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California’s New Leaders Focus on Poverty

Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and Senator Kevin de León, who will take over as senate president pro tem later this month, each told a Sacramento audience about growing up in poverty and the role it has played in their shared view of the state’s responsibility to those in need.

“We share similar values and similar stories that have made us care about the values and the issues that we’re talking about today,” said Atkins, who was raised in a poor, rural Virginia family and now represents the San Diego area. De León, who was born in San Diego and represents Los Angeles, said he is the youngest child of a single immigrant mother and the only family member to graduate from high school. Atkins and de León, both Democrats, were elected by their respective legislative chambers earlier this year to serve as leaders.

Both lawmakers cited a recent PPIC report — Child Poverty and the Social Safety Net in California by Caroline Danielson and Sarah Bohn — that said about 50% of California children live in poverty or near-poverty. The remarks, part of the PPIC 2014 Speaker Series, were made to a capacity audience of about 400 in the ballroom of the Sheraton Grand Hotel. The discussion was moderated by PPIC President Mark Baldassare and streamed live to hundreds more.

The wide-ranging conversation touched on a number of major issues—including health care, the drought, immigration, and taxes. Both leaders said that they believe the state should talk about changes to the state tax structure and consider whether to extend the temporary taxes that voters passed in Proposition 30. Atkins cautioned that it will be difficult to gain support from voters for an extension of the taxes.

De León expressed strong support for affirmative action, which he credited for his ability to attend college and become a legislator. He also said California should continue to lead on immigration issues because the federal government has been unable to pass a reform plan. And he noted that polls suggest Californians support health coverage for undocumented residents.

Atkins, meanwhile, encouraged more cities to follow San Francisco and San Jose, which recently increased the minimum wage. Both leaders also said they have worked together in the past and believe they will have a good working relationship going forward.

The Future of Online Education in Public Colleges

Policymakers and educators have a lot of questions these days about whether new communication technologies can be helpful in higher education. Will they lower the cost of teaching, provide access to those who are otherwise left out, or provide more effective individualized instruction? With encouragement from Sacramento, California’s three public higher education segments are pursuing new initiatives in online education. On Tuesday, PPIC hosted a lunch event on this topic.

Hans Johnson, PPIC Bren Fellow, talked about his recent study, co-authored with PPIC research associate Marisol Cuellar Mejia, about online education in the state’s community colleges. The study found that participation in online courses has soared in the last decade but that success rates—in terms of course completion and passing grades—are lower for online students.

An expert panel expanded the discussion, with Joseph Moreau, executive sponsor of the Online Education Initiative at the California Community Colleges; Ashley Skylar, quality assurance manager for academic technology services at the California State University; and Arnold Bloom, who teaches an online course in climate change at UC Davis. Panelists talked about efforts to improve the quality of online instruction—the course materials and training of instructors. They also said it is too soon to tell whether online education may save money, but the size of California’s higher education systems provides opportunities for collaboration among campuses, which may produce more cost-effective education.

Fulfilling the Promise of Online Education

Online learning has become a topic of great debate in higher education. Its advocates have high hopes that it will expand opportunities and rein in costs. Policymakers in Sacramento have taken note. The new state budget provides tens of millions of dollars to support online learning.

When most people think of on online education, they think of MOOCs—massive open online courses—which provide free access to classes taught by faculty from the nation’s top universities. MOOCs have garnered headlines and been the subject of much debate about their potential to reinvent higher education. Meanwhile, California’s community colleges have quietly created an extensive set of offerings in online education. They now provide more online credit courses than any other public higher education institution in the country—a testament to the community colleges’ willingness and ability to innovate.

Enrollment has soared from just a few thousand students a dozen years ago. By 2012, online course enrollment in the state’s community colleges totaled almost one million, representing about 11 percent of total enrollment. Among students taking credit courses in 2011–12, one of every five took at least one online course. Indeed, practically all of the community college enrollment increases over the past ten years have occurred in online courses.

The Public Policy Institute of California has completed an analysis of student success in these courses that points out both the opportunities and challenges in providing online education. We found that online courses are providing some students with an important and useful tool that helps them achieve their community college goals. For example, students who take at least one online course are more likely to earn a degree, transfer to a four-year college, or earn a certificate than students who take only traditional courses.

But there are significant problems. First, the digital divide is evident. Latino students are less likely than students from other ethnic groups to take online courses. Moreover, the achievement gap is exacerbated in online settings. African Americans and Latinos have lower success rates in traditional classes than Asians and whites, and the achievement gaps are even wider in online courses.

And finally, even though online students tend to be stronger academically, they are less likely to successfully complete online courses than traditional courses. This lower course success rate is true across all types of students, a wide set of subjects, and almost all colleges. Indeed, once we controlled for student characteristics—such as overall grade point averages and other factors such as colleges and course subject—students are at least 11 percentage points and as many as 14 points less likely to successfully complete an online course than otherwise similar students in traditional format classes.

California’s community colleges need both more information and a more strategic approach before online learning can fulfill its promise. Little is known about the cost of developing and providing online courses. We won’t know if online learning is less expensive than traditional course work—as some of its advocates believe—unless we begin to systematically collect cost information.

The colleges won’t be able to improve outcomes for the rich diversity of their students unless they take a number of steps. They need to evaluate the online courses being taught now, identify the most successful instructional and technological approaches, and provide professional development for faculty to create and deliver high-quality online learning. They need to provide services for online students to help improve success rates. And they can use the power of technology to track students’ progress in detail, and offer instruction that is more targeted and customized.

Once high quality courses are identified and developed, it will be a challenge to ensure that those courses are readily available to students across California’s vast community college system. The community college’s Online Education Initiative is an important step in the right direction. Its goals are consistent with our recommendations to identify best practices and implement them widely. Its success will depend on identifying and implementing effective policies and programs that improve student outcomes. Going forward, a strong strategic approach will help California to make the most of its investments in online learning.

UC President Napolitano on Tuition, Online Learning, and the Role of the University

Janet Napolitano, the new president of the University of California and the former U.S. secretary for Homeland Security, said Monday that she told President Obama that the United States cannot thrive unless California thrives—and California cannot thrive unless the University of California thrives. Napolitano was responding to a question about why Californians should care about the public university system. Her comments were part of PPIC’s 2014 Speaker Series on California’s Future, which drew an online and in-person audience of nearly 500 to a conversation with PPIC President Mark Baldassare at the Sheraton Hotel in Sacramento. The wide-ranging discussion opened with a presentation from Hans Johnson, PPIC senior and Bren fellow, who provided context about the state’s need for educated workers.

The UC president, who also served as governor of Arizona, talked about tuition and budget issues, as well as online education, access for low-income students, and the lessons she’s learned since starting this job about six months ago. Napolitano said there was much the university is doing well: 42 percent of UC students are eligible for grants to low income students, 46 percent are the first generation in their families to go to college, and more than one-third are from families where English is not the primary language. She also said no public research university in the country is more efficient at helping students graduate within four years.

Still, she talked at length about the changes underway in funding for higher education and the need for new models. She emphasized that tuition will not increase for the 2014-15 school year and said that the university is dedicated to a tuition rate that is “as low and predictable as possible.” She also said she hoped to increase the university’s financial connection to philanthropy and the private sector. She said the state could do more and it should do more to support higher education.

Speaking about the future of higher education, Napolitano said online learning “is a tool in the tool box,” not a silver bullet. She said it is not necessarily cheaper than traditional classroom instruction and—despite some claims—no more effective at remedial education. She said, however, that it could get students access to classes not available on their campus.

Ready for College?

California needs more college graduates than it is currently producing. Part of the problem has been a lack of college readiness among the state’s high school graduates. Fortunately, recent trends in college preparation provide some good news. By several measures, a large and growing share of the state’s high school graduates are ready for college-level work. Indeed, many of them have successfully completed college-level courses even while still enrolled in high school.

New data on Advanced Placement (AP) exams are especially encouraging. AP courses are college-level courses in more than 30 subjects offered in high schools throughout the country. AP exams determine whether a student has attained college-level proficiency in the course, and AP exam passage rates are a meaningful measure of college preparation. Many colleges accept AP exams for college credit, and research shows that AP students outperform other students in college. Indeed, students who earn AP credits graduate at higher rates overall and often perform better in subsequent courses in the same field.

California’s high school graduates outperform their peers in the rest of the country on AP exams. In 2013, more than one in four California high school graduates (26.9%) passed at least one AP exam sometime during high school, compared to one in five in the nation as a whole. Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, California high school graduates ranked sixth highest. Moreover, the share of graduates successfully completing an AP exam is going up fast in California—higher than in the rest of the nation. Between 2003 and 2013, the share of high school graduates passing at least one AP exam increased 9.6 percentage points in California, compared to 7.9 percentage points for the entire nation. California has a higher share of graduates taking AP exams than does the nation as a whole (45.6% versus 35.0%), with passage rates among AP exam takers slightly higher in California (59.0% versus 57.4%).

Other measures of college readiness also show progress. More students are taking the college preparatory courses (known as the “a–g” courses) required for admission to the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU). The latest data from the California Department of Education show that 38.3 percent of public high school graduates in California took the a–g courses in 2011–12, up from 34.6 percent in 2001–02 and from 32.3 percent in 1993–94. Gains in college prep work have been especially impressive among the state’s Latino high school graduates, who now make up almost half of all high school graduates. Among Latino graduates, the share taking a–g courses increased from 21.8 percent in 2001–02 to 28.0 percent in 2011–12. Increases in college readiness would be even better news if our state was responding with policies to meet the growing demand for college. But it’s not. Only the top eighth of high school graduates are eligible for UC and only the top third are eligible for CSU—according to eligibility thresholds that were set more than 50 years ago. Given the increasing shares of high school students who are well prepared for college, some reconsideration of those thresholds is long overdue.

If California is to meet the demand for educated workers, it needs to produce more college graduates. Making room for these highly capable students—by increasing the share of high school graduates eligible for the University of California and the California State University systems—would improve the well-being of our state and the lives of these young Californians.

Chart sources: PPIC calculations based on College Board data.