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Online Courses and Achievement Gaps

This commentary was first published in the Sacramento Bee on May 15, 2014.

Online learning is a hot topic in higher education. Certainly the MOOCs, massive open online courses offered for free and featuring faculty from top universities in the country, have garnered a lot of attention. But perhaps more important has been the rise of online courses—for credit—in the nation’s accredited public colleges. Here in California the state’s community colleges have taken the lead, with course enrollments of about 1 million—more than in any other public higher education system in the nation.

Online learning offers the promise of expanded access to and success in higher education. To truly fulfill that promise, it must do so across the diverse population of California students. Currently, it’s falling short.

At the Public Policy Institute of California, we have recently completed an analysis of student access and success in online courses offered by the state’s community colleges, an important access point for students who are underrepresented in higher education. Online courses offer convenience to students who are often juggling family and work responsibilities. The rapid growth in enrollment in online courses, from just a few thousand 10 years ago to around 1 million today, is a testament to the increasing demand for higher education. Enrollment has grown rapidly among all the state’s ethnic groups. But in a reflection of the state’s digital divide, growth among Latinos has lagged that of other groups.

Perhaps most troubling, achievement gaps are exacerbated in online courses. Completion and success rates for traditional courses are lower among Latino and African American students than among white and Asian students. That gap is even wider online. In traditional classes, the achievement gap between white and African American students is 12.9 percentage points. It is 17.5 percentage points in online courses. Similarly, the gap between whites and Latino students is 7.3 percentage points in traditional courses, but is 9.8 percentage points in online courses. In contrast, white students tend to perform slightly better than Asian students in traditional courses, with an achievement gap of 1.4 percentage points. But they do slightly worse than Asian students in online courses, with an achievement gap of -1.4 percentage points.

Achievement gaps exist among other groups as well. Our research found that older students—those over 25—perform better than younger students in traditional courses. This performance gap widens in online courses, from 10.2 percentage points to 14.8 points. The achievement gap between female and male students is 1.9 percentage points in traditional courses and 3.1 percentage points in online ones. In other words, when demographic groups differed in their performance in traditional courses, these differences tend to be magnified online.

For online learning to reach its full potential, California’s community colleges need deliberate strategies and plans to improve student outcomes in online courses, with a special focus on narrowing achievement gaps among underserved and underrepresented students. Community colleges need to ensure high standards of quality for online courses and provide professional development for faculty to design and deliver them. They also need to incorporate student support tools—both technical and instructional. The community colleges’ new Online Education Initiative is currently pursuing these strategies.

There are ways in which online learning has the untapped potential to yield better student outcomes than the traditional setting does. Online courses can enable instructors to track students’ progress in detail and provide more targeted and effective guidance—potentially offering customized instruction that can address achievement gaps.

Online learning is here to stay.  With smart and informed policies and programs, it can reach many more students and do so much more effectively.

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

Health Care Reform: Leaders Discuss Next Steps

At a PPIC event yesterday in Sacramento, a panel of experts credited health care reform for successfully expanding coverage to more than three million people in California. But the panelists also said the enrollment period—which just closed—is the very first step in an overhaul of the health system that will take many years to achieve and see many bumps along the way.

If the reform works, the future could be radically different, said Sandra Hernández, the president and CEO of the California HealthCare Foundation, and Mitchell Katz, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health. Among the changes they envisioned: By 2024, there may be smaller hospitals, patients who have fewer doctor visits, and care designed to promote health—not just to treat illness.

Diana Dooley, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, voiced concern that “cost is the elephant in the room.” Unless it is controlled, health care could claim a major and perhaps unsustainable share of the nation’s future GDP, she said.

The comments came during a conversation with PPIC president Mark Baldassare, before a live audience of nearly 300 at the Sacramento Sheraton Grant Hotel—with many also watching the event live online.

Drought Watch: Improving Environmental Management

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

In the previous Drought Watch we examined the need to modernize the way we track water supply and use to better manage droughts. California also needs to modernize how we manage water for the environment during droughts.

By reducing the quality and quantity of habitat, drought poses a broad ecological challenge to California’s fish and wildlife. The stress is particularly acute in watersheds where native species compete with the demands of cities, farms, and forestry for critical land and water supplies. In many watersheds, remaining habitat has become more suitable for invasive, non-native species, which also compete with native species in various ways. The net result can be significant reductions in populations of native species during severe droughts. Recovery can take years.

In a recent blog post, we joined colleagues from UC Davis, UC Hastings, and Stanford to call for reform in the way the state manages the environment during drought. A common approach is to relax flow and water quality standards prescribed for species protection to make more water available for human needs. This year, the State Water Resources Control Board has already done this on numerous occasions, with the concurrence of state and federal fish and wildlife agencies.

This is not necessarily bad drought policy. Regulators have to make difficult choices when there simply is not enough water to go around. However, the process could be improved. Flow and water quality standards for critically dry years are set well in advance of a drought and involve extensive scientific review. In contrast, relaxing standards receives little review, and the process typically does not incorporate plans to mitigate for the consequences, either during or after the drought.

This same ad hoc approach applies to well-meaning efforts to conserve species during a drought. In late April, the governor released an executive order that instructs the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to help endangered fish species, through actions such as monitoring winter run Chinook salmon, improving habitat on state lands, and seeking cooperation from landowners. These are common-sense measures, but if they had been planned for before the drought, they could have been implemented more quickly.

Money for environmental management during a drought is also an afterthought. In his latest state budget, to be considered by the legislature this summer, the governor has proposed approximately $40 million be made available to support actions contained in his executive order. This is a significant increase over the $2.3 million total allocated in emergency state funding in February. Still, this money will not arrive soon enough to make a major difference for this year. Again, planning ahead to raise such funds would be preferable. (See one alternative approach here.)

Good environmental drought policy must anticipate actions that may be necessary to balance human uses of water with the long-term needs of fish and wildlife. The criteria and scientific basis for the relaxation of flow and water quality standards should be developed, reviewed and adopted before a drought emergency. This includes identifying funding mechanisms for emergency responses and mitigation actions that reduce harm during the drought and lead to recovery of species afterward. If California is lucky enough to get through this drought without significant new harm to our native fish and wildlife, let’s make sure we prepare better before the next drought strikes.

Electoral Reforms Face New Test

California’s political reforms—redistricting and the top-two primary—were meant to shake up the status quo through radically redrawn voting districts and a primary system that let voters choose any candidate of any party, and advanced the top two candidates (also regardless of party) to the fall election.

The first time out the gate, in 2012, the reforms didn’t disappoint: numerous incumbents retired, many seats were open, and a lot more candidates threw their hats in the ring. It was the shot across the establishment’s bow that supporters had been looking for.

Things are calmer in this year’s legislative and congressional races. The most obvious sign: an unusually large number of candidates facing no formal opposition. There were eight such races in 2012 and an average of 7 under the previous primary system. Today there are 20.

These candidates may not remain completely uncontested, since there are reasons to think we may see more write-in candidates this time around. The deadline for filing as a write-in—at least one whose votes are actually counted—comes after the normal candidate filing deadline. Under the top two, potential write-ins can wait to see whether a heavyweight ends up uncontested and then jump into the race for less money and effort. As the only other candidate, these write-ins will be guaranteed a spot in the fall campaign. This was not a popular approach in 2012, but candidates are still learning the system, so we may be seeing this strategy coming into its own. We will know more once the official write-in list is announced later this month.

In 2012, there were also a number of incumbents who faced challengers from within their own party. This was a sign, in part, of the better odds facing those challengers under the top two system: so long as they finished at least in second place, they would get another chance to topple the incumbent in the fall campaign. Nonetheless, only a handful of these challenged incumbents lost. Perhaps as a result, fewer incumbents overall face an intra-party challenge this time: 28% this year compared to 42% in 2012. And with only a couple exceptions, even those incumbents facing an intra-party contest are in a dominant financial position.

Finally, there are fewer open seats this year. In 2012, an extraordinarily large number of incumbents chose to retire or run for another office, leaving nine seats open for the U.S. House and 35 open for the state assembly (open seats for the state senate were more in line with past experience). This year, there are six open seats for the U.S. House—still high by historical standards, but less so. And the 23 open seats for the assembly aren’t all that many, at least in the era of term limits.

However, the seats that have come open are hotly contested, as open seats usually are. The great majority of these races feature at least three candidates, and a few have far more than that—with the prize going to Congressional District 33, where no fewer than 18 candidates are vying to replace retiring incumbent Henry Waxman. Moreover, fundraising in these races is much more evenly distributed across a range of candidates.

We are still early in the election cycle, and between the primary and the general there are still plenty of opportunities for surprises. But so far, it looks like the revolution, such as it was, is coming to a close, and a new status quo may be settling into place.

Governor Proposes Minor Changes to K-12 Funding Levels

The governor released the May revision of his 2014-15 budget yesterday. All told, the news was good. Revenues were modestly better than forecast in January—up about $850 million in the coming fiscal year. But due to the complexities of Proposition 98—the constitutional funding guarantee for schools and community colleges—the amount proposed for K-12 education fell slightly.

The governor’s plan for schools is mostly unchanged, however. The chart below illustrates per-pupil funding levels proposed in the May revision. Schools would receive about $8,800 for each student—an increase of $780 from 2013–14. The current estimate of per-pupil funding in 2013-14 is up slightly from the level estimated in January, providing a healthy $430 per student more than in 2012–13.

Most of the new funding in 2014–15 goes to pay for the new Local Control Funding Formula. As in the January budget proposal, the budget includes $4.5 billion, or about $750 per student, for the new funding formula. The three-part formula distributes funding using a base grant (that differs by grade span), a supplemental grant for disadvantaged students (low-income, English Learner, and foster care students), and a concentration grant for districts that serve above-average proportions of disadvantaged students.

The budget also provides $27 million to help districts administer new state tests. With the transition to the Common Core State Standards, new computer-based assessments are currently being field tested in California. Students take the new tests on computers linked to the internet, and the additional funding would help schools develop higher speed internet connections.

One final note: Governor Brown proposes to establish a Proposition 98 reserve in the future to protect against volatility in General Fund revenues. His proposed constitutional amendment creates a rainy day fund that would help buffer schools from the extreme boom and bust cycle of state revenues.

In addition, the governor appears to have established an approach to K-12 budgeting that helps protect state and school district finances from uncertainties in the estimating process. Because revenues—and school funding levels—are estimated a year in advance, the amount of resources available to schools changes throughout the year as the revenue picture becomes clear. To reduce risks to state and district budgets, the administration: ·

  • Makes relatively conservative revenue forecasts. Moderating the administration’s revenue estimates helps prevent the state from spending more than Proposition 98 requires. If actual revenues are higher than assumed, it makes the additional Proposition 98 funds available on a one-time basis to retire debts or pay for other one-time costs. ·
  • Builds more flexibility into annual K-12 budgets. The administration, for instance, proposes to spend about $1.5 billion in ongoing 2014–15 funds to retire one-time K–12 debts that were created during the recession. These one-time expenditures help protect district budgets, because debt repayment can be downsized if Proposition 98 funding does not reach its expected level, while district base budgets are left intact.

This approach requires restraint on the part of state policymakers and local educators. But the dividends—repaid debts and one-time funding for things like computer infrastructure—are also becoming more evident.

Helping English Learners Succeed

Sacramento is paying considerable attention to California’s English Learners, who make up nearly 25 percent of the state’s public school students. A major overhaul last year of the way schools are funded now assigns more money for every student identified as an English Learner. This year, some policymakers would like to remove restrictions on bilingual education. Other legislation would seek a statewide policy about how to reclassify English Learner students as proficient in English—a process that varies widely across school districts.

PPIC Research Fellow Laura Hill and PPIC Bren Fellow Julian Betts addressed this topic in their recent report titled Pathways to Fluency: Examining the Link between Language Reclassification Policies and Student Success. The report, which was presented a public event in Sacramento last week, explores academic achievement among students who have been reclassified under the different policies in place at the Los Angeles and San Diego school districts.

California’s Jail Construction Needs

The governor’s proposal to spend $500 million for local jail construction raised many questions at a hearing Thursday of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on public safety. In testimony to the committee, PPIC research associate Brandon Martin answered many of the questions from a report released this week, Key Factors in California’s Jail Construction Needs. The report describes the increase in jail crowding since responsibility for tens of thousands of offenders was shifted to counties. The report also looks at the age and condition of jails and the challenge of housing a changing inmate population. Here are his prepared remarks.

Good afternoon. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to comment. My name is Brandon Martin and I am a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California. For those who are not familiar with PPIC, we are a nonpartisan, independent research institute focused on major policy issues in California. PPIC does not take positions on legislation.

PPIC released a report yesterday—entitled Key Factors in California’s Jail Construction Needs—that focuses on three factors: recent changes in jail population, aging jail facilities, and long-term jail capacity needs.

  • Our study describes the impact of realignment on jail populations. As of June 2013, the average daily population in jails statewide was just under 82,000, or 105 percent of the maximum number of inmates that the state’s county jails were designed to hold, which is around 77,000. This represents an increase of nearly 10,000 inmates since September 2011. Thirty-six counties had an average daily jail population that exceeded 90 percent of rated capacity, twenty-one of those counties operated over 100 percent of rated capacity.
  • Our study also looks at the age of local jail facilities and finds that nearly half—or 56 of California’s 123 county jails—were constructed in the 1970s or earlier. County officials point out that older facilities can be quite limited in their ability to provide medical and mental health care, reentry programming, or recreational services, particularly for longer-term inmates.
    • Our calculations indicate that it could cost more than $3 billion (not including bond financing costs) to replace the 18 oldest facilities, which were built in the 1950s or earlier.
  • Looking to the future, our study outlines the impact of recent investments on jail capacity. As a result of AB 900 and SB 1022, we estimate the number of counties operating above rated capacity is projected to decline from 21 to 15 by 2020.
  • But we also anticipate that statewide population growth will bring crowding conditions to current levels and beyond between now and 2040, especially in fast-growing inland counties such as Fresno, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Joaquin.
  • We estimate that it could cost about $1.2 billion (not including bond financing costs) between now and 2040 to add enough capacity—4,300 beds—to allow jails statewide to operate at the challenging level of 100 percent of rated capacity.

Given the magnitude of California’s current and future jail challenges, our analysis suggests the need for a thoughtful combination of additional jail construction—with a focus on old and ineffective facilities—and policies and practices that reduce incarceration.

Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

The Power of the Primary Voter

Voters are starting to think seriously about whether or not to vote on June 3—in fact, the first vote-by-mail ballots are already being returned. And because of a recent change to California’s primary system, this decision about voting will be more important than ever.

The voters who turn out in California’s primary elections have typically been different than the ones who vote in the fall. They have been older and less diverse, with a smaller share of Latinos and Asian-Americans. They have also tilted Republican in most cases. In short, the primary electorate is the California we once were, not the California we have become.

These differences mattered in the past, but not as much as they might have. Any party that placed a candidate on the primary ballot would be guaranteed to have a candidate on the ballot in the fall. Indeed, that was the point of the primary: to choose one person to represent each party in the general election. Now California has a radically open “top two” primary. Voters can vote for any candidate they like, and the top two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the fall election. That means a party is no longer guaranteed a spot in the final round.

Before the top two, the differences between the primary and the general electorate could affect the kind of candidate nominated by each party, but not whether the party nominated a candidate at all. Today, the primary electorate has much more say over what the general election will look like.

When the state first used this system in 2012, almost one-fifth of the races ended up with same party contests in the fall. This included Congressional District 31, where two Republicans faced off in a competitive district that otherwise leaned Democratic. If the general electorate had turned out in the primary, it almost certainly would have been enough to change District 31 into a race between a Democrat and a Republican—and the Democrat would have had a decent chance of winning. That’s a problem. Of course, this was just one district. But a bias in the primary electorate could create—or prevent—a same-party contest in a statewide race as well.

What’s the solution? Every primary system runs some risk of strange results, but the top two is especially aggressive at closing off alternatives. It might make sense to offer a sort of “safety valve”—the option of a third candidate in the fall in cases where there was enough demand for one. California used to allow both independent and write-in candidacies in the fall, but the top two banned both. The legislation removing these options was passed with a simple majority in the legislature, so it would be relatively easy to change. The bar for such safety-valve candidacies could be set high enough to ensure they would remain rare. (Of course, there could always be legal challenges, but the merits of that approach are better left to lawyers to determine.)

The top two offers a lot more choices to those who show up to vote in the primary. We should be careful about giving these voters too much power to then dictate the choices for everyone else.

Engaging Parents in School Funding Decisions

A policy enacted last year—the Local Control Funding Formula—changes the way the state allocates money for K–12 schools. The new system is designed to address the needs of disadvantaged students. It also gives local districts more authority over spending decisions and holds them accountable for results. Beginning this year, school districts must develop accountability plans every three years describing how they will meet the goals and priorities of the new system.

Districts are required to seek input from parents while developing their accountability plans, the first of which must be adopted by July 1. The requirement to involve parents is loosely defined. At a minimum, districts must hold a public hearing prior to plan approval and convene a parent advisory committee. And districts are supposed to ensure parent representation of the groups the new formula is designed to help—English Learners, foster children, and lower-income students. But the policy does not outline how the feedback will be gathered and used.

In the latest PPIC Statewide Survey, the vast majority of Californians, including 85 percent of public school parents, consider parent involvement in the development of these plans very important.

How effective have districts’ outreach efforts been so far?

Many districts have already held meetings and forums to seek parent input, but according to our survey, 45 percent of public school parents say they have not received information from their child’s school or school district about how to become involved (52% say they have received information). This is despite nearly all saying they are at least somewhat interested in becoming involved (53% very interested, 38% somewhat interested).

Still, there is some evidence in these early stages that outreach attempts to parents of disadvantaged students are working. Latino public school parents (67% of whom took the survey in Spanish) are much more likely than whites to say they have received information about how to become involved (61% to 42%). Similarly, immigrant parents (61%) are much more likely than U.S.-born parents (43%) to say they have received information. And the share reporting that they received information grows as household income levels decline.

An overwhelming majority of parents would like their youngest child to earn a college degree or graduate degree, including at least seven in 10 Latinos (70%), immigrants (77%), and parents earning less than $80,000 annually (75% under $40,000, 82% $40,000 to under $80,000). These parent groups are also among the most likely to believe the Local Control Funding Formula will improve the academic achievement of English Learners and lower-income students. Engaging these key groups in designing ways to meet the central goal of the Local Control Funding Formula (namely, to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and others) is critical—especially given the educational hopes they express for their children.

Chart source: PPIC Statewide Survey: April 2014.

Drought Watch: Keeping Better Track of Water

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

In most years, the arrival of May signals the end of the rainy season. As California transitions from hoping for rain to managing its absence, it is appropriate to assess how we have handled this drought so far. In a recent blog post, we, along with our colleagues at UC Davis, UC Hastings, and Stanford University, identified several key lessons from the current drought. One of these is the need to modernize the way we track water supply and use.

To illustrate, just this past week the State Water Resources Control Board released a series of graphs that summarize the gaps between projected supply and demand for this year. These graphs form the basis for determining who may be told to curtail the amount of water they take out of rivers when supplies are scarce. The take-away from these projections is that significant shortfalls will occur starting this month—when the irrigation season starts in earnest. Under California’s water rights system, irrigators holding junior water rights—i.e., rights established more recently—could be completely cut off in most areas. It also appears that unprecedented cuts will occur for senior water rights holders as well.

Although these demand and supply curves appear precise, the state board is handicapped by a lack of good information on water supply and use. To manage the drought more effectively, the board needs better information in two key areas.

First, there have been major advances in technology that can be used to measure flow. These include sophisticated remote sensing techniques, computer modeling, and sensor networks. Although there has been progress, the state has been slow to adopt these new technologies. For many rivers the board, and its partner the California Department of Water Resources, are, at best, making educated guesses. In addition, the state uses protocols for managing this information that were adopted in the early 20th century. In a drought there is need for real-time information and forecast-based projections to manage diminishing supplies.

Second, who uses how much water, and when, is acutely important when river flows are low, because a handful of users can have great impact. Although reporting on water use has improved since legislation passed in 2009, the board has not been in a position to verify the accuracy of self-reporting by thousands of water rights holders, including the oldest, most senior water right holders. Statewide, there is no comprehensive understanding of how and when water rights holders make use of alternative supplies, including the state’s overdrafted groundwater basins.

Since the economic, social and environmental consequences of water management during a drought are especially high, people understandably want to see the board administering diversion curtailments with precision and in real time. But during the wet periods, the legislature and state agencies tend to ignore this issue because there is more water to go around and little public pressure to correct information gaps. Then, when the wet inevitably turns to dry, there are insufficient time and resources to address the problem.

Droughts provide the political and economic motivation to get our water management system into better shape. Step one would be to invest in modernizing the way we measure, forecast, and administer water use—hopefully before the next drought.