  |
| |
| Measuring Up 2004 The National Report Card on Higher Education INFORMATION BULLETIN December 2004 DOWNLOAD: COMPLETE BULLETIN [201K]Measuring Up 2004 is an effort to issue a national report card on higher education. The report was prepared by the National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education. The report concludes that over the past decade there have been gains in certain areas and there have been losses as well. Some of the significant findings from the report are:
This Information Bulletin presents a review of the report and a focus on both the report card for the nation as a whole and New York State in particular. Comments or suggestions regarding this Information Bulletin should be directed to Neil Foley in Research and Educational Services at NYSUT Headquarters in Albany. Measuring Up 2004 is a report card on the performance of higher education in the nation and in the states. It was prepared by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. This is the third such report card issued every two years since 2000. This year's report presents a new ten-year retrospective on the performance of higher education. The report's findings identify progress over the last ten years for the nation as a whole, but the report also identifies a number of disturbing trends. The report uses five broad categories of college opportunity and achievement to make its evaluations. The categories are as follows:
There is a sixth category, learning, which is certainly the most import outcome of higher education. This category could not be evaluated because of the lack of comparable information across the states. However, the report does present information on five states that have come forward to participate in such an analysis. This Information Bulletin will present a synopsis of the findings of Measuring Up 2004 for both the nation as a whole and for New York State in particular. As with any report card, it is important to understand the grades and how the grades were derived so that we can better focus our energies and resources toward improvement. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education Measuring Up 2004 was prepared by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The National Center is not affiliated with any government agency, political party, college, or university. The National Center conducts policy studies and works to increase public awareness of important policy issues affecting education and training beyond high school. The National Center sees the purpose of its reports as stimulating public policies that will improve the effectiveness and accessibility of higher education. The National Center was established in 1998 with grants from The Atlantic Philanthropies and the Pew Charitable Trusts that supported the start of the Center's programs including the state-by-state report card. The grants enabled the National Center to begin the report card project, to design the report card methodology, and to perform a ten- state feasibility test. Additional sources of support included the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation have enabled the National Center to expand the report to all 50 states and to further enhance the National Center's work. The chair of the National Center Board of Directors is the former Governor of the State of North Carolina , James B. Hunt, Jr. As Governor of North Carolina from 1977 to 1985, Governor Hunt led the state's education reform efforts. Governor Hunt helped establish the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards which seeks to foster excellence in teaching. The Purpose of the Measuring Up Report The first such Measuring Up report was published by the National Center in 2000. The purpose of the report is to encourage state policies that would improve opportunity and achievement in higher education. The information contained in the report is designed to provide state leaders with an important diagnostic tool to measure how well higher education is performing in their respective state. The writers of the report have worked hard to make the report straight forward by using five broad performance categories of information that include: preparation for college, participation, affordability, completion, and benefits. How the States are Graded The states receive grades in each of the five performance categories. Each category is made up of several indicators, or quantitative measures. There are 35 such indicators in the five categories. Grades are calculated based on each state's performance on these indicators relative to other states. State results, or raw scores, on each indicator are converted to an
index scale of 0 to 100 using the performance of the top five states as the benchmark. Letter grades are assigned based on the category index scores using a grading scale common in many high schools and college classes A equals 93 and above, A- equals 90 to 92, B+ equals National Findings The following is a summary of the findings of the report for the nation as a whole which is done by summing the progress and problems of the individual states on the indicators within the five major categories. Category #1: Preparation How well are young people in high school being prepared to enroll and succeed in college-level work? Among the indicators used are the following:
Findings: "The academic preparation of high school students has improved considerably over the past decade".
Category #2: Participation Do young people and working-age adults have access to education and training beyond high school? The indicators used are the following:
Findings: "Compared with a decade ago, smaller proportions of young and working-age adults are enrolling in education and training beyond high school".
Category #3: Affordability "How difficult is it to pay for college in each state when family income, the cost of attending college, and student financial assistance are taken into account? The indicators used are the following:
Findings: "The nation's colleges and universities have become less affordable for students and families compared with a decade ago."
Category #4: Completion "Do students persist in and complete certificate and degree programs?" The indicators used are the following:
Findings: "Modest gains have been made in the percentage of students completing certificates and degrees over the past decade. Most of the improvement in this area has been due to an increase in the number of certificates awarded."
Category # 5: Benefits "How do workforce-trained and college-educated residents contribute to the economic and civic well-being of each state?" Among the indicators used are the following:
Findings: "Over the past decade, most states have increased their "educational capital" as measured by the percentage of adult residents with a bachelor's degree. As a result, many states have seen an increase in the economic benefits that accrue from having a highly educated population."
Category 6: Learning The 2000 and 2002 editions of this report gave the states an "incomplete" in learning because there is no comparable data that would allow for meaningful state-by-state comparisons. The PEW Charitable Trust is sponsoring a project to assess student's learning. The Project is using national assessments of adult literacy, tests that many students take when they leave college, and specially administered tests of general intellectual skills. Five states have been involved in this project: Illinois , Kentucky , Nevada , Oklahoma , and South Carolina. While still in the developmental stages, the report was able to obtain comparable data for the five states named in three broad categories:
Measuring Up 2006 plans to report results for additional states in this category of learning. New York State The following are the report's results and comments for New York State on the five categories: Category #1: Preparation Grade A "Over the past decade, New York has shown substantial improvement in preparing students to succeed in college. This year, New York receives an A in preparation."
Category #2: Participation Grade C+ " New York , over the past decade, has made no notable progress in enrolling students in higher education. New York receives a C+ in participation this year". "Over the past decade, the chance of enrolling in college by age 19 has declined by 23% one of the steepest declines in the nation for this measure. The state's decrease is primarily due to a drop in the percentage of students graduating from high school."
Over the past decade, the percentage of working age adults who are enrolled part- time on college level training or education had dropped by 19%, compared with a national decline of 11%. Category #3: Affordability Grade F " New York has shown no notable progress in providing affordable higher education opportunities over the last decade. This year, New York receives an F in affordability."
Category #4: Completion Grade B+ "Over the past decade, New York has maintained its high performance in the proportion of students earning a certificate or degree in a timely manner. New York receives a B+ in completion this year". "A large percentage (54%) of first-time, full-time college students complete a bachelor's degree within six years of enrolling in college". "Also, a large proportion of students complete certificates and degrees relative to the number enrolled". Category #5: Benefits Grade B "Over the past decade, New York has seen an increase in the benefits the state receives from having a more highly educated population. This year, New York receives a B in benefits". "Compared with other states, a high percentage of residents have a bachelor's degree, and this strengthens the state economy". New York also showed up well on charitable giving and the increase in personal income attributable to the percentage of the population holding a bachelor's degree. Report Summary Measuring Up 2004 offers a number of important results that should be a guide for future action by policymakers and those concerned about higher education:
For New York State , the results are mixed as well:
Comments There are a number of notable criteria for higher education that are not included in the report that would be helpful. They include:
Note The report may be found at www.highereducation.org |
|
| | |