TCCTA Blog

GIFTS Sessions: For Faculty, By Faculty

The Professional Development Committee has arranged for a number of the highly popular Great Ideas for Teaching Students (GIFTS) sessions to be held at the TCCTA convention in Frisco. These brief programs offer specific ideas for teaching and are designed to be of practical use to educators in all disciplines.

Each session will last approximately 10 minutes, allowing participants to sample a variety of useful teaching techniques.

The sessions will be offered Friday, March 2, 8:00–9:15 a.m., at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center.

Coordinator of the GIFTS Sessions is Essie Childers, Blinn College.

Here's the full slate. Join us!

STAAR Displays Complications

An official briefing recently on the new regimen of testing for public school students, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), provided a glimpse of some of the issues associated with the new plan, which kicks in soon. It's complicated, and there will be headaches.

One point of contention for college faculty concerning the present TAKS and TEKS approach, is a gap between the skills needed to graduate from high school and those signifying college readiness. It's unclear at this point if the new system will eventually mean you can expect a higher level of student achievement and ability in your classes. If this could transpire, it would likely make a big difference in the "success rates" of community colleges. Full implementation will take many years, of course, while policy makers are demanding improvement now.

The whole "teaching to the test" controversy is another area to watch carefully. A hallmark of the STAAR is end-of-course examinations rather than one big test.

A point of amusement and candor: One former state representative attending the briefing has a ninth grade daughter who will take the end-of-course exams this year. He had to be reminded that he voted for the bill creating the new system. Here's a key passage from a recent article in the Texas Tribune by KUT's Ben Philpott:

Former state Rep. Jim Dunnam has one of those ninth graders at home. He came to the committee hearing because his daughter received a first-semester report card with no GPA and no semester grades for some of her classes.

“When I got it, I sort of scratched my head and didn’t think too much of it,” Dunnam said. “And then ultimately somebody reminded me that I voted for House Bill 3. That made 15 percent of her GPA dependent on a test she’s going to take in May, that the school will score sometime in June. And then we’ll find out what she made last semester, next fall."

He said the test will not affect students’ GPAs until lawmakers think the system is ready to face the state’s accountability system. STAAR will not count towards schools’ or school districts’ state rankings until 2013.

But that was just one issue.

Here's the official link on the new plan from TEA.

Evidence Tentative on Performance Funding

States continue to consider and implement performance funding plans, in an effort to boost the graduation and success rates of students. However, it is difficult to find evidence of an actual formula that has achieved impressive results. Public policy is filled with uncertainty, to be sure, but it's interesting that some states have discontinued the experiment because it got too complicated, or overall funding shortages made it harder to justify (see the passage from a new article below).

Also, just because grades go up in a particular state, it doesn't mean it's because of the funding scheme. The phenomenon could be due to other factors, such as summer bridge programs or increased selectivity in developmental education, just to name two. Researchers are always on the alert for "spurious" variables, and there may be plenty in this field.

Then there is the ugly spectre of outright grade inflation—an anecdotal gorilla among faculty these days.

Please examine this post if you haven't seen it. Notice in particular the emphasized text from an important survey of existing empirical literature on performance funding by the respected Community College Research Center. It is difficult to read this summary without at least raising an eyebrow. A link to the entire study in included in the post. The full report is a keeper for those interested in the subject.

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Eric Kelderman (subscription may be required) also paints a murky picture. The piece is largely about funding shortages, but it contains the passage below on performance funding schemes around the country.

Indiana, the final state discussed in the passage, may be the one to watch, as its funding plan resembles the one being considered in Texas under HB 9, passed in 2011.

From the Chronicle:

…Julie Davis Bell, a higher-education analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, says that "productivity" will be the watchword for public colleges during the legislative sessions.

In many states, lawmakers are considering adopting or expanding performance-based models—giving more money to any college that improves its graduation numbers or credit-hour completions. As many as half of the states could consider such a measure this year, Ms. Bell says.

Performance-based systems have gone through similar periods of popularity during past economic downturns, but have often been dismissed as policies that have had a limited impact because of flaws in how they have been designed and carried out. In South Carolina, for example, a performance-based formula was abandoned because it was too complex to execute, according to a 2009 report from the Midwest Higher Education Compact. Missouri ended its previous performance-based plan because the state could no longer afford the increased spending on higher education, that same report said.

"There is a real desire among states to learn from what didn't work the last time" a performance-based system was tried, says Mr. Reindl. Conventional graduation rates can't be the only measure, he says, and the amount of money awarded through the measures has to be significant. Perhaps most important, he says, different kinds of institutions and missions should be treated differently under such a plan—one size doesn't fit all.

One state that has moved aggressively toward performance-based financing in recent years is Indiana. Five percent, or about $61-million, of the state's higher-education appropriation is based on a variety of performance measures, including credit-hour completion, the number of low-income students who graduate from an institution, and the number who earn degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, the so-called STEM fields. A state panel is now considering whether to increase the share of money awarded through such benchmarks to 6 percent of the state's appropriations for higher education.

Online Class Discussions Require Strategy

Teaching online is an art, involving every bit as much—if not more—professional judgment and tact than face-to face-instruction. Not to mention the hard work and preparation.

Many courses deserve a substantive class discussion involving the teacher as the proverbial "guide on the side." When to offer comments, introduce new content, and participate directly in the dialogue at the most appropriate moment can be compared to hosting a dinner party, according to Sheryl Hayek, associate provost at Grantham University.

Dr. Hayek recently posted an article on the concept in Faculty Focus.

A class is not a dinner party, of course, and it's possible such a comparison is even more dreadful than the students-as-customers trope. However, Dr. Hayek gets into specific recommendations that make a lot of sense, or at least are worth perusal by practitioners in the field.

She points out that many online teachers are adjunct instructors who are experts in their disciplines, but may not be familiar with the way students communicate. This could be another way of saying that students will often miss deadlines, misinterpret the rules, and fail to read the instructions for participation. Experienced teachers occasionally comment that asking a question online is followed by a long period of crickets chirping. Where are you? …Hello! …Yoo hoo!

Then they attack, at 3:00 a.m., like "Hitchcock's Birds," as one instructor put it.

Teachers who lecture can also experience the same dead air in a classroom when asking a good question for discussion. Calling on students by name can be very effective, but also has risks. Some students love to talk, while others are painfully shy. How to pipe down the former while drawing out the latter can be an artful proposition.

Those who enjoy teaching online may be the best persons to listen to for advice. These instructors often testify that conducting a conversation online has distinct pedagogical advantages, producing a more meaningful experience than traditional teaching. That's the idea.

 

Is TRS in Crisis?

No, it's not, by virtually all informed accounts. However, it is highly likely there will be a major effort in the next Regular Session of the Legislature to convert the Texas Teachers Retirement System from a "defined benefit" plan to a "defined contribution" plan. The latter would resemble the 401(k) plans of most private employees (and also the Optional Retirement Program of many college and university educators).

A bill to initiate such a conversion was introduced in 2011 but failed to pass. TCCTA Lobbyist Beaman Floyd testified against the measure.

Why the breathless, crisis rhetoric? According to the Texas Retired Teachers Association, "The purported 'crisis' is nothing more than a headline fabricated to capitalize on anti-government sentiment associated with public pension plans," a recent newsletter states (membership required).

Some public pensions around the country are indeed in trouble, but these problems tend to exist in systems far more generous in awarding benefits than TRS. Also, according to TRTA, the employer contribution in Texas is way below what is required in many states. In numerous states and municipalities, governing boards have made long term promises they will be unable to keep.

The group cites data from the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. Here is a link that might be worth saving by TRS members when communicating with lawmakers while they are "at home" in the districts. Here's the TRS Web site, which also includes a great deal of pertinent information on this topic.

Most proposals to convert TRS would "grandfather" current members, allowing them to remain in the system. However, as with all public pensions, revenue provided by current participants is needed for the long term health of the fund.

Most community college employees do not participate in the Social Security system. Therefore, these individuals may have only one source of revenue to rely upon.

The TRS fund is huge and exceptionally well managed. Reportedly one in 20 Texans are either members or retirees in the system. This becomes important politically.

According to TRTA, the Fund outperforms 75 percent of other investment funds.

TRS has not achieved "actuarial soundness," which would allow trustees to consider benefits enhancements or cost-of-living adjustments for retirees. However, the fund is headed in the right direction after the financial downturn of recent years.

Convention Section Programs Now Complete

Regardless of discipline, you can find amazing professional development opportunities with the TCCTA Section programs at the 2012 annual convention in Frisco. Many of the sessions will be presented by noteworthy scholars and prize-winning authors, as well as practicing community college educators.

Over 100 discipline-specific programs are now complete. Here's the link. Just scroll down to the appropriate group or subject. Also please note the various programs and seminars on the right.

There is no other educational conference in the nation that can approach such opportunities at such bargain prices.

Join us! Here's more information.

Down and Out with Developmental Education

The odds of a college freshman with a sixth-grade reading level or below completing developmental education and going on to finish a degree program are practically nil. This is the sort of grim statistic driving contemporary dissatisfaction of policy makers with state funding based on enrollments alone.

One proposed remedy is to reward "success" with revenue (but please see this post). Another is to stipulate that college leaders improve their numbers or else (ditto). It's hard to tell how popular the second alternative will become, but it certainly signifies a mood of desperation.

A third approach involves exclusion—though the term is never used officially. Simply put, if unprepared students fall off the radar, they do not reduce the graduation and completion rates.

As reported in U.S. News by Joanne Jacobs, universities around the country are being directed by law and policy not to admit students who score below a particular level, pushing down all developmental studies to a local community college. Hence the graduation rates (of the university) rise. Mission accomplished!

Ms. Jacobs writes Community College Spotlight for The Hechinger Report, an independent nonprofit education news site. The site is highly recommended.

Also, as reported in the article, some states are shunting students with extremely low scores from two-year colleges to adult basic education or other community-based programs, which are generally not funded through the same instructional formula as higher education. In fact, Texas policy makers have recommended such an approach here. Advocates for this alternative say it would be a more expedient and less expensive way for these individuals to acquire employable skills.

Hunter Boylan, probably the foremost expert on developmental education in the U.S., is concerned, however.

First, regarding the increased absence of developmental studies at universities:

The policy will hit hardest at low-income and minority students and graduates of low-performing high schools, critics charge. Disadvantaged students are the most likely to be assigned to remedial classes.

Pushing "developmental education to community colleges may contribute to a higher education caste system where upper income students go to universities and lower income students go to community colleges," says Hunter R. Boylan, an Appalachian State University higher education professor who directs the National Center for Developmental Education. It could become "the 21st century version of 'separate but equal,'" Boylan warns.

…There's no reason to think universities are better than community colleges at teaching basic skills, says Boylan. However, universities have more funding than community colleges. Universities can integrate developmental education with counseling, academic advising, tutoring, and other support services that help students succeed.

In addition, universities typically have "a higher proportion of better prepared students than community colleges and it is possible that being surrounded by better students has a positive impact on the performance of weaker students," says Boylan.

As for the other trend, according to the article:

While universities are sending unprepared students to community colleges, some community colleges are sending unprepared students to adult education or community-based programs.

Starting in fall 2012, Pima Community College in Tucson, Ariz., will restrict admission to high school graduates or GED holders with at least seventh-grade proficiency in reading, writing, and math.

"Students who test below this level have little chance of succeeding in a college environment, wrote Roy Flores, the college president, in the Arizona Daily Star. Only 5 percent of Pima's remedial students advance to college-level work.

In Michigan, Jackson Community College's leaders decided in 2010 that they would no longer admit students who test below a seventh-grade level, reports the Lansing State Journal.

"We have the data. They're not successful, no matter how much we try to help them," said Cindy Allen, Jackson Community College's executive director of community relations.

Elsewhere in Michigan, Kalamazoo Valley, Lansing, and Washtenaw community colleges also are referring would-be students with below-middle-school skills to alternative programs.

 

Officials Could Lose Jobs Over Rates

If low graduation and student transfer rates at the City Colleges of Chicago don’t improve, the system’s leaders could lose their jobs. The formal responsibilities of the chancellor, presidents, and even trustees now include graduation rate goals, according to a recent article in Inside Higher Ed., by Paul Fain.

Cheryl L. Hyman, chancellor of City Colleges, began a “reinvention” of the system soon after her arrival in 2010. While the seven-college system has long welcomed urban, lower-income students who have few higher education options, Dr. Hyman argues that it hasn't done enough to help students graduate and get jobs, the article states.

This post may dovetail with a previous installment on performance funding.

Dean Dad picked up on the controversy here.

Just guessing, but it would probably be strange if stated objectives for most top Texas college administrators didn't already include a reference to improving the rates of student success. How college leaders (not to mention trustees) are held accountable in terms of precise statistics is another matter altogether.

Sooner or later someone in authority will suggest, with a straight face, that faculty contracts should mandate a certain level of passing grades.

Report Scrutinizes Performance Funding

A recent report from the highly respected Community College Research Center paints a skeptical picture of performance funding as practiced by states so far. The publication, which surveys current empirical literature on the subject, will likely become a focal point for discussion by Texas policy makers in the next several months. It should.

Daniel Luzer of Washington Monthly picked up on it and cut right to the chase. "Why Grade Inflation Might Happen" is the title.

It is difficult to examine the entire report ("The Impacts of State Performance Funding Systems on Higher Education Institutions: Research Literature Review and Policy Recommendations," by Kevin Dougherty and Vikash Reddy—December 2011) without taking away more questions than answers. Does performance funding actually work? What are the potential unintended consequences? Are students learning more with performance funding? Has it ever been implemented with valid, consistent results? Are there ways to game the system? These are just a few.

Most interesting from a faculty perspective are the abundant caveats in the report's narrative concerning potential grade inflation and weakening of standards. Several excerpts will be provided below, but first please read the brief abstract (emphasis added):

Over the past three decades policymakers have been seeking new ways to secure improved performance from higher education institutions. One popular approach has been performance funding, which involves use of a formula to tie funding to institutional performance on specified indicators. This report reviews findings from studies on performance funding programs in a multitude of states. The studies suggest that tying funding to outputs has immediate impacts on colleges in the form of changes in funding, greater awareness by institutions of state priorities and of their own institutional performance, and increased status competition among institutions. Because of these immediate impacts, performance funding produces intermediate institutional changes in the form of greater use of data in institutional planning and policymaking and in changes in academic and student service policies and practices that promise to improve student outcomes. However, claims that performance funding does indeed increase ultimate outcomes—in the form of improved rates of retention, completion of developmental education, and graduation—are not validated by solid data. In the face of this finding, this report identifies obstacles to the effective functioning of performance funding, as well as unintended impacts. The report closes by providing recommendations for overcoming the many obstacles to the effective functioning of performance funding and addressing the unintended impacts documented by the studies reviewed.

The report is complex and tentative enough to allow selective use of the data. For instance, those who support performance funding could argue that states just didn't devote enough funding or time for the policy to achieve its goal. As the narrative indicates, some states tried it and subsequently abandoned the effort. Also, the pervasive budget crisis of recent years has caused overall funding cuts, making it difficult to draw any conclusions independently. The report doesn't say performance funding can't work, and it addresses the obstacles constructively (see the last excerpt below, for instance). But the obstacles are numerous and formidable.

Under HB 9, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2011, "not more than ten percent" of overall formula funding would be devoted to "outcomes based" funding—a higher potential level than other states have attempted. Here's a previous post on HB 9. The bill in its final form failed to impose performance funding, but the statute does mandate an official proposal by the Coordinating Board for the 2013 Regular Session. TCCTA opposed the measure in testimony.

Faculty members virtually never express reservations about efforts to help students succeed. Summer bridge programs, enhanced advisement, and better diagnoses of student achievement are all fine with teachers, who often lead such efforts in fact. As we say often in our publications at TCCTA, no one wants students to succeed more than their teachers. The central problem arises when instructors believe that standards could be lowered or grading decisions affected by performance funding. Such teachers will find the following excerpts from the report instructive (full documentation and elaboration can be obtained in the document linked above). The emphasis is added in each passage.

On side effects:

In addition to these different elements of the theories of action underlying performance funding, we also need to consider its unintended impacts and frequent obstacles (Dougherty & Hong, 2006, pp. 69, 73). The unintended impacts constitute outcomes that are not intended by the enacting body, but which arise as side effects of funding institutions based on their performance. These can take such forms as the weakening of academic standards or the narrowing of institutional missions to those that are financially rewarded. The obstacles to the success of performance funding can include such things as performance indicators that do not adequately capture institutional performance, performance funding not keeping pace with improvements in institutional performance, and inequality in institutional capacity to diagnose performance problems and determine workable solutions.

On "gaming" the system:

Several studies on Tennessee, and one each on Florida, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington, document ways in which institutions try to game the performance funding program to secure high performance scores without actually improving their performance. This gaming takes two main forms: setting low institutional goals that can be easily attained and taking actions that produce apparently desirable performance but in ways that require minimal effort and are not in keeping with the spirit of performance funding.

On "Grade Inflation and Weakening of Standards:"

Three studies on Tennessee and one each on Florida and Washington discuss how performance funding leads to grade inflation and the weakening of academic standards. In Florida, several community colleges removed various obstacles to their students’ degree completion. Often these obstacles were simply unnecessary hindrances, but the obstacle clearing could also result in the elimination of difficult, but important, intellectual requirements (Dougherty & Hong, 2006, pp. 73–74). There is also some evidence that colleges are being pushed by accountability demands for higher retention and graduation rates to pressure faculty to avoid giving failing grades. The president of the American Association of University Professors chapter at a Florida community college noted: “There’s a lot of pressure to retain every single student no matter what it takes. ... We have to report every conference we’ve had, the outcome, if the student wasn’t retained, why, how many efforts were made” (as quoted in Dougherty & Hong, 2006, pp. 74–75). These faculty fears also crop up in the studies of Tennessee and Washington (Banta et al., 1996, p. 36; Freeman, 2000, p. 90; Jenkins et al., 2009, p. 39; Tanner, 2005, p. 84). In Washington, faculty and administrators at several community colleges raised the alarm that the Student Achievement Initiative might lead to pressure on instructors to lower their academic standards so that more students would pass courses and the colleges could gain more performance points (Jenkins et al., 2009, p. 39).

Also:

The pressure on colleges to resort to grade inflation and lower standards in order to retain and graduate students is not easily relieved. However, states and colleges can carefully monitor degree requirements and course grade distributions to see if they have changed substantially after the advent of performance funding. Moreover, they can conduct anonymous surveys of faculty to see if they report substantial pressure to weaken academic requirements in order to keep up rates of retention, course completion, and graduation.37 Finally, states can conduct learning assessments. While indicators for specific kinds of learning are important, consideration should also be given to general student learning (Dougherty et al., 2009).

On exclusion of students as a result of performance funding:

Two studies on Florida and one on Missouri note how performance funding can lead colleges to restrict the admission of less prepared students in order to boost their retention and graduation rates, an example of what has been called “creaming.” In Florida, a local community college official noted: There are people who may need to take a course in a program and we would not necessarily want to attract those people because you’re going to be working for performance-based funding ... in the health sciences, this is a major concern because it’s not who you start with, it’s who completes that matters. (As quoted in Dougherty & Hong, 2006, p. 75) In fact, another study found that a Florida community college had restricted enrollments to maintain program quality. Moreover, that college had eliminated its Center for Disabilities because its completion and job placement rates did not justify the high cost of running the program (Bell, 2005, p. 146).

Interesting:

At the same time, the research literature does not provide firm evidence that performance funding significantly increases rates of remedial completion, retention, and graduation. When these claims are made, they are not based on solid data that control for other possible causes of changes in student outcomes beyond performance funding. In fact, the few multivariate quantitative analyses of the impacts of performance funding on institutional retention and graduation rates uniformly fail to find statistically significant positive impacts.

Finally:

Conclusions About the Ultimate Impacts of Performance Funding
The absence of findings that performance funding does produce significant improvements in student outcomes should not lead us to dismiss it. The multivariate studies mentioned above are still too few in number to reach definitive conclusions. Moreover, they apply to the traditional form of performance funding (what has been dubbed performance funding 1.0), involving small bonuses to base state funding for higher education. They do not apply to new forms (performance funding 2.0) that embed performance indicators in the base state funding formula and involve much more money. Those new forms may have significant impacts, if only because they involve considerably greater funds. Finally, there are a host of obstacles to performance funding that, if removed, might greatly improve its effectiveness.

 

 

Jobs Training Receives Attention

Given the current unemployment rate, it seems unthinkable that there would be a shortage of skilled workers. But there is, according to many sources. Obviously, two-year colleges are in the forefront of efforts to train people for good jobs, but there is often a lag between demand and supply.

Reeve Hamilton has posted an interesting article in the Texas Tribune about the real and potential shortage of trained employees, and the response of schools such as Texas State Technical College and Brazosport College. The article points to some impressive efforts linking emerging industries with local institutions. However, business leaders cite problems in persuading students to choose vocational programs rather than bachelor's degrees in fields that presumably aren't practical. It's an old discussion.

The article doesn't go into it, but courses in the Core Curriculum should apply to any profession. Reading, writing, deducing, and critical thinking are universal skills. Not everyone is suited for a baccalaureate program, but it's amazing how we can't recognize the importance of subjects that don't necessarily lead to a specific job right away. Associate degree programs must keep these courses in general education as requirements or we could regret it later.

For instance, eventually a trained worker may like to advance to a supervisory position. Shouldn't this person be able to communicate effectively and make choices wisely? Another scenario involves the prospects of a trained employee whose skills become obsolete due to new technology. It happens all the time. Such individuals should be nimble and disciplined enough to shift gears and move ahead.

Then there is the whole arena of citizenship and civil discourse. Should physical therapists or automotive technicians be excluded from this?

All trends indicate that most young people will change careers many times during their working lives. As an easy example, ask around and you'll discover that very few community college teachers decided on their career initially. But they had the intellectual chops to move when motive and opportunity combined at the right moment.

Much of the criticism of higher education today is due to the mountains of debt incurred through student loans. This problem could be greatly mitigated by encouraging students to pursue education at their local community college. In order for this to happen, however, two-year schools must be able to offer a broad range of programs, including the liberal and fine arts.

Please read Mr. Hamilton's piece, as it provides a nice update on where things stand right now regarding vocational training in Texas, and some controversies associated with the discussion.