Category: K-12 Education

Federal Data Could Help Students Choose a College

Every year, hundreds of thousands of California high school seniors make significant financial decisions about whether and where to attend college. But students and their families currently have few options when it comes to knowing the financial costs and benefits of attending certain colleges and choosing certain majors.

A new federal bill would allow for a nationwide data system that could provide earnings information by college and major, among other data. The bipartisan bill, called the College Transparency Act, would allow student records from individual colleges to be submitted to the federal government and combined with earnings and financial aid information from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and the US Department of Education. Currently, the Higher Education Act prohibits connecting student-level information kept by colleges, such as a student’s enrollment and major, to earnings and aid data kept by federal agencies. This leaves students and parents in the dark as they try to weigh the economic benefits of colleges and majors against the rising costs of attending college.

What could a new federal data system mean for California?

California currently lacks a longitudinal statewide data system that can track students from college to work, and the information that is available to students has limitations. For example, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office provides the Salary Surfer, a helpful tool that presents salary information on community college graduates by program of study, using a combination of student data and data from the California Employment Development Department. But the Salary Surfer only includes those students who attended a community college and subsequently work in California, there’s no indication of whether students transferred to a four-year college to obtain a bachelor’s degree (which would likely affect earnings), and there’s no campus-level information.

A new federal data system could have some advantages over a state-run system. The market for higher education has become more national, and more Californians are choosing colleges outside of the state. In addition, some graduates of colleges in California leave the state to work, and their earnings can’t be recorded by a state-based system. A comprehensive federal database could help students compare schools across state lines and give a more complete picture of graduates’ earnings, even if they work in another state. Currently, the federal College Scorecard offers a helpful but limited look at earnings. The scorecard only has earnings information for those who receive some sort of federal financial aid and does not show earnings by major.

The proposed data system could fill existing blind spots in California’s databases and the current federal scorecard, providing information across state lines and earnings estimates for both colleges and majors within those colleges. Such a system could help students and parents more accurately weigh the costs and benefits associated with the important and sometimes expensive decision of whether and where to attend college.

Learn more

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

Video: Villaraigosa on His Priorities

When Antonio Villaraigosa was asked to name the top issues most important to the state’s future, he started with the economy. His key concerns are poverty and the state’s business climate, its “byzantine and bureaucratic regulatory framework.”

Villaraigosa, candidate for governor and former mayor of Los Angeles, spoke at the Speaker Series on California’s Future sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). As part of the series, PPIC is inviting all major candidates for governor to participate in a public event. Other highlights of his remarks:

  • Health care: He believes in universal health care but is skeptical about how to pay for the current plan before the legislature: “You’re selling snake oil when you say that single payer is something that’s going to happen any time soon.”
  • Infrastructure: He emphasized his long-term support for high-speed rail. He sees it as an economic development strategy to transform the Central Valley by connecting it to the two big centers of the economy, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
  • Higher education: He said the state needs to look at how community colleges are funded and marshal its resources to make sure students get through the system and transfer to four-year colleges. But he’s not an advocate for making community college free to all: “It’s already free for poor people, and that’s who it should be free for.

Watch all candidate videos.

Accountability Reports Leave Some Students Out

The State Board of Education took initial steps at its May meeting toward developing accountability measures for alternative schools. These schools serve mostly high school juniors and seniors who leave their regular school because of behavioral or academic problems. About 300,000 students attended an alternative school in 2013‒14. In my 2016 report, Accountability for California’s Alternative Schools, I found that indicators used for the state’s main accountability program can misrepresent the successes of alternative schools. Students generally stay in alternative schools for a short time—less than half a school year on average—and annual data cannot accurately measure the gains they make. The board created a task force in 2016 to identify better measures of performance for these schools. At its May meeting, it took action to define which schools may participate in the alternative accountability program.

The board decided to exclude alternative students from district-level data in the state’s new K-12 “dashboards” while the alternative system is being developed. The dashboards report school and district performance on key indicators in the state’s accountability system, using colors to signify relative outcomes. Blue signals high performance, followed by green, yellow, and orange. Red indicates the lowest rank.

The dashboards also exclude charter school students. But excluding certain students from district performance assessments gives a rosier picture of student outcomes, which can lead to an inaccurate picture of district progress. In my 2014 report, Designing California’s Next School Accountability Program, I found that accountability programs rely on valid comparisons across schools and districts—after all, one way to understand performance is to compare how well students are doing across similar schools or districts.

The chart illustrates that excluding alternative and charter school students affects some district results significantly. The light blue reflect data used in the state dashboards. The dark blue bars use district data that include all students, as reported in the state department’s data portal (known as Dataquest). The chart shows that graduation rates for some of the state’s ten largest K‒12 districts look significantly higher in the dashboard data than in the data representing all students. The dashboard graduation rate in four districts—Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Bernardino—is at least 5% higher than the actual district graduation rate.

The board’s policy can make the dashboard data misleading. For instance, Long Beach Unified achieves a graduation rate of 89.3% using the dashboard data, receiving a “green” rating. San Diego and San Francisco also are ranked as green. But when all students are included in the rates, Long Beach’s graduation rate falls to 84.2%, which would give it a yellow ranking, while San Diego and San Francisco would retain their green rating.

It’s good news that the board is taking steps to create an alternative accountability system, but it’s important to understand that for now, many students are excluded from district dashboard data. That’s significant information for parents and the public to know when using the dashboard to evaluate a district’s performance.

Learn more

Read the report Accountability for California’s Alternative Schools

Educational Progress Stalls in California

California is known as an engine of economic growth and innovation in the United States and across the world. A highly educated workforce has long gone hand in hand with the state’s robust economy.

California’s historically strong commitment to higher education—providing low-cost access to public colleges and universities at a time of rapid population growth—led to a large increase in college enrollment and completion. Baby boomers who were of prime college age during the 1960s and 1970s benefited from that expansion. Today, those boomers are the best-educated adults of that generation in the developed world. Older working-age adults (age 55–64) in California are more likely to have a bachelor’s degree than in any of the 32 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Is California’s younger generation keeping up with other countries?

Unfortunately, generational progress in college completion has nearly stalled in California. Although more California high schoolers are completing their diploma today than 30 years ago, the share that subsequently earns a bachelor’s degree has not changed much: 33% of those age 25–34 in California today have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 31% of those age 55–64. Other countries have made much stronger progress. Indeed, the share of college attainment among young adults in California ranks 22nd of the 32 OECD countries, and the state’s generational progress is dead last.

The lack of generational progress in California is a cause for concern. College attainment not only benefits individuals’ earnings and employment prospects but also contributes to California’s economy by attracting businesses and keeping the state competitive in an increasingly globalized marketplace. Increasing the share of high school graduates eligible for the state’s public universities could help improve educational attainment among California’s young adults.

blog figure

Video: Analyzing the Standardized Test Results

California’s public school students did much better the second year they took new standardized tests, and the state is catching up to others that use the same Smarter Balanced tests. PPIC researchers Iwunze Ugo and Laura Hill take a close look at the test results in a new report, Student Achievement and Growth on California’s K–12 Assessments, which Ugo presented at a Sacramento briefing last week.

The researchers used two years of results to assess early implementation of two major statewide reforms—the Common Core curriculum and the new finance system that targets additional funding toward low-income students, English Learners, and foster youth. The PPIC report looks in depth at the test results for English Learners and economically disadvantaged students and finds that achievement gaps are not closing. Of particular concern are the districts and schools experiencing both low achievement and low growth in achievement between the first year and the second year of testing. This suggests that students who were already lagging their peers could be falling further behind.

The researchers conclude that struggling districts may need more guidance from the state—and might also look to schools and districts that have had success with high-need students.

Learn more

Read the report Student Achievement and Growth on California’s K–12 Assessments

Video: Taking the Pulse of Californians’ Views of Schools

California public schools serve more than 6 million children, more than half of them economically disadvantaged and nearly a quarter of them English Learners. Achievement gaps across socioeconomic and demographic groups of students persist despite significant progress on state standardized tests in recent years.

The state has taken steps to address these challenges by changing its school finance system and its curriculum. Implementation of these reforms is proceeding against a backdrop of uncertainty at the federal level. The annual PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Education examined the views of state residents generally and public school parents, in particular, of this rapidly changing environment.

The survey finds that most Californians and public school parents alike give their local public schools a grade of A or B. At the same time, majorities in each group see the current level of state funding as inadequate. Most Californians say that the wiser use of existing funds is at least part of the formula to improve school quality. In this context, majorities of residents and public school parents favor providing parents with tax-funded vouchers to send their children to any school they choose.

Asked about the impact of stepped-up federal immigration enforcement, most residents and parents express concern about the effects of these efforts on undocumented students and their families. Majorities say they favor their local district declaring itself a “sanctuary safe zone” to indicate that it will protect its undocumented students and their families.

Learn more

Read the PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Education
Learn more about the PPIC Statewide Survey

Debate over How Special Education Is Funded

Last month the state Department of Finance held meetings in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, and San Mateo to get input on improving special education, the state’s largest K–12 categorical program. The Department of Finance asked PPIC to kick off these meetings with a presentation of findings and recommendations from our recent report on special education financing. The report calls for folding state special education funding into California’s new Local Control Funding Formula as a means of improving local flexibility and accountability. Currently, state and federal funds are distributed to regional administrative entities known as Special Education Local Planning Areas (SELPAs).

The one consistent theme at the public meetings was a call for more money from local educators and parents. Beyond that point of agreement, though, these discussions did not lay out a clear path for the state to follow in its effort to improve services for disabled students.

Our report is not the only one to call for major changes in special education. A study published by the Statewide Task Force on Special Education in 2015 concluded that California’s special education program suffers from “systemic dysfunction.” It says that, too often, students miss opportunities to grow because they are served in separate programs outside the regular classroom. The task force encourages changes at both the state and local level to integrate special education with the programs that serve nondisabled students. The report also recommends earlier services to children with disabilities, an integrated state and federal accountability system for special education, and more funding for local programs.

The Department of Finance staffers made it clear that the reports were a starting point, and that they were looking for suggestions about how to make special education more effective and efficient. Many who attended the meetings argued that special education is underfunded by both the state and federal government. Many also commented on the need to improve the way infant and preschool services for children with disabilities are funded.

PPIC’s recommendation to send funds to districts rather than SELPA was mostly opposed by the educators, parents, and administrators who spoke at the meetings. These participants often voiced support for SELPAs, and worried that our recommendations would hurt small districts or the network of regional services that SELPA funding supports. Larger districts, on the other hand, noted that they may bear a disproportionate cost of these small district subsidies and regional services. Several parents also voiced concerns about the proposed shift in funding, because they believe district administrators are less supportive than SELPA staff.

The meetings demonstrated the difficulty of developing a funding system that will be effective in every district in our large and diverse state. They underscore the logic behind the Local Control Funding Formula: Improving performance requires giving school districts greater control over critical program and funding decisions, but that control must be balanced by a broad accountability system and monitored by parent and community oversight. As we argued in our report, only school districts can address the systemic dysfunction of California’s system, and the state needs to give them the control and accountability to do so.

With the March outreach meetings concluded, the ball is in the Brown administration’s court. It will be worth watching whether the governor proposes any program changes during budget discussions later this year or in next year’s budget.

Learn more

Read the report Special Education Finance in California

 

More Students Completing College Prep Courses

Over the past few years more school districts have made college preparatory courses mandatory for high school graduation. These districts have aligned their graduation requirements to the CSU and UC a-g sequence in an effort to make more students college ready. Some of these districts include Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Sonoma Valley, and Vallejo City Unified; the East Side Union High School District in San Jose; and the San Diego Unified, Carlsbad Unified, and Sweetwater Union High School District in San Diego County. Most of these requirements are too new to evaluate, but as more districts make this change, it is important to understand the potential impact. A PPIC report on San Diego Unified found that about 10 percent more students would become eligible to apply to UC and CSU because of the requirement.

The a-g sequence is a set of high school courses required for admission to UC and CSU. The content is rigorous and broad, designed to provide students with a solid foundation of general knowledge. It covers seven different subject areas: (a) history/social science, (b) English, (c) mathematics, (d) laboratory science, (e) foreign language, (f) visual and performing arts, and (g) college-preparatory electives; it includes a total of 15 year-long courses or 30 semesters. These courses are viewed as more rigorous than standard high school courses, as they must meet the criteria developed by the UC’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (It is possible that a non-a-g course is equally rigorous but has simply not undergone a-g approval).

The new a-g graduation requirements have raised concern that many students would be unable to meet them—the reform designed to prepare more students for college might result in lower high school graduation rates. Given this concern, most a-g aligned districts require that students earn a D or higher, which is lower than the UC and CSU requirement of a grade of C or higher.

As it turns out, more students are meeting the a-g requirements with a C or higher. Over the last 10 years there has been an increase of 48% in those meeting the requirements—or 60,000 more high school graduates—with 43% of the class of 2015 doing so.

As more students complete the a-g sequence, the UC and CSU systems receive more applications and admit more students. Between 2011 and 2016, 23% (or 54,383) more Californians applied to UC and CSU, and the systems admitted 20% (or 33,557) more California applicants. However, both systems still limit or deny access to some qualified students. In the 2014‒15 school year, UC redirected 10,688 eligible California students to UC Merced―they had been denied admission to other campuses―but only 195 actually enrolled. The following year, the CSU denied over 17,000 eligible California students, which amounts to almost 55% of denied applicants.

Improvements in college preparation among California’s high school graduates is great news. The challenge is to ensure that our colleges and universities are able to accommodate the increase in demand that comes with it.

Learn more

Read the report College Readiness in California: A Look at Rigorous High School Course-Taking
Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

Upgrading High School Math Requirements

California has not updated its math graduation requirements for 30 years and now lags behind other states in ensuring that high school graduates are ready for success in college and the workplace. Math graduation requirements can affect students’ participation in advanced math courses (e.g., algebra II), which in turn has an impact on their educational and economic outcomes over the long term.

Across the nation, California is one of three states that require only two years of math instruction for high school graduation. Other states typically require three years (27 states and the District of Columbia) or four years (17 states). From 2001 to 2016, 25 states made their graduation requirements more rigorous. In recent years, some states have even incorporated college- and career-readiness components, such as SAT or ACT scores, into their graduation standards. In contrast, California last updated its graduation requirements in 1986.

In the absence of changes at the state level, California’s public school districts and four-year institutions have taken the lead. Most of the state’s districts have independently updated their math graduation standards. During the 2015–16 school year, 63% of unified and high school districts supplemented the state minimum with an additional year of math, although larger districts with more than 20,000 students were somewhat less likely to do so. Moreover, both the California State University and University of California systems require three years of math, including algebra I, geometry, and algebra II (or equivalent).

For many students, taking only two years of math will not adequately prepare them for college and beyond. It’s time for California to update its graduation requirements to better align with district practices and other major statewide efforts to improve college readiness. Increasing the amount of math instruction required for high school graduation can encourage more students to take advanced math courses—which would increase their likelihood of graduating from high school and enrolling in college. It would also reduce the need for remedial education in college.

One concern is that more rigorous math requirements may prevent students from graduating high school. However, evidence from California districts and other states suggests that there is no correlation between high school graduation requirements and high school graduation rates.

Another concern is cost, as the state needs to fund any changes to graduation requirements (e.g., the cost of hiring more math teachers and offering more math courses). However, most districts already require three years of math, suggesting that funding may not be a big constraint. If the state sets higher minimum math requirements, the educational and economic benefits for California students will likely to outweigh the costs.

Learn more

Read the report College Readiness in California: A Look at Rigorous High School Course-Taking

Video: Legislative Leaders Look Ahead

Despite their political differences, California’s legislative leaders have similar views of the state’s most pressing challenges. In a conversation facilitated by PPIC this week in Sacramento, the two top legislators from both major parties provided a preview of the issues they expect to tackle this session. With the impact of federal policy changes still unclear, the legislative leaders focused on longstanding challenges.

Asked to list the top issues the legislature and governor need to work on this session, Anthony Rendon, the Democratic speaker of the state assembly, named housing and transportation—topics he heard about repeatedly as he campaigned around the state. He said he saw the impact of a housing and transportation crisis first hand when walking precincts in the Inland Empire. “If you knock on someone’s door at 7:00, 7:30 p.m., they’re not home yet. They’re still on the freeway.”

Jean Fuller, the Republican leader of the state senate, sees the top issues as affordability in California generally and jobs. “We are concerned about housing, but we are also very concerned about jobs.” She noted that in her district, which stretches from Visalia to Twenty-Nine Palms, there is double-digit unemployment.

Kevin de León, the Democratic state senate president pro tem, said the past legislative session had been particularly productive; he highlighted minimum wage, gun safety, and climate change legislation. In this session, he said, “we have to deliver on the issues of housing and transportation and the issue of economic growth.”

For Chad Mayes, Republican leader of the assembly, poverty is the number one issue in the state, which has the highest poverty rate in the nation. “If you use that as a performance measure for how well our board of directors—the state legislature—is doing, I think you’d have to say we have been failing.” He added: “We’re failing, in large part because of housing costs.”

The speakers acknowledged major policy differences. But they pointed to past successes in bridging them as a sign that they can do so again.

“Things are not broken here, in comparison to DC,” said de León.