ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
How States Can Accelerate Community College Innovation by Supporting Faculty Leadership. Policy Bulletin
Author: Altstadt, David
Date: 2012-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Leadership,Professional Development,Community Colleges,Educational Change,Teacher Role,Educational Innovation,Teacher Participation,Theory Practice Relationship,Teaching Methods,Data,Outcomes of Education,Decision Making

States wrestling with the challenge of increasing community college student completion rates recognize that a critical next step is building support among faculty for reform efforts. Faculty can play a crucial role in bridging the historic divide between policy and practice. Empowering faculty to take a substantive role in informing policy decisions, while also supporting pedagogical and curricular changes in their classroom, has proven to be a successful strategy employed by several states. Creating the state and local infrastructure to promote faculty leadership in the reform process leads to better statewide policy and stronger faculty buy-in, according to state and college members of the Achieving the Dream, Developmental Education Initiative, and Completion by Design policy network participating in a December 13, 2011, meeting convened by Jobs for the Future. Fifteen states are represented in the network. Drawing on the experiences of the participating states, attendees highlighted three key ways that states can help institutions to deepen the engagement of adjunct and full-time faculty in high-priority, completion-focused reforms: (1) Enlist faculty on state-level committees and research projects charged with recommending policy and programmatic changes; (2) Expand the availability of professional development to prepare faculty for the need to teach differently; and (3) Help faculty make better use of data on student outcomes to inform classroom practices and state policies. Meeting participants also filled out questionnaires on their states' experience with engaging faculty in reforms. The matrix at the end of this policy bulletin provides a cross-state summary of their extensive efforts, describing the venues states use to bring faculty together, how much data-related professional development is offered, and how states are incenting faculty participation.
Where to Begin? The Evolving Role of Placement Exams for Students Starting College. Executive Summary
Author: Burdman, Pamela
Date: 2012-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Community Colleges,High School Graduates,College Readiness,Student Placement,Developmental Studies Programs,Transitional Programs,High Stakes Tests,Predictive Validity,Test Validity,Test Reliability

For years, colleges have used placement exams to determine whether to deem incoming students "college ready" or assign them to developmental education. Emerging information reveals the tests have little correlation to students' future success, casting doubt on their use even as the high stakes for students of taking remedial courses become clear. Educators are rethinking whether the tests are fair and wondering if their traditional use constitutes a barrier to college completion. For many states, efforts to strengthen the college readiness of high school graduates and improve college completion rates have created pressure to develop a coherent statewide policy framework for placement assessment. In spring 2012, Jobs for the Future convened state officials and community college leaders--including representatives from the Achieving the Dream, Developmental Education Initiative, and Completion by Design state policy networks--to discuss research and innovations in placement and assessment and how they might help improve outcomes for students traditionally served by developmental education. Supplementing those discussions with interviews and analysis, "Where to Begin?" explores the various ways states and systems are grappling with new, sometimes confusing, information about placement exams as part of broader student success initiatives. [For the full report, "Where to Begin? The Evolving Role of Placement Exams for Students Starting College," see ED537265.]
Taking College Courses in High School: A Strategy Guide for College Readiness--The College Outcomes of Dual Enrollment in Texas
Author: Struhl, Ben
Date: 2012-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Educational Attainment,Control Groups,High School Graduates,Graduation,High Schools,Dual Enrollment,Experimental Groups,Career Readiness,College Readiness,Program Effectiveness,Quasiexperimental Design,Academic Achievement,Cohort Analysis,Test Results,Probability,Outcomes of Education,Disproportionate Representation,Academic Persistence

States and school districts are searching for strategies to raise the college and career readiness of high school graduates--imperative in an era when postsecondary credentials are the key to good jobs, better pay, and stronger economies. The creation and implementation of higher graduation standards aligned to college and career expectations is the most visible and emblematic effort by states to ensure students are prepared to succeed after high school, but it is far from the only one. A policy strategy of increasing interest is the practice of providing students with the opportunity to take college courses while in high school, known as dual enrollment. The premise of dual enrollment is that high school students can enhance their chances for college success if they better understand what it takes to succeed in college: they do this by actually experiencing real college coursework, often earning &quot;dual credit&quot; for both high school and college. New research, conducted in Texas by Jobs for the Future (JFF), points to the effectiveness of dual enrollment as a strategy for improving postsecondary success. This study focused on the academic outcomes of 32,908 Texas students from the high school graduating class of 2004. Like some of these studies, the authors' research used rigorous quasi-experimental methods to control for factors other than dual enrollment that could explain student success by comparing dual enrollees to non-dual enrollees who are otherwise closely matched academically and socially. JFF's methodological approach, known as a propensity score matching model, enabled the authors to account for student background characteristics to the highest degree possible short of a randomized study. This greatly increases the certainty that the better college outcomes found for dual enrollment participants are due t o the effects of the dual enrollment courses they completed. Appended are: (1) Propensity Score Model; (2) Cohort, Treatment, and Control Group, by Region; (3) Educational Attainment of Treatment and Control Groups; (4) Test Scores by Treatment and Control Groups; (5) Odds Ratios for College Access Model; (6) Odds Ratios for College Completion Model; and (7) Dual-credit Study Methodology. (Contains 2 figures, 7 tables, and 15 endnotes.)
Using Dual Enrollment Policy to Improve College &amp; Career Readiness: A Web Tool for Decision Makers. A Policy Brief. Design Matters
Author: Ward, Diane S.
Date: 2012-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Dual Enrollment,Career Readiness,College Readiness,High School Students,College Credits,Educational Policy,Human Capital,Acceleration (Education),Cost Effectiveness

As demand for a highly educated and skilled workforce grows, many governors have made student college and career readiness a priority in 2012. In their State of the State addresses, governors in Mississippi, Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin promoted the expansion of dual enrollment programs as a key strategy for strengthening academic preparedness. Dual enrollment provides high school students with opportunities to take college courses while completing their high school program, giving them an experience of college-level work, a better understanding of what it takes to succeed in that academic environment, and a head start on earning college credits. This brief looks at some of the dual enrollment approaches that states are advancing this year. Because governors' addresses are blueprints for action in the new year, the fate of many of these proposals will be revealed in the months to come.
Evaluating the Impacts of Item Exposure Procedures on Ability Estimates in CAT When Items are Disclosed
Author: He, Wei
Date: 2008-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Adaptive Testing,Computer Assisted Testing,Test Items,Item Banks,Disclosure,Computation,Multivariate Analysis

Test security has been a concern for computerized adaptive tests (CAT) due to the nature of continuous testing. This concern becomes unprecedentedly severe with increasingly easy access to the World-Wide-Web where some examinees post on the internet their recollections of items they are administered, leaving future examinees with opportunities to get their scores inflated by having pre-knowledge of the items that appear in their tests. This study investigated, given some items in the item pool are disclosed, which item exposure control procedure results in minimum negative effect on ability estimate. The disclosed items in this study are defined as items released to the public or intentionally memorized by the test-takers and shared with future examinees and items to which examinees can respond correctly. The results from both simulation and statistical hypothesis testing are in consistent with Schnipke & Scrams (1999) in terms that the presence of disclosed items can inflate the final ability estimates in the context of CATs by an unacceptably high degree, especially for the low-ability examinees. Among all item exposure procedures under study, the a-stratified test with b-blocking, i.e., a design that stratifies the item pool but takes care of the relationship between item difficulty and discrimination parameters, performs the best. (Contains 18 tables, 3 figures, and 4 footnotes.)
How Do We Know? The Face of Government: Education
Author: US Census Bureau
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Government Employees,State Government,Local Government,Elementary Secondary Education,Higher Education,Teachers,School Personnel,Income,Part Time Employment,Salaries

State and local government employees provide critical services that citizens depend on every day including police and fire protection, roads and public transit systems, social services, public health and hospitals, and education services. The U.S. Census Bureau collects statistics on the nation's governments every five years in the Census of Governments and every year in the Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll. This paper provides data on the nation's state and local government workers, education employees, and average monthly pay for education employees for the month of March 2011.
Tying Funding to Community College Outcomes: Models, Tools, and Recommendations for States. Executive Summary
Author: Altstadt, David, Ed.
Date: 2012-04-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Community Colleges,Educational Finance,Financial Support,Public Support,Outcomes of Education,Accountability,Educational Attainment,Models,Educational Policy,Politics of Education,Economic Climate,Public Officials,State Government,College Administration,Funding Formulas,Graduation

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In response to this challenge, state governments are testing the power of several policy levers to change individual and institutional behaviors in ways that increase and accelerate college completion. One of these is the formula used to allocate public funding to institutions. This brief presents a set of Jobs for the Future-produced tools that can help states design performance-based funding systems that can influence student and institutional behavior, avoid unintended consequences, and withstand shifts in political and economic climates. These &quot;Performance Funding 2.0&quot; tools are based primarily on the experience of states participating in Achieving the Dream and the Developmental Education Initiative that have moved toward a new performance funding model in recent years. [For the full report, &quot;Tying Funding to Community College Outcomes: Models, Tools, and Recommendations for States,&quot; see ED537261.]
Teaching and Learning in the Era of the Common Core: An Introduction to the Project and the Nine Research Papers in the "Students at the Center" Series
Author: Jobs for the Future
Date: 2012-04-00
Type: Collected Works - General
Subjects: Motivation,Teaching Methods,Cognitive Psychology,Educational Change,Learning Theories,Synthesis,Educational Research,Research Projects,Student Centered Curriculum,Theory of Mind,Neuropsychology,Learner Engagement,Student Attitudes,Best Practices,Educational Practices,Literacy,African American Students,Mathematical Aptitude,Hispanic American Students,Educational Opportunities,Individualized Instruction,Student Evaluation,Change Strategies

Despite the wide interest in and need for student-centered approaches to learning, educators have scant access to a comprehensive accounting of the key components of it. To build the knowledge base for the emerging field of student-centered learning, Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit based in Boston, commissioned papers from nine teams of noted researchers. Together, the syntheses of research in the "Students at the Center" papers tell a story that is both hopeful and challenging. On the one hand, it is a story of how teachers and leaders are beating the odds with traditionally underserved students using student-centered approaches backed by recent advances in brain, cognitive science, and motivation research. On the other hand, the papers identify significant gaps to be addressed in what educators know about student-centered approaches, particularly about how to spread such approaches beyond individual classrooms and schools. Looking at connections across the papers and the flow of ideas and challenges expressed in each, the series spans three overarching areas--learning theory; applying student-centered approaches; and scaling up student-centered approaches to learning--to make an argument about how students learn best. This publication contains these papers: (1) Mind, Brain, and Education (Christina Hinton, Kurt W. Fischer, and Catherine Glennon); (2) Motivation, Engagement, and Student Voice (Eric Toshalis and Michael J. Nakkula); (3) Teachers at Work: Six Exemplars of Everyday Practice (Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman); (4) Literacy Practices for African American Male Adolescents (Alfred W. Tatum); (5) Latino/a and Black Students and Mathematics (Rochelle Gutierrez and Sonya E. Irving); (6) Curricular Opportunities in the Digital Age (David H. Rose and Jenna W. Gravel); (7) Personalization in Schools (Susan Yonezawa, Larry McClure, and Makeba Jones); (8) Assessing Learning (Heidi Andrade, Kristen Huff, and Georgia Brooke); and (9) Changing School District Practices (Ben Levin, Amanda Datnow, and Nathalie Carrier). (Contains 1 table.)
Autonomy and Innovation: Systemic Change in a Decentralized State
Author: Hilliard, Tom
Date: 2012-11-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Higher Education,Community Colleges,Educational Change,College Administration,College Planning,Governmental Structure,Statewide Planning,State Action,State Standards,Success,Educational Practices,Intervention,Change Strategies,Institutional Autonomy,Educational Innovation,Trend Analysis,Educational Development,Educational Improvement,Improvement Programs,Participative Decision Making,Leadership Styles

As the student success movement has come of age at America's community colleges, much effort has gone into state-level reforms coupled with college-level efforts, on the theory that relying on individual institutions alone to bring change at scale across states and the nation will take too long and cost too much. But if centralized authority is essential, the student success agenda is in peril. Most states exercise little direct control over their community colleges, instead delegating authority to local and county government. That is why Michigan--the quintessential &quot;non-system&quot; state--is of such great interest. Its 28 community colleges enjoy complete administrative independence, lacking even a state higher education executive officer to whom reports would be formally submitted. Perhaps the most important driver of Michigan's commitment to student success has been Achieving the Dream, a national nonprofit leading the nation's most comprehensive nongovernmental reform network for student success in higher education history. This is the story of how seven Michigan colleges that joined Achieving the Dream in its early years sought to realize the promise of student success in their classrooms, and how their hard-won lessons influenced peers and gelled into strategic statewide actions with support from the Michigan Community College Association. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures and 6 endnotes.)
Aid and Innovation: How Federal Financial Aid Policy Impacts Student Success and How States Can Respond. Policy Bulletin
Author: Reichert, Katrina
Date: 2012-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Postsecondary Education,Student Financial Aid,College Preparation,College Readiness,Low Income Groups,College Students,Public Policy,Educational Policy,Barriers,Academic Persistence,Dual Enrollment,Developmental Studies Programs,Credentials,Context Effect,At Risk Students

From Washington to Connecticut, Arkansas to Indiana, state policymakers and community college leaders are focused on building completion pathways to ensure that more students succeed in postsecondary education and make smooth transitions to careers. Financial aid is both an effective and a necessary policy lever to promote this goal. Not only do many students need financial aid to walk through the college door, but they also need it to stay enrolled consistently through the completion of a certificate, degree, or successful transfer to a four-year institution. This report describes how policy leaders and financial aid experts from a number of states are tackling a vexing problem: how financial aid rules and regulations stymie some of the most promising institutional and statewide innovations for serving low-income students who are underprepared for postsecondary education. These leaders, who represent the Achieving the Dream, Developmental Education Initiative, and Completion by Design state policy networks led by Jobs for the Future, are implementing innovative solutions that accelerate student progress toward postsecondary credentials. In doing so, they are encountering challenges posed by federal financial aid policies at multiple points along the pipeline to and through college, and they are actively seeking and experimenting with strategies to overcome those challenges. (Contains 6 endnotes.)
Tying Funding to Community College Outcomes: Models, Tools, and Recommendations for States
Author: Altstadt, David, Ed.
Date: 2012-04-00
Type: Collected Works - General
Subjects: Community Colleges,Educational Finance,Financial Support,Public Support,Outcomes of Education,Accountability,Educational Attainment,Models,Educational Policy,Politics of Education,Economic Climate,Public Officials,State Government,College Administration,Funding Formulas,Graduation

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In response to this challenge, state governments are testing the power of several policy levers to change individual and institutional behaviors in ways that increase and accelerate college completion. One of these is the formula used to allocate public funding to institutions. This brief presents a set of Jobs for the Future-produced tools that can help states design performance-based funding systems that can influence student and institutional behavior, avoid unintended consequences, and withstand shifts in political and economic climates. These &quot;Performance Funding 2.0&quot; tools are based primarily on the experience of states participating in Achieving the Dream and the Developmental Education Initiative that have moved toward a new performance funding model in recent years. Contents of this publication include: (1) Reflections on Ohio's New Performance-Based Funding System: Defusing a Ticking Time Bomb (Eric Fingerhut); (2) Design Principles for an Effective Performance-Based Funding System (Richard Kazis); and (3) Characteristics of Performance-Based Funding Systems for Community Colleges in Eleven Achieving the Dream States. (Contains 13 endnotes.) [For &quot;Tying Funding to Community College Outcomes: Models, Tools, and Recommendations for States. Executive Summary,&quot; see ED537257.]
On the Road to Success: How States Collaborate and Use Data to Improve Student Outcomes. A Working Paper by the Achieving the Dream Cross-State Data Work Group
Author: Baldwin, Chris
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Community Colleges,Enrollment,Educational Attainment,Educational Policy,State Government,Data,Data Interpretation,Decision Making,Comparative Analysis,Strategic Planning,Academic Achievement,Identification,At Risk Students,Intervention,Student Needs,Benchmarking

Enrollment is rising across the nation's community colleges, but completion rates remain untenably low. Reformers are focusing on the importance of using comprehensive, high-quality data on student progress and completion to bring about change. A core tenet of Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count has been to embed a culture of data-informed decision making on campuses and in state capitals. To move this work forward, a group of data experts from Achieving the Dream's state policy teams came together in 2005 to design and test a valuable set of intermediate measures that demonstrate how community college students progress--or, as is too often the case, fail to progress--toward a credential or further education. Most important, this Cross-State Data Work Group showed the predictive power of interim indicators for identifying students in great need of intervention early enough to help boost their chances of staying in and finishing college. "On the Road to Success" presents the next step taken by the Cross-State Data Work Group: a comparative analysis of a comprehensive set of intermediate milestones and final measures of success that practitioners and policymakers can use to rethink and remake their approaches to increasing student achievement. Any institution in the country can use these "Benchmarks of Student Success"--a set of key indicators of community college student progression and completion--to frame strategic planning. This is one of the first times such comparative data are being reported publicly. The state-level data in this brief represent only part of what the members of the Data Work Group have collected and reported, and their cross-state conversations will continue. Perhaps an even more powerful impact will be derived as states turn this analytic approach inward and examine the comparative effectiveness of colleges within a single state. Benchmarks for Student Success are appended. (Contains 11 figures, 1 table, and 10 endnotes.) [For "On the Road to Success: How States Collaborate and Use Data to Improve Student Outcomes. Executive Summary," see ED537263.]