Community Colleges: Educate More With Less

Community colleges are the Rodney Dangerfields of American higher education: They get little respect – even though they educate about half of the nation's college students.

Now community colleges are being asked to play a bigger role in retraining the workforce, educating low-income students and preparing students for four-year institutions. But they're being asked to do it with fewer resources and rising competition from for-profit colleges.

Gail Mellow, the president of New York's LaGuardia Community College, Rick Mattoon, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Cassius Johnson, education policy director for the nonprofit Jobs of the Future, participated in Friday's EWA seminar panel looking at the challenges facing community colleges and what they need to help the country meet its educational goals.

Mellow said the recession has created record demand for classes at community colleges like LaGuardia, where two-thirds of the school's 50,000 students are from other countries. But the college in Queens doesn't have the resources to meet that demand.

“For the first time in 40 years, we closed our doors,” she said. “We simply could not put more people in.”

Meanwhile, for-profit colleges such as DeVry University and the University of Phoenix are siphoning off federal money that could go to bolster public colleges like LaGuardia. For-profits educate 10 percent of the nation's college students but receive 20 percent of federal student aid and report the highest default rates on student loans, Mellow said.

The panelists agreed the federal government rethink its approach to funding community colleges and measuring their progress. Right now, there isn't a good system for tracking students' academic careers or judging how well community colleges – as well as other institutions of higher education - are doing their jobs.

Mattoon, the Federal Reserve economist, said that community colleges' biggest strength is that they're closely tied to the regional economy and can quickly respond to the needs of local employers. He's suspicious of the federal government getting too involved in regulating the schools.

Johnson said the federal government should be careful not to create policies that cause community colleges to turn away low-income, underprepared or part-time students because they may drag down an institution's numbers.

Notes from the Future: Joan Walsh

For the full Joan Walsh experience, you might want to check out this You Tube clip before reading on. It was included in the introduction of the keynote speaker (“One of the more surreal experiences I’ve had,” quipped Walsh.)

Walsh is editor in chief of Salon.com and spoke as an emissary from the (possible) “great future of journalism.” Her talk hit on a theme that ran throughout this year’s conference—the future of education reporting.

Over the past 15 years, online-only Salon has tried lots of things, some of which have worked and some of which haven’t, says Walsh. Her message: trial and error is your future. There’s no one thing, one business model, one Web idea that will take care of us, says Walsh. “Nothing will work, but everything might work.”

Walsh pointed out the irony many education reporters find themselves in these days— we work at organizations wracked by budget cuts and massive reorganizations, and we’re covering school systems wracked by budget cuts and massive reorganizations. “We are struggling to hold onto two institutions that make democracy work,” she said.

Hand-wringing. Still, Walsh doesn’t want to be one of the hand-wringers bemoaning the decline of journalism. The Golden Age of Journalism wasn’t that golden, she points out. It was never as if ad revenues streamed directly into investigative units at newspapers, after all. But in the future, reporters may have to piece together work as freelancers, book authors, teachers, and consultants. It was the Journalism-Isn’t-Dying-It’s-The-Business-Model-That’s-Dying argument.

Some Walsh advice for the future:

• trust your audience and let them have a voice on your site
• non profits aren’t going to save journalism, but build partnerships
• use academia in creative ways, including as cheap reporters
• social media is a must (“Is anyone tweeting this?”)
• get people to voluntarily pay for your content (the NPR totebag saves us after all!)

We used to know what’s good for you. EWAers brought up good questions about whether Web hits and search engine optimizations are influencing what journalists write. Walsh admits working in the online environment has shaped her publication as it seeks to maximize hits. “Salon has always had sexy, silly headlines,” Walsh offered in one example. “We don’t have as many anymore. Because you really need Sarah Palin in the headline.”

Since it began, Salon’s stories have gotten shorter and newsier. Walsh, a self-avowed Twitterholic, says there are no more 11,000-word stories, and gone is the original vision of an online literary magazine. The site covered the passage of health care reform in part with a “text slide show” that made it “all over Google.” Walsh says the old newspaper mindset of “We know what is good for you” has to end. She insisted Salon is giving the public a lot of what it wants, but also inserting content “they didn’t know they want to know” (example: Salon’s investigative series on Arlington National Cemetery).

And the winner is…. Walsh’s talk came just before the presentation of the National Awards for Education Reporting. “I believe awards really matter,” said Walsh. She won a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism years ago, at a time when she was thinking about giving up the profession. “It really kept me going at a time when freelancing was just …kicking my butt. That award carried me for years—not the money, but the honor.”

While new media was the topic of Walsh’s talk, the judges looking for this year’s best education stories liked what old media turned out. Finalists came from the Washington Post, USA Today, The Oregonian, and The Washingtonian. And speaking of news organizations wracked by cuts…the grand prize winner is from the Boston Globe. Bob Hohler wrote his series even as the Globe was undergoing massive layoffs and a near-death experience. Despite that, Hohler got an assignment any journalist could envy, whether they’re in new media or old: nine months to report his prize-winning stories, on the state of athletics in the Boston Public Schools.

Too many Claras

She was valedictorian of her class, a nearly straight-A student, a gifted poet. Researchers at the University of Chicago called her Clara. A student at a predominantly Puerto Rican high school, Clara could have gone to any number of colleges. But when it came to reaching a decision that would alter the course of her life, Clara didn't spend hours talking to high-school counselors or poring over college rankings. She and her mother were running errands one day, drove past a Catholic college in the suburbs with a nice campus, and decided that was the place.

Jenny Nagaoka of the University of Chicago was part of a team that followed the girl and 99 others like her in a study of how low-income, high-achieving kids make their college choices. "You can't just hope someone drives by the perfect college for them," Nagaoka said at a Saturday morning EWA session. "That's not the policy solution we're looking for."

Bottom line: there are too many Claras. Almost 40 percent of students of similar backgrounds and qualifications are "undermatched," which basically means that they settled. It matters because students who attend more selective schools have a much better chance at graduating. If a student like Clara enrolls at a college like Northeastern Illinois, she'd have a 40 percent chance of earning a degree within six years. If the school were Northwestern, it'd be 90 percent.

Nagaoka said the students in the study were motivated, worked hard and generally had supportive parents - though the parents knew little about the college selection process. Surprisingly, given the students were among the best at their schools, they were not getting much support from their counselors or teachers, Nagaoka said. Clara described the counselors at her school as "grouchy."

You might think it'd be easier to earn a degree at a less selective school, but that's not the case, said panelist Matt Chingos of Harvard University, co-author of the 2009 book "Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities." Part of it is the campus culture, he said - at more selective schools, everyone does well and success breeds success. Dropouts are more common, and so also more acceptable, at schools that aren't as picky.

The quality and quantity of college counselors are factors in students landing in the right place, but there is "no silver bullet" for the undermatching problem, Chingos said. A reporter in the audience suggested that cost could be holding students back, too, especially in these hard times. She described interviewing a student who chose a lesser Cal State campus over her dream University of California school because of a $2,000 cost difference.

The panel moderator, Katherine Unmuth of the Dallas Morning News, talked about her experience writing about these students, their struggles and their dreams. The subject of one piece, Luis, agonized over leaving his family in Texas for Harvard. At home he'd been depended on to keep the family's immigration papers in order. He mowed lawns and worked alongside his parents and 13-year-old brother cleaning office buildings. After Katherine's story ran, Luis's Facebook page was indundated with messages from other students who wanted to be like him - and learn how he did it.

Humanities: Wanted, Dead or Alive

Friend 1: "I earned a degree in Western Civ?"
Friend 2: "Congratulations, but what are you going to do with that?"
Friend 1: "Ummm..."

Many fields, like health care and business, have jobs that logically follow completion of a college program. A physical therapy major, for instance, becomes a physical therapist. A business management major heads into, you guessed it, business. What about an English major? A gender studies major? That's no so cut and dry.

The future of humanities -- philosophy, literature, history, religion and cultural studies, among others -- is iffy. Dorothy Hale, English professor at the University of California-Berkeley, explained in today's higher education forum that budget constraints are spelling the demise of humanities. Case in point: her department has lost senior faculty, no longer has a receptionist and had its telephones removed. That's right, you can't call your professor anymore.

As a result, the English department is in triage mode, bandaging up its wounds while hoping the bleeding stops. Faculty, what's left of them, continue to teach and research their disciplines, but Hale says they've also taken on the role of fundraisers. They blog in an attempt to justify their positions and prove humanities still have some value.

Not so fast, says Debra Humphries, vice president for communications and public affairs with the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Humanities aren't dying, or even contracting. In 1987, humanities majors represented 9.98 percent of all college graduates. By 2007, that had risen to 12.12 percent. Employers continually plead for college graduates that can communicate effectively and think critically, in addition to being masters of their discipline.

Humanities can provide a broad base of knowledge and skills that can be applied to any field. And as long as colleges continue requiring underclassmen to take English 101 and Western Civilization classes, the humanities will persevere, just maybe not as majors.

Now for my thoughts... Who hasn't read a horribly written memo or e-mail from someone with a Ph.D.? People have to write. Who hasn't been intrigued by a scientist's invention, but the interview was a bust because the so-called expert couldn't convey his or her thoughts? People have to talk. Who hasn't interviewed a teenage scholar bound for an elite university, but the simplest of questions stumped the student? People have to think.

And a final thought... Thanks to EWA, the Lumina Foundation and all of the other sponsors that made this conference inspirational and educational. We wouldn't be here without their financial support. New Orleans in 2011!!!

Nationwide standards: the future?

Were the US to achieve a set of national standards for K-12 education, it would be a “game changing event,” according to Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, one of the first organizations to push for nationwide education standards. It's something administrations have been trying to achieve since the first President Bush was in office, and the current effort – in which states are collaborating to come up with standards that they can voluntarily adopt – is the closest we've ever been.

But will support for such an effort dry up after the next election cycle? What does the Obama administration's clear embrace of such an effort – tying it to federal funding in its Race to the Top goals – mean for the political fate of national standards? And how will these standards, if put into place, play out at the classroom level?

Cohen, together with Center on Education Policy President Jack Jennings and Massachusetts education Commissioner Mitchell Chester came together for a discussion on the national standards movement at one of EWA's Saturday morning sessions. The session was moderated by the Washington Post's Nick Anderson.

The panelists agreed: there are a host of reasons why nationwide education standards would be a good thing. At the moment, educational expectations vary wildly from state to state; a student who might be considered proficient in Kentucky or Mississippi might not be considered so in Massachusetts, for example. Chester said the current administration sees national standards as both a global competitiveness issue – they want to make sure students across the country graduate with the knowledge they need to function in a modern economy – and an equity issue: in the current system, there are big disparities in education quality between states.

But America has always embraced local control of schools, and national standards are a politically touchy subject. The current effort has been savvy, Jennings said, because instead of having the standards come down from the federal government, they're being developed by states together, and can be adopted on a voluntary basis. The revised set of standards, dubbed “The Common Core” is scheduled to be released in June.

How widespread will their adoption be? It's not clear. The Obama administration's efforts to promote the Common Core by tying Race to the Top money to a commitment to the standards has not necessarily been helpful, as it gives off the same top-down vibe those developing the standards have been trying to avoid this time around. Also, some states, including Massachusetts, which are considered to have relatively high standards, are taking a wait-and-see approach before deciding whether the Common Core will be a good fit for them.

Another crucial point: standards are one thing. Implementation is another, and it will require a lot of additional support in the form of curriculum development, textbooks, professional development, etc to translate these new standards into the classroom. New standards can't succeed without this backup, and these will all have price tags attached to them – something worth remembering in coverage.

What are some future of the implications of common standards? Could it lead to something along the lines of a common curriculum, perhaps? “That's radioactive in some circles,” Anderson said.

Chester said in his experience, teachers and principals want help with curriculum development, wherever it comes from.

“People are hungry for assistance,” he said. “Whether you want to call it common curriculum or whether you want to call it sharing what's working.”

Author, Author II

Three journalists who recently published books described the demands and rewards of book writing today at the final session of the National Education Writers Association national seminar in San Francisco.

Helen Thorpe -- a freelance journalist who has published in national magazines such as The New Yorker, a contributor to the This American Life radio show and wife of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper --- described how she spent five years tracking four undocumented Mexican girls from high school into college for her recent book,"Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America."

The young women she wrote about faced rejection and problems with the legal system , such as being barred from getting a driver's license or a checking account, at at time when they were coming of age, getting boyfriends and moving into a critical stage of life.

"It is the worst moment in life to tell young people you don't belong," she said.

Ben Wildavsky, former education editor of U.S. News & World Report, credited the Kauffman Foundation that he now works for for enabling him to write his recently published book, "The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World." He set out to write a different book profiling universities around the world, but realized after attending a conference in China that the more compelling story was an emerging global race to the top for universities. He took advice of other innovators, he said, and decided to risk changing course.

Beth Fertig, an education reporter for WNYC public radio in New York City , took a year off to write about the struggles special education students face learning to read. Her recently published book is called "Why cant u teach me 2 read? Three Students and a Mayor Put Our Schools to the Test."

She said she was fortunate to find a publisher willing to let her devote part of her book to the policies that were hurting children.

"I ended up putting policy in the book," she said. "That's probably why it didn't sell so well, but teachers loved it."

The authors said they all wrote proposals to agents that involved some meaty reporting with an outline of key themes they wanted to address.

"My proposal was a sample chapter," Fertig said.

The meat is important, probably more so than ever, because agents and editors are turning down a greater percentage of proposals, Thorpe said.

All three reported they made it a point to write every day. Fertig worked in the New York City Library. Wildavsky had a daily quota of words, which he kept to himself. "Just write. Just sit down and write," he advised. "I stuck to that religiously for months."

Thorpe set a limit of 500 words a day, but later expanded that to 1,000 words. "That is a chapter a week," she said.

The authors said they all ended up doing their own publicity, which included solicting book jacket quotes, setting up their own web pages and urging newspapers and magazines to review their work.

All the effort and sacrifice was worth the production of a published book, the authors said. Fertig said her work is getting the attention of principals and making a difference in New York City.

"It is totally worth it," she said. "I feel like I got a master's degree. I visited more schools than in 10 years of daily reporting."

Pre-K: Who Are These Small Children and Why Should I Care?

Believe it or not, all those squirmy kiddos who show up in kindergarten may have been in school before they get there. It's a strange land called preschool -- and you really ought to be writing about it. And K-12 school districts ought to be paying more attention to it.

That's what the advocates at the Bridging Gaps panel wanted to pass along today. Lisa Guernsey of the New America Foundation said there's an obvious gap, even in policy and government, between preschool and elementary schools. But reporters can play an important role in linking the two.

Why bother? Marci Young, project director for Pre-K Now, said that investing early can help school districts ensure that kids come to school prepared. It pays off, she said. And if school districts want any chance of closing their achievement gaps, they need to get involved before kindergarten.

"The evidence is clear that we really should not be talking about a K-12 system anymore," Young said. "We really have to move beyond that."

If you weren't convinced, Linda Sullivan-Dudzic from the Bremerton schools in Washington State served up some proof. Her school district, which she described as "a little pocket of poverty in a very affluent county," linked up with preschools to help ensure that they were preparing children for what kindergarten needs.

It wasn't happening before: Only 4 percent of children there came into kindergarten knowing their letters before the district kicked off its efforts, Sullivan-Dudzic said.

So the Bremerton schools helped provide training for preschool teachers, evaluated how well different preschools were doing in preparing children, and put together a curriculum that preschools had to use in order to get their seal of approval. And it worked: The percent of kindergartners who met Washington standards in reading went from 56 percent in 2002 to 94.4 percent in 2009. Yowza.

That's the reason that the Annie E. Casey Foundation is paying attention, said Ralph Smith, its executive vice president. It sees preschool as "a pivot point" where it can make a difference. If kids aren't reading on grade level by third grade, Smith said, they're unlikely to graduate from high school.

"You can intervene," Smith said. "But it's incredibly more difficult, incredibly more challenging and dramatically more expensive."

I posed a question about untold stories in the preschool world. Guernsey recommended digging into remediation: How many kids come to kindergarten already behind and what is your school district doing about it? Young said we should be looking at how intervening with reading problems early -- or not doing so -- can impact the number of children who are labeled with a disability.

And Sullivan-Dudzic said it's worth asking what rules are preventing school districts from making closer alliances with preschools and seeing where resources are duplicated between pre-K and school districts.

We also gabbed about the flustering complexity of preschool funding and how to navigate it. Consultant Hedy Chang offered a pointer for California reporters: Every county here has a childcare planning council that should have analyses of the need for childcare in your area. Got pointers for reporters in other states to track down your pre-K funding? Tweet it under the hashtags #ewa2010 or #ewa10.