment Act, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor with support from the Education Department, the grants should be seen as an opportunity to create programs that support workforce and student success agendas, officials said.
The grant program will focus largely on supporting programs that either meet new local workforce needs or offer new approaches to delivering or teaching skills; both technical and academic skills can be emphasized. At the same time, “the connection between employers and colleges is extremely important,” Chong added. “It’s an employment education program, but careers are the main focus.” For that reason, grant applicants should look at ways to collaborate with workforce boards and other local organizations to ensure that programs “meet the education and training needs of the population for jobs in the community,” Laitinen said.
Accountability will be key, speakers cautioned. “What we’re really looking to do is to drive federal dollars to programs that are driven to work,” Laitinen said. “Where we don’t have evidence, we’re looking to build an evidence base.”
With the solicitation of grant applications expected in the coming months, not all the details of the program have been finalized. But many aspects of the program mirror the Community Based Job Training Initiative, said Judith Cawhorn, executive director of grant development at Mott Community College in Michigan. “That’s a good thing, because we know how to talk about career pathways, work with industry, and identify needs,” she said. At the same time, there will likely be significant differences, in part because the program does not include funds for training. “The emphasis is on building new programs and filling some new needs,” she said.
While all the specifics of the program won’t be known until the grant application information is released, “your colleges should be in the thick of conversations” with industry and potential partners, Cawhorn said. Trustees can play a strong role by leveraging their industry and community connections, she added.
Chong and Laitinen referred attendees to a Trustee Quarterly Q&A on CCCTP with Department of Education Under Secretary Martha J. Kanter and Department of Labor Assistant Secretary Jane Oates, as well as a factsheet on the program, both of which are available here.
Department officials also discussed the broader policy direction of the Education Department. On the department’s ongoing examination of accountability issues, “we are hopeful that your work with the Voluntary Framework of Accountability will inform our efforts,” Laitinen said. The department also plans to continue the work that began at the White House Summit on Community Colleges with a virtual summit and listening tours next year, according to Chong, who identified articulation, better serving veterans, and examining competencies and prior knowledge through new assessments versus “seat time” as key challenges for community colleges to pursue. Chong also acknowledged the financial challenges community colleges face, and credited ACCT and AACC’s leadership for providing valuable insights and support.
“During these difficult times, it’s all about partnering,” Chong said. “[ACCT and AACC] have been great partners to have.”
Read more!
Showing posts with label Voluntary Framework of Accountability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voluntary Framework of Accountability. Show all posts
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
2010 ACCT Congress: Maintaining Momentum on the Completion Agenda
Community college leaders continued discussing shifting the focus of their institutions to produce more graduates and certificate holders at the 2010 ACCT Leadership Congress Thursday. With the imminent election of as many as 30 new governors nationwide, continued work on the Voluntary Framework of Accountability, and the need to prepare college leaders to support student success, “we have a lot of work to do in the next 12 months,” ACCT President and CEO J. Noah Brown told a standing room-only group of community college leaders at a town hall meeting.
In candid discussions throughout the day, community college leaders explored some of the challenges and strategies needed to maintain momentum on the completion agenda. One key, speakers said, will be ensuring that boards of trustees and college presidents are on the same page.
“Trustees have been listening to the President of the United States saying we need to educate and complete... We really need to support [college presidents] if they have the courage to do the right thing,” said Thomas W. Malone, a trustee at Seattle Community Colleges. “There’s a realization that if we support each other, we can do the necessary difficult things.”
“These courageous conversations are going on in board rooms across the country,” added Karen Stout. As president of Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania, Stout has replaced her reports on enrollment to her board of trustees with a student success report, and she credits her board with patience as faculty members brought a redesign of a developmental math curriculum up to scale. “Yes, it was too slow, but will move the institution ahead in the long run,” Stout said.
Increasing leaders’ capacity to focus on student success is one goal of the the Governance Institute for Student Success, a joint effort of ACCT and the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin, with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After participating in a pilot of GISS that brought together community college trustees and leaders from across Ohio, “we’re starting to see conversations where you have access and success almost at the same level,” said Lawrence Porter, a trustee at Sinclair Community College. “We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there.”
With new governors in statehouses facing severe budget crises, the collection and use of data will become critical, said Travis Reindl, program director at the National Governors Association. Repeating a theme emphasized by many participants during the Pre-Congress Summit on Completion, Reindl stressed that “we’ve come to the realization that policymaking by anecdote hasn’t worked, doesn’t work, and won’t work. Until we have some really solid metrics behind us, we cannot get about the business of increasing the number of degree and certificate holders the economy needs.”
In the absence of relevant data, all too often higher education policy is still “focused on the full-time on-campus student,” not the first generation, low-income and minority students that are increasingly defining the “21st century student,” said Mark Milliron, deputy director for post-secondary improvement for The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To that end, U.S. Education Deputy Assistant for Community Colleges Frank Chong told town hall attendees that his department is “taking a serious look for the first time in a long time” at revamping the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) reporting procedures. The Voluntary Framework for Accountability, under development by ACCT, AACC, and The College Board, has been included in discussions on accountability metrics at both the Education Department and the National Governors Association.
“We are not going to flip the funding model in our favor unless we demonstrate accountability,” Brown said. “The best change element for flipping those levers are the boards.”
Chong also stressed that the Education Department is looking to the local level for solutions that can be shared. “Programs... in workforce development, in working with low-skill adults and getting students through the pipeline are happening at your campuses,” he said. “The challenge is how do we duplicate and replicate these programs to help other community colleges that might not have the type of resources that you have.”
Town hall attendees shared examples of successful programs at their colleges, including math tutoring labs, counseling programs, working with K-12 students and systems, and combined basic education and workforce skills training. The challenge remains building those programs to scale -- and, often, making strategic decisions exacerbated by tight budgets. Pointing to the I-BEST program developed by the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, Milliron notes that pairing workforce and basic skill instructors is more expensive -- yet increases student completion rates significantly. “You’re gong to have to have strategic sets of conversations,” he said.
Lest anyone doubt that trustees play the key role in shaping those conversations, I-BEST was the brainchild of a fellow trustee, Malone said. Pointing to the Democracy’s Challenge Call to Action signed by ACCT and other community college organizations, American Association for Community Colleges President and CEO George Boggs urged community college leaders to sign similar pledges on their own campuses. “It’s going to take all of us, but especially trustees and CEOs, to commit to this,” he said. And by way of example, Mauri Moore of Edmonds Community College in Washington told town hall attendees that she has pledged to graduate an additional 350 students from her institution each year over the next decade--her college’s share of the 5 million additional degree and certificate holders called for by President Barack Obama. When broken down to the individual college level, that goal “doesn’t sound too scary,” she said. Read more!
In candid discussions throughout the day, community college leaders explored some of the challenges and strategies needed to maintain momentum on the completion agenda. One key, speakers said, will be ensuring that boards of trustees and college presidents are on the same page.
“Trustees have been listening to the President of the United States saying we need to educate and complete... We really need to support [college presidents] if they have the courage to do the right thing,” said Thomas W. Malone, a trustee at Seattle Community Colleges. “There’s a realization that if we support each other, we can do the necessary difficult things.”
“These courageous conversations are going on in board rooms across the country,” added Karen Stout. As president of Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania, Stout has replaced her reports on enrollment to her board of trustees with a student success report, and she credits her board with patience as faculty members brought a redesign of a developmental math curriculum up to scale. “Yes, it was too slow, but will move the institution ahead in the long run,” Stout said.
Increasing leaders’ capacity to focus on student success is one goal of the the Governance Institute for Student Success, a joint effort of ACCT and the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin, with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After participating in a pilot of GISS that brought together community college trustees and leaders from across Ohio, “we’re starting to see conversations where you have access and success almost at the same level,” said Lawrence Porter, a trustee at Sinclair Community College. “We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there.”
With new governors in statehouses facing severe budget crises, the collection and use of data will become critical, said Travis Reindl, program director at the National Governors Association. Repeating a theme emphasized by many participants during the Pre-Congress Summit on Completion, Reindl stressed that “we’ve come to the realization that policymaking by anecdote hasn’t worked, doesn’t work, and won’t work. Until we have some really solid metrics behind us, we cannot get about the business of increasing the number of degree and certificate holders the economy needs.”
In the absence of relevant data, all too often higher education policy is still “focused on the full-time on-campus student,” not the first generation, low-income and minority students that are increasingly defining the “21st century student,” said Mark Milliron, deputy director for post-secondary improvement for The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To that end, U.S. Education Deputy Assistant for Community Colleges Frank Chong told town hall attendees that his department is “taking a serious look for the first time in a long time” at revamping the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) reporting procedures. The Voluntary Framework for Accountability, under development by ACCT, AACC, and The College Board, has been included in discussions on accountability metrics at both the Education Department and the National Governors Association.
“We are not going to flip the funding model in our favor unless we demonstrate accountability,” Brown said. “The best change element for flipping those levers are the boards.”
Chong also stressed that the Education Department is looking to the local level for solutions that can be shared. “Programs... in workforce development, in working with low-skill adults and getting students through the pipeline are happening at your campuses,” he said. “The challenge is how do we duplicate and replicate these programs to help other community colleges that might not have the type of resources that you have.”
Town hall attendees shared examples of successful programs at their colleges, including math tutoring labs, counseling programs, working with K-12 students and systems, and combined basic education and workforce skills training. The challenge remains building those programs to scale -- and, often, making strategic decisions exacerbated by tight budgets. Pointing to the I-BEST program developed by the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, Milliron notes that pairing workforce and basic skill instructors is more expensive -- yet increases student completion rates significantly. “You’re gong to have to have strategic sets of conversations,” he said.
Lest anyone doubt that trustees play the key role in shaping those conversations, I-BEST was the brainchild of a fellow trustee, Malone said. Pointing to the Democracy’s Challenge Call to Action signed by ACCT and other community college organizations, American Association for Community Colleges President and CEO George Boggs urged community college leaders to sign similar pledges on their own campuses. “It’s going to take all of us, but especially trustees and CEOs, to commit to this,” he said. And by way of example, Mauri Moore of Edmonds Community College in Washington told town hall attendees that she has pledged to graduate an additional 350 students from her institution each year over the next decade--her college’s share of the 5 million additional degree and certificate holders called for by President Barack Obama. When broken down to the individual college level, that goal “doesn’t sound too scary,” she said. Read more!
2010 ACCT Congress: Progress on Voluntary Framework of Accountability Detailed
ACCT Leadership Congress attendees were updated on the status of the Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA), which will release a draft of its proposed initial measures next month, and heard community college leaders explain the value of “defining ourselves to the public.”
Once complete, the VFA will allow community colleges to “speak with one voice about the comprehensiveness of what we do and the unique nature of our students,” said Karen A. Stout, president of Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania.
To be released in a draft technical manual in November, the proposed stage one VFA measures are broken into three major components:
Student progress and outcomes measures. The proposed measures examine student progress at entry and through their time at a college. “One thing we know is that community college students follow a pipeline towards final outcomes,” said Kent A. Phillippe, associate vice president of research and student success at the American Association of Community Colleges, which is working with ACCT and The College Board to develop the VFA. “That’s why it’s important to get measures along the way, not just at the end.”
Measures of college readiness include students attempting their first English or math developmental education course; successfully completing developmental courses; and then attempting and successfully completing their first college-level course in the same subject area.
Measures of student progress and persistence include successfully reaching credit milestone thresholds at the end of two years; continued enrollment or lateral transfer to another two-year institution; and a course success rate.
Measures of outcomes and success include a complete degree or certificate; transfer to a four-year institution; or continued enrollment with academic progress.
Workforce, Economic, and Community Development Measures. These include enrollment data and retention rates for workforce measures; awards in Career and Technical Education programs; pass rates on licensure examinations; measures of program graduates employed with livable wages or enrolled in further education; wage growth of graduates; enrollments and credentials from non-credit workforce development courses; and transition from non-credit to credit programs. Additional measures to be added later include metrics involving adult basic education, GED and ESL programs. While not all colleges currently have the ability to collect some of this data, it’s important to say “this is what we should be doing to measure those outcomes,” Phillippe said.
Student Learning Outcomes. Eight potential outcomes proposed by a VFA working group include content/career specific skills and knowledge; global understanding and citizenship; analytical reasoning and critical thinking; information literacy; teamwork and collaborative skills; communication; quantitative literacy; and innovative and creative thinking. During the first stage, the working group will ask colleges to evaluate these outcomes and determine if they align with learning outcomes assessed by their institutions. “We can’t do a lot of work at this point without knowing better what colleges are doing,” Phillippe said.
As much work will go into how to display metrics represented by these measures, according to Phillippe. For example, measures of student outcomes would likely be displayed on a stacked bar, reflecting the cumulative impact of students receiving a degree, transferring to a four-year institution, and continuing to work towards a degree. The metrics will also likely be broken into sub-cohorts, including students who have demonstrated by their course load or other evidence that they intend to pursue a degree. “We need to be accountable for all students, but it’s important to get a sense of student intent,” Phillippe said.
Following the release of the draft measures for feedback, work will continue on developing wireframes to display the data. RFPs have also been issued for colleges willing to serve as pilot sites to test the measures, and working groups are ensuring that the completed framework reflects the needs and capacity of large and small colleges, as well as those in states that currently collect data and those that do not. The VFA working groups have also briefed the U.S. Department of Education and the National Governors Association, which are in the process of developing accountability systems of their own, said Phillippe.
Trustees will be able to use data collected by the VFA to “benchmark against national standards,” said Jeanne-Marie Boylan, board chair of Bunker Hill Community College in Massachusetts. They will also be able to use the data to benchmark and set policies supporting student completion, according to Carolane Williams, president of Baltimore County Community College in Maryland, which already uses student data to evaluate student intervention programs, including an “early alert” system that has helped retain struggling students. The framework will also allow community colleges to compare “apples to apples” by looking at similar institutions across the country to identify programs that are working, Williams added.
“We have a broad mission, and our mission is to serve people where they are,” she said. “The VFA identifies that, while other measures would lock us into a narrower mission and leave out people on the other end.”
For more information on the VFA, click here.
Read more!
Once complete, the VFA will allow community colleges to “speak with one voice about the comprehensiveness of what we do and the unique nature of our students,” said Karen A. Stout, president of Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania.
To be released in a draft technical manual in November, the proposed stage one VFA measures are broken into three major components:
Student progress and outcomes measures. The proposed measures examine student progress at entry and through their time at a college. “One thing we know is that community college students follow a pipeline towards final outcomes,” said Kent A. Phillippe, associate vice president of research and student success at the American Association of Community Colleges, which is working with ACCT and The College Board to develop the VFA. “That’s why it’s important to get measures along the way, not just at the end.”
Measures of college readiness include students attempting their first English or math developmental education course; successfully completing developmental courses; and then attempting and successfully completing their first college-level course in the same subject area.
Measures of student progress and persistence include successfully reaching credit milestone thresholds at the end of two years; continued enrollment or lateral transfer to another two-year institution; and a course success rate.
Measures of outcomes and success include a complete degree or certificate; transfer to a four-year institution; or continued enrollment with academic progress.
Workforce, Economic, and Community Development Measures. These include enrollment data and retention rates for workforce measures; awards in Career and Technical Education programs; pass rates on licensure examinations; measures of program graduates employed with livable wages or enrolled in further education; wage growth of graduates; enrollments and credentials from non-credit workforce development courses; and transition from non-credit to credit programs. Additional measures to be added later include metrics involving adult basic education, GED and ESL programs. While not all colleges currently have the ability to collect some of this data, it’s important to say “this is what we should be doing to measure those outcomes,” Phillippe said.
Student Learning Outcomes. Eight potential outcomes proposed by a VFA working group include content/career specific skills and knowledge; global understanding and citizenship; analytical reasoning and critical thinking; information literacy; teamwork and collaborative skills; communication; quantitative literacy; and innovative and creative thinking. During the first stage, the working group will ask colleges to evaluate these outcomes and determine if they align with learning outcomes assessed by their institutions. “We can’t do a lot of work at this point without knowing better what colleges are doing,” Phillippe said.
As much work will go into how to display metrics represented by these measures, according to Phillippe. For example, measures of student outcomes would likely be displayed on a stacked bar, reflecting the cumulative impact of students receiving a degree, transferring to a four-year institution, and continuing to work towards a degree. The metrics will also likely be broken into sub-cohorts, including students who have demonstrated by their course load or other evidence that they intend to pursue a degree. “We need to be accountable for all students, but it’s important to get a sense of student intent,” Phillippe said.
Following the release of the draft measures for feedback, work will continue on developing wireframes to display the data. RFPs have also been issued for colleges willing to serve as pilot sites to test the measures, and working groups are ensuring that the completed framework reflects the needs and capacity of large and small colleges, as well as those in states that currently collect data and those that do not. The VFA working groups have also briefed the U.S. Department of Education and the National Governors Association, which are in the process of developing accountability systems of their own, said Phillippe.
Trustees will be able to use data collected by the VFA to “benchmark against national standards,” said Jeanne-Marie Boylan, board chair of Bunker Hill Community College in Massachusetts. They will also be able to use the data to benchmark and set policies supporting student completion, according to Carolane Williams, president of Baltimore County Community College in Maryland, which already uses student data to evaluate student intervention programs, including an “early alert” system that has helped retain struggling students. The framework will also allow community colleges to compare “apples to apples” by looking at similar institutions across the country to identify programs that are working, Williams added.
“We have a broad mission, and our mission is to serve people where they are,” she said. “The VFA identifies that, while other measures would lock us into a narrower mission and leave out people on the other end.”
For more information on the VFA, click here.
Read more!
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