MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award
Building a Culture of Evidence in Community Colleges:
Lessons from Exemplary Institutions
Amid increasing calls for accountability and results, some creative and entrepreneurial community colleges are examining how they can create and sustain an internal culture of evidence-based practice. This issue brief, prepared by JFF’s Lili Allen and Richard Kazis, highlights four colleges that are national leaders in using institutional research to promote student success. All four colleges have received or been finalists for the MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award.
2008 MetLife Foundation Awards
In April, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges, two colleges will receive the 2008 MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award and $30,000 from MetLife Foundation. The finalists are Harry S. Truman College in Chicago, Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Queensborough Community College in New York City, South Texas College, Community College of Baltimore County, and Yakima Valley Community College in Washington State.
Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count
Power Tools: Designing State Community College Data
and Performance Measurement Systems to Increase Student Success
State data and performance management systems can help community colleges and non-selective four-year institutions identify at-risk students early and provide them with the support they need to stay in school and graduate. This policy brief, by JFF’s Sue Goldberger, provides guidance for states that seek to design and implement such systems to maximize improvement, particularly for students who traditionally have not fared well in college. The brief includes a self-assessment tool to help guide states through the design and implementation process.
Accelerating Remedial Math Education:
How Institutional Innovation and State Policy Interact
As colleges have begun experimenting with alternative delivery and design approaches approaches for remedial math, they are guided and sometimes limited by systems and state policies that can reinforce the traditional design and delivery of developmental education. This policy brief by JFF’s Radha Roy Biswas looks at the efforts of three community colleges to revamp remedial math programming—and how state policy can shape the ability of institutions to innovate.
Breaking Through:
Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter and Succeed in College and Careers
Advisor Training:
Helping Community College Staff Work with Low-Skilled Adults
The Seattle Jobs Initiative, working with the Breaking Through partners, has developed a training package designed for college-based providers of support services to adult/non-traditional students. The training and its model of support target college advising and counseling staff and others who interact with students. For more information, contact Judy Taylor, jtaylor@jff.org.
Adding It Up:
A State and National Imperative
For years, the United States has led the world in the percentage of adults possessing a college degree, but that competitive advantage is slipping away. According to this report prepared by JFF and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems for the Making Opportunity Affordable initiative, the United States will have to ramp up just to keep up when it comes to degree production. Moreover, because demographic trends point toward substantial growth in populations historically underserved in higher education—particularly African Americans and Hispanics—this looming degree gap cannot be filled without a strong commitment to erasing racial and ethnic disparities in educational attainment.
Good Policy, Good Practice:
A Policymaker’s Guide to Improving Outcomes and Productivity in Higher Education
International comparisons reveal that the United States is losing ground in student achievement and graduation. While other nations have responded to the knowledge economy by aggressively seeking out more opportunities for their citizens, the United States has stagnated in the educational attainment of its population. Prepared by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, this Making Opportunity Affordable report provides state leaders with promising new ideas about how to increase college access and success while limiting costs.
Double the Numbers
DTN07 Conference:
Strategies for Increasing High School Graduation, College Attainment
In October, more than 500 leaders, including representatives from the education, policymaking, funding, and business communities, joined together for Double the Numbers 2007. With participants coming from 41 states, this JFF conference focused attention on the need to increase the number of low-income and minority youth who graduate from high school, are college ready, and gain a college degree or other postsecondary credential. Conference transcripts, presentations, and other materials are available online.
Addressing the College Gap
In an Education Week Commentary, JFF’s Nancy Hoffman and Joel Vargas draw on the policy and programmatic research they undertook for Minding the Gap, which they edited along with Andrea Venezia of WestEd and Marc S. Miller of JFF. The book gathers the insights of thought leaders from policy and practice around the need to restructure the transition between high school and postsecondary systems and to build structures for a sustainable, seamless system that ensures greater equity.
Read the Commentary.
Read the EdWeek online chat with Nancy Hoffman and Joel Vargas.
Information on Minding the Gap.
Addressing the Invisibility, Invention, and Infrastructure Challenges
In testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, JFF Associate Vice President Adria Steinberg said, “There is no more critical goal than increasing the number of young people who graduate from high school and ensuring that these graduates are ready for college and careers.” Speaking at a hearing on the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, she drew on JFF's work toward that goal to focus on key challenges facing districts and communities facing as they seek to seal leaks in the education pipeline.
Early College High School News
Since 2002, the partner organizations of the Early College High School Initiative have started or redesigned almost 160 schools in 24 states. Early College High School News is a resource for practitioners and policymakers who plan, launch, operate, and wish to support and promote early college high schools. JFF publishes the newsletter as part of its work as the national organizer of the Early College High School Initiative. To subscribe, email Eliot Yaffa, eyaffa@jff.org.
National Fund for Workforce Solutions
Moving to build a stronger workforce and create new career opportunities for workers, the Annie E. Casey, Ford, Harry and Jeanette Weinberg, and Hitachi foundations and the U.S. Department of Labor have launched the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, a $50 million, five-year effort to strengthen and expand effective workforce initiatives around the country. In September, the fund awarded grants of $450,000 over three years for ten sites, totaling $4.5 million in funding. The sites are Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
The fund anticipates assisting as many as 30 sites over five years. It expects to work with local initiatives to place at least 50,000 people in career-oriented jobs, leverage more than $200 million in local funding, and provide services to at least 1,000 employers to help them recruit, train, and move employees into family-supporting jobs.
A number of partners are collaborating with the fund. JFF will assist with implementation, fiscal and grant management, and design, research, and technical assistance. Workforce Learning Strategies will conduct a five-year evaluation. The National Council on Economic Education will carry out research and policy analysis in support of career advancement for low-income adults and sectoral workforce partnerships. United Way of America will provide technical assistance to twelve local affiliates working to develop regional collaboratives and workforce partnerships.
Multiple Education Pathways Blueprint Initiative
The Multiple Educational Pathways Blueprint Initiative, a groundbreaking initiative launched by the U.S. Department of Labor, is designed to provide an opportunity for seven mid-sized cities to build a systemic strategy that addresses the needs of struggling students and dropouts. Each city, working with Jobs for the Future and the Department of Labor, will build a multi-sector partnership to assess the scope of the dropout challenge, the service and resource landscape, and the strength of current high school reform efforts. The partners in each community will use this information to develop a comprehensive “Blueprint” for building multiple pathways that can ultimately improve the education and workforce outcomes for these youth.
5Achieving the American Dream: An Interview With JFF CEO Marlene Seltzer
In this interview by Michael F. Shaughnessy, senior columnist of EdNews.org, JFF CEO and President Marlene Seltzer reflects on the state of the job market, occupational, and career readiness, particularly for women. “Entry-level work is not the answer in today's economy, where most entry-level jobs do not pay enough to support a family,” she says. “In today's economy, the real challenge for lower-skilled workers is advancement. What are the ways that people can move up from lower paying to higher paying jobs, from jobs to careers?”
This fall, JFF CEO and President Marlene Seltzer welcomed Maria Flynn as the new vice president for our Building Economic Opportunities Group, which explores ways that adults can develop the skills needed to advance to family-sustaining careers, while enabling employers to build and sustain a productive workforce. Ms. Flynn guides the activities of key JFF projects and partnerships, including the National Fund for Workforce Solutions,Jobs to Careers,andBreaking Through.
Prior to coming to JFF, Ms. Flynn was the administrator of the Office of Policy Development and Research within the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. She oversaw the assessment and development of employment and training policies, managed the design of the agency's research and evaluation strategy, and provided direct support to agency budget and appropriations activities. Her responsibilities included coordinating the agency’s legislative, regulatory, and international affairs agendas and reaching out to philanthropic organizations.
Strengthening State Adult Education Policies for Low-Skilled Workers
Noting that too few states have taken significant actions to improve their adult education and literacy efforts, this Working Poor Families Project report recommends policy options for strengthening state economies and helping low-skill workers access jobs that pay family-supporting wages.
Lifelong Learning: New Strategies for the Education of Working Adults
Part of the Center for American Progress’s Progressive Growth series, this paper by Brian Bosworth identifies adults who could benefit from lifelong learning and suggests policies to help them. School Turnaround
Mass Insight Education & Research Institute has announced a multi-year initiative on school turnaround design. The Turnaround Challenge report, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, provides a framework for states, districts, schools, and outside providers to conduct much more comprehensive, dramatic forms of turnaround than is currently the norm.
Community Colleges: Pathways To Opportunity
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