Larry Penley’s Access With Success

The Obama administration has strongly supported the need for growth in college degrees. The administration’s 2020 goal of the USA’s having the highest college completion rate is emblematic of that support. However, the Obama administration has taken actions that have had the unintended impact of restricting growth in college graduates, actions that are inimical to the very goals of the administration and this blog. Among those actions have been the continued attack on for-profit universities with the expected result of reducing student access – as was noted in this blog.

On Sunday, NPR highlighted the administration’s intentions with regard to traditional nonprofit colleges and universities. Those intentions, it observed, are to restrict increases in tuition, a seemingly laudable goal. Indeed, rising tuition has been the focus of this blog for the same reason that the President has addressed it; its rise without commensurate need-based aid restricts access to college by many working class families and working adults who cannot afford the rising tuition rates. What NPR highlighted was President Obama’s apparent plans to restrict growth in tuition in his related comments of a few weeks ago at the University of Michigan.

Just as the administration’s attacks on for-profit colleges had the unintended impact of limiting access to a college degree, so will plans to restrict tuition prices for traditional colleges and universities also restrict access. The reasons are numerous, but they begin with what we know of markets and price controls.

Price controls negatively impact market efficiency and may have the impact of restricting the availability of a targeted product or service, e.g., a college education. They also famously fail to actually restrict growth in prices as a result of human creativity in circumventing them through black markets. While the President has not stated that he will impose price controls, NPR has described the implications of his comments as a threat that there will be penalties on colleges and universities that raise prices beyond some unspecified limit.

The economic issues associated with price restrictions make them wrong-headed, and we already know how colleges behave when their revenue is restricted. Community colleges in California reduced available classes to students and cut services in the face of losses of revenue. What is needed is a means to increase access by working class families and non-traditional students such as working adults, a huge proportion of those seeking a college education.

Some Americans can afford to pay for college, but many others cannot. Increased tuition is not harmful to all in quite the same way. Pell grants are a good example of what works in making a college educational affordable for those with need. But the federal government is not the only solution. Colleges that do raise tuition have an opportunity as well to address the issue if access; they can make substantial amounts of that new revenue available in scholarships, thereby off-setting the price increases for those in need. Sadly, past evidence shows this has not occurred in traditional colleges and universities.

It is in this area of need-based access that we should see action – from the federal government, states and boards of trustees. Restricting price, however, is unfortunately almost always a bad idea.

Today is Digital Learning Day, and its occurrence just a week after President Obama’s State of the Union address and his comments on education is serendipitous.  Earlier this week, I wrote about the challenge presented by the President’s call for colleges and universities to decrease the cost of education and increase outcomes, including the number of graduates.  In that blog, I turned for a solution to the observations of the President of the Lumina Foundation.

Jamie P. Merisotis, Lumina’s President, observed that future demand for college-educated citizens and workers necessitates alternative educational paradigms if we are to decrease cost while also increasing accesss and success.  Those new paradigms mean that our understanding of “quality education” must change.  One very significant paradigm change is digital learning, made possible by substantial innovation to information technology.

There is a growing availability of digitial learning materials, online educational opportunities, and innovative approaches to blended learning with combinations of face-to-face teachers, digital learning materials and online educational experiences.  This blog has previously observed that the variety of these digital learning alternatives is increasing in all education sectors, including primary, secondary and tertiary education.

The recent announcement by Apple of its eText authoring and class-creation tools is likely to open up and spread digitial learning beyond what we have already seen in the digital learning materials of a wide variety of companies like Pearson, Adaptive Curriculum, etc.  The for-profit hgher education sector has seen very rapid growth in enrollment from non-traditional students, especially through online degrees of universities like the University of Phoenix and blended learning models from schools like Western International University.  Of course, Apple’s tools are directed at primary and secondary education as well as higher education.  Companies like K12 have already demonstrated the potential for and the value for online and blended learning models in the primary and secondary areas.

When I talk with parents of younger children, I find little hesitation to use an iPad in order to provide easy access to learning; the limitation these parents face is availability of software.  If we are, however, to realize the full advantage of the digital revolution to learning, we must change – with the digital revolution in information technology that is occuring around us.  Those changes include the following:

(1) We must alter regulation of education and recognize new metrics.   Seat-time is an outmoded way of evaluating the educational experience, and we must accept, endorse and expect learning mastery based on demonstrted outcomes as the new standard.  To the degree that a student can learn on her own and demonstrate mastery without the intervention of a teacher, then the whole traditional concept of education is turned upside down and teachers are no longer necessary – at least not in their current roles.

(2) We must embrace the capacity of information technology to advance further how we learn.  Intelligent learning systems that are truly adaptive to the knowledge and skills of an individual learner are now possible (note Apollo Group’s acquisition of Carnegie Learning), and research and development is already undway on intelligent systems that can substitute for humans’ coaching students.  Rather than moving from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side concept of the role of a teacher, we are at the advent of the development of a “guide” as an intelligent digital system.

(3) We must develop even more sophisticated systems for the assessment of learning. With the introduction of more digital learning mateials at all levels, more sophisticated assessment is essential.  Along with that assessment must come better integrated feedback loops that articluate with curriculum design in ways that lead to the continuous modification of curricula.

(4) We must accept new roles for the “teacher” and more rapidly modify teacher education as we incorporate more resources to support retraining of existing teachers and the incorporation of evaluations of teachers on new dimensions of “teaching.”  With ever more sophisticated digital learning, the “teacher” takes on roles of (a) super coach, (b) counselor and advisor who guides the student in a learning path, and (c) designer of curriculum and assessment.

Is digital learning perfect?  Of course not, but neither is the traditional model of teacher and students.  As Mr. Obama has stated, we must expect more of education if we are to compete in a global 21st century.  Paradigm shifts in education will be essential, and one of the most significant ones comes from digital learning, made pssoble by continued advances in information technology.

In his State of the Union address, the President called on colleges and universities to do two things that have proved nearly impoosible so far: (1) decrease the cost of education and (2) increase the number of graduates.  The latter, of course, has been one of the fundamentals of this blog, i.e. student success in the form of graduation in addition to mere enrollment.

Jamie P. Merisotis, the president of the Lumina Foundation, issued thoughtful comments on Mr. Obama’s. address.  Mr. Merisotis observed that the extent of the future demand for college-educated citizens and workers necessitates alternative educational paradigms.  There is little or no evidence that continuing to educate with traditional approaches, typical of our major research universities, will lead to either an increased supply of graduates or lower costs.

Mr. Obama is right to call on colleges and universities for change.  His widely sighted speech late last week at the University of Michigan added few details to his earlier call for change in higher education during his annual address. Expectations are for the Depament of Education to add detail.

Change in higher education also received much attention during the administration of Mr. Bush.  Then, calls for change came from the Commission established by Secretary of Education Spellings.  Traditional universities and their presidents responded by calling on the federal government for patience. The Deepartment was asked to allow colleges and universities to undertake voluntary efforts, and the Department was called on to undstand the considerable differences among traditional universities that limited any single Department of Education approach.  Patience has resulted in little fundamental change.

The new paradigms that Mr. Merisotis called for are little in evidence across much of traditional higher education.  There are many reasons for failure in bringing about change.  Amng them is our state-federal structure with responsibilitiy for public universities in the hands of state governors and legislators and the boards of trustees they appoint.  Moreover, the long, millenial history and past success of colleges and universities appears on the surface to provide little rationale for change.  Then, of course, there is the governance system of most traditional universities.  Finally,there is the budgetary issue that I have addressed before; in contrast to the for-profit sector, traditional universities lack working capital for investment in alternative paradigms.

We have seen over the last few years the efforts of the Obama administration to bring change to the for-profit sector of higher education.  As the administration turns its attention to the traditional sector, few of us should be surprised.  What would be surprising is real change.

Online K – 12 education is receiving considerable attention from established media, and much of that attention is negative.  Getting Smart published an opinion piece that I had written about the spate of media attention to online K – 12.  The opinion makes the case for the use of data and sound science for the evaluation of online education.  It questions the use of invective, unidentified “experts,” and veiled attacks on capitalism as a reasonable and fair foundation for its evaluation.

U. S. global competitiveness depends upon education, and an excellent foundation in K – 12 is essential.  Without that foundation, high school graduates are neither ready for the workplace nor college, an argument well-made by the work of Achieve.  Employers suffer from ill-prepared graduates with the requirement for additional training and poor performance, and colleges – that are able to offer remedial education – waste students’ and taxpayers’ money on readying ill-prepared students for real college-level work.

Online learning is increasingly accepted by many sectors of society for the value that it provides in flexibility for and adaptability to the needs of learners who are better able to respond to that environment.  The potential that online learning offers is probably still unrealized.  As we increase online learning’s adaptive capacity, it may well be able to individualize education in ways that raise substantially its potential to improve students’ learning.  That was the reason that Apollo acquired Carnegie Learning, admittedly an example from tertiary education rather than K -12.  But the point applies equally well to K – 12.

Let’s give online learning a chance, but we should hold it to high standards in terms of outcomes – the same high standards to which we should hold learning from traditional education.

The Center for Education Policy just issued its updated report on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for 2010-2011.  AYP is a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act, and the goal is 100% of students reaching proficiency by 2014.  The report shows that public schools and are struggling; indeed they appear to be falling further behind.  This report is instructive in light of recent criticism of online K-12 education.

There were several very important findings of the report:

• Approximately 48% of public schools did not make adequate yearly progress in 2011, an increase from the 39% which did not make AYP in 2010.
• The 48% failing to make AYP makes 2011 the worst year’s report since the No Child Left Behind Act took effect.
• States varied widely, e.g., Wisconsin with 11% failing to the State of Florida with 89% failing; in my own State of Arizona, 42% of schools did not demonstrate AYP.

The Center for Education Policy uses data from the Consolidated State Performance Reports that states submit to the U. S. Department of Education.  The Center does not separate out AYP for charter schools or online schools that contract with for-profit curriculum providers.  The online schools have been the object of a recent spate of critical newspaper articles, including ones from The New York Times and my local paper, the Arizona Republic with its series that began on December 10 2011.  Perhaps such criticism of novel approaches that depart from traditional education should not be surprising.  What is important is the carefully measured performance that comes from these novel approaches to education reform.

The New York Times quoted a forthcoming study from the National Education Policy Center, supported by the National Education Association, with estimates of only one-third of online schools having made AYP.  Whether the comparison of AYP between online schools and traditional schools is valid is hard to judge, especially in light of what we already know about AYP comparisons for public schools.

The movement of states toward non-national standards for AYP in the future will make comparisons even more difficult.  Already, the data make the concept of comparisons of AYP troublesome.  For example, states may fluctuate from year to year on the basis of changing measures of AYP, changing goals, etc.  Whether an online school is comparable to other schools within a given state is also problematic.  A research report, State Policy Differences Greatly Impact AYP Numbers, details the source of fluctuations in the national data.  This year, Massachusetts, long highlighted for its tough testing standards, reports that 81% of its schools did not made AYP, a rising trend from 41% in 2006.  Of course, the national trend is one that Massachusetts is tracking with a national rising percentage of schools that do not make AYP.

That AYP is important need not be stated.  Those who study public education are aware of the U. S. education shortfall relative to global standards.  What is needed now is not retrenchment and defensiveness but additional work to raise standards at our schools – traditional, online and charter.  What are also needed are careful, unbiased comparisons between different models for improving education.  As I observed in The Growth in Education Reform and its Benefits, we are beginning to see solutions that make a difference.  We only must have the will to adopt them in the face of pressure to continuing doing what we have always done.

In an earlier blog, I wrote about The Implications of UCLA’s College Completion Research for Coaching.  What I did not address was the underlying rationale for the success of coaching and related recruitment practices in raising persistence from freshman to sophomore year as well as a student’s success.   The foundation for the efficacy of such interventions in raising college persistence and graduation rates is likely the extent to which students have realistic expectations for their college experience.

In too many cases, the college experience is portrayed via websites, “view books,” and counselors’ advice in ways that are inconsistent with the reality, thereby leading to unrealistic student expectations.  One of the more common examples is the extensive use of a disproportionate number of non-white students in group photos, thereby giving the appearance of a far more diverse student experience than the reality.  Another example at many research universities is the portrayal of the opportunity to work directly with a faculty member on one’s own research project.  By contrast, the freshman experience is characterized for the most part by large, lecture classes at public, research universities.  The point here is not to dismiss the opportunity that students have to meet those who come from different backgrounds nor to argue that opportunity does not exist in the junior or senior year to work with a faculty member on one’s own research.  Rather, it is to make the case that the portrayal is unrealistic relative to expectations for the freshman experience.

As a behavioral scientist in the area of organizational psychology, I have always been intrigued by the work on what has been referred to as the realistic job preview (RJP).  More than 30 years ago, John P. Wanous drew attention to the topic of organizational entry from what was then a new perspective in organizational psychology – the perspective of the individual. In a ground-breaking publication in the Psychological Bulletin, Mr. Wanous contrasted the individual and organizational perspective.  Whereas an organization is concerned with the competence of a new entrant to perform, the individual is concerned with whether the organization will satisfy personal needs.

Although the work of Mr. Wanous has been widely applied to organizational recruitment with the introduction of the RJP into the process, it is not used very frequently by college and university recruiters to introduce a realistic college preview (RCP) for the individual student.   Coupled with the somewhat unrealistic portrayals that I have already described is the same organizational (university) concern with competence, i.e., ability to compete in the college classroom, rather than a concern with the prospective student’s needs.  Much of what Mr. Wanous argued about the value of the RJP in raising retention and satisfaction for new employees applies to the student recruit as well, and this similarity makes the RCP an ideal vehicle for raising persistence and graduation rates.

Mr. Wanous stated, “The quality of information possessed by outsiders is an important issue because all the theories of organizational choice rely on individual expectations.”   According to him, realistic information by the individual has three effects: (1) it increases organizational tenure, i.e., persistence from the freshman to sophomore year at a university; (2) it communicates honesty, increasing the individual’s commitment to the decision (in this case the decision to enroll); and (3) it lowers expectations such that they are more congruent with the organization (inoculating a student against the reality of large classes, increased competition, residence hall life, etc.).

Introducing the RCP will not be easy for many university and college administrators.  It is likely to be derided as inconsistent with the approach of the competition, and it may be feared as limiting the achievement of recruiting goals and thereby tuition revenue goals.  The theoretical foundation for its success, however, in raising persistence, graduation rates, and tuition revenue from returning students is evident from the work of Mr. Wanous and others.  Introducing a RCP will, however, necessitate altering college preview materials like websites, and it will require newly deployed expenditures on retraining staff and adopting alternative interventions like pre-admission and post-admission coaching by existing staff or by outsourcing this work to professional organizations like InsideTrack.  Nevertheless, the UCLA data are clear; there are pragmatic means to raising student persistence, and the theoretical foundation for these interventions can be found in the work of organizational psychologists.