July 21, 2016
First-generation college students are
academically far behind their peers for college readiness in key academic areas,
according to The
Condition of College & Career Readiness 2015: First-Generation Students (ACT and Council for Opportunity of
Education [COE], June 2016). This report,
which describes student achievement in English, reading, mathematics, and
science for high school graduates, focuses on the outcomes of the more than 350,000
first-generation high school graduates who took the ACT test in 2015. Fifty-two
percent of these first-generation students met none of the four ACT
college-ready benchmarks, compared with 31 percent of all test takers. Among the highest achievers, only 10 percent
of first-generation ACT test takers achieved the college readiness benchmarks
in all four subjects, as contrasted with 28 percent of all test takers.
The difference between first-generation test
takers and all test takers in meeting the benchmarks for each of the four
subjects is, on average, about 20 percentage points. Both groups are most proficient in English,
followed by reading, mathematics, and science in that order. Since 2011, the percentage of
first-generation test takers meeting all four benchmarks has remained
unchanged. This result, however, masks
the fact that the performance of first-generation college students declined in
English, reading, and mathematics between 2011 and 2015.
- In English, 46 percent of first-generation test
takers met the readiness benchmark in 2011, while in 2015 that percentage had
declined to 41 percent.
- In reading, the success rate was 32 percent in
2011, but only 25 percent in 2015.
- In mathematics, over this same time period the
success rate for first-generation test takers dropped from 25 to 21 percent.
- Only in science did first-generation students
improve their readiness rate, from 12 to 18 percent.
Not
surprisingly, the report finds that course-taking patterns for high school
students have a major effect on meeting the college readiness benchmarks. ACT
has consistently found that students who take the recommended core curriculum
of four years of English and three years each of mathematics, social studies,
and science show substantially higher levels of college readiness than students
who do not complete the core curriculum.
The deficiencies in college readiness on the
part of first-generation college students are not simply a matter of
deficiencies in academic preparation.
“Beyond academics, an added obstacle for many first-generation students
is a lack of resources and direction to navigate the college-planning process,”
according to COE president Maureen Hoyler. “These students don’t have the
built-in benefit of college-educated parents to help them plan for
college….” Moreover, in addition to
prior grades, psychosocial and behavioral factors accounted for nearly the same
percentage of variation as ACT [academic] assessments in determining college
readiness, according to an ACT longitudinal study of 8th-grade test takers. This finding, according to the report,
“underscores the need for a more holistic approach to measuring college
readiness.”
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Aspen Workforce
Strategies Initiative (WSI), in collaboration with the Urban Institute, recently released a
new evaluation report, Implementation of Accelerating
Opportunity: Final Implementation Findings with Lessons for the Field. The Accelerating Opportunity (AO) initiative is intended to expand
economic opportunities for adult students with low basic skills through earning valued occupational credentials,
obtaining well-paying jobs, and sustaining rewarding careers.
Accelerating Opportunity, begun in 2011, was designed as an
integrated approach to encourage states to enroll students in credit-bearing
career and technical education courses at local community colleges, while
simultaneously helping them improve their basic education skills. According to
the report, the “AO model focused on students who scored between the
6th- and 12th-grade level in basic skill areas but who expressed interest in
earning technical credentials. In particular, AO was designed for adult
education students who lacked high school diplomas or the equivalent.”
This final implementation report presents
findings over the first three years of the initiative—in Illinois, Kansas,
Kentucky, and Louisiana—and provides an in-depth description of the process and
lessons that emerged. The report identifies several specific elements for
successful implementation, including the following:
- Receiving
state leadership and support;
- Removing
policy barriers;
- Considering
college institutional factors;
- Utilizing
partnerships both from within and outside the colleges; and
- Providing
both academic and social student supports.
The report findings may be of particular interest to state
policymakers, colleges, and others planning for the implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
(WIOA) — which provides new
opportunities for integrated career pathway development within states and
colleges. For more information, interested parties are encouraged to read the
full report.
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The National Skills Coalition (NSC) recently released a
new report, Upskilling the New
American Workforce: Demand-Driven Programs that Foster Immigrant
Worker Success & Policies that Can Take Them to Scale, showcasing seven program
models from New York, Minnesota, Oregon, and California. The examples provided illustrate a variety of effective approaches to serving
immigrant jobseekers and adult English language learners. As such, the report serves
as a practical resource for policymakers and others seeking to scale up
innovative models.
Immigrants represent about 17 percent of the U.S.
workforce. Some 54 percent of U.S. jobs are “middle-skill jobs” – “those that
require more than a high school diploma, but not a four-year degree” – while
only 44 percent of workers overall and even fewer immigrant workers are trained to that level. About 10 percent
of the working-age population has limited English proficiency. Given this
backdrop, the report meets an immediate need for information about model
programs that help workers fill the workplace talent requirements.
Each of the programs showcased assists immigrants in
acquiring the foundational and technical skills needed for middle-skill
employment that provides family-sustaining wages. Examples vary from newly
launched initiatives to decades-long established models, and come from
nonprofit community-based organizations, worker centers, community colleges,
and other education and workforce providers with deep experience in serving
immigrant communities.
These include the following:
- An
electronics assembly training program that prepares immigrants and
refugees to work in the aeronautics industry;
- A green
janitorial and energy management program that combines vocational English
for Speakers of Other Languages (VESL) with job skills to equip immigrant
janitors to work in LEED-certified buildings; and
- A VESL
program targeted at immigrant day laborers.
Those interested in launching similar
programs in their own communities will find useful lessons in the report,
including about the following:
- The
importance of demand-driven, evidence-based training programs that use
tested models to prepare individuals for jobs that local employers need;
- The
availability of financial and other resources via key federal policies and
programs, such as SNAP Employment
and Training (see a related story in this newsletter edition), the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act, and Community Development Block Grants to support education and
training programs; and
-
The
opportunity to capitalize on visionary state policies, such as Minnesota’s
FastTRAC program and California’s Adult Education Block Grant program, to
serve immigrant workers.
To learn more
about these new models, interested parties are encouraged to read the full report. To keep up with the latest news from the NSC,
readers may wish to access the coalition’s blog.
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Save the dates!
OCTAE is excited to be planning the second annual gathering of minority serving
community colleges. We will welcome leaders, staff, faculty, and students from
colleges around the country at the Department of Education for a two-day event,
Nov. 1–2, 2016, in Washington, D.C.
This year’s focus will be on career and technical education at minority serving
community colleges, and will continue the communities of practice building
begun last year. Some additional topics of interest will be equity in CTE and
higher education, innovations in supporting low-income and at-risk students,
best practices in developmental education, tips for accessing federal
resources, developments in STEM education, and more. A call for presentation
proposals and a registration site will be coming in September. Make sure you are
subscribed to the OCTAE
Connection newsletter and are a member of our Minority Serving Community
Colleges and Affiliates LINCS
Community of Practice group for timely updates.
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Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants’ need for the education and
training required to become economically self-sufficient is growing
increasingly urgent. The vast majority of jobs in the future will require at
least some education beyond high school, yet many SNAP participants have not
reached this level of educational attainment. Without the skills to meet
rapidly changing labor market demand, the chances of these SNAP participants for
getting a good job and reducing their need for SNAP are extremely low. In fact,
longer-term participants (those receiving benefits for 37 out of the past 48
months) are more likely to have less than a high school diploma as compared to
their higher-educated peers.
According to a
new policy brief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Why
Now is the Time for States to Build Their SNAP E&T Program (April 2016),
The
SNAP Employment & Training (SNAP E&T) program, a skills and job
training program for SNAP participants administered by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), is a key resource States
and their partners can utilize to help SNAP participants meet this urgent need
for skills and better jobs. SNAP E&T has historically been
under-utilized, but a renewed focus on the program amid greater urgency for job
training for SNAP participants has created new momentum for States seeking to
build bigger, better, and stronger E&T programs.
Funding is
provided for SNAP E&T through a mix of federal grants. States receive
annual formula grants to implement and operate the program; however, states,
institutions, and other organizations may also receive a 50-percent
federal reimbursement of non-federal investments in education and training
expenses for SNAP participants. These training programs must be included in a state’s
annual SNAP E&T plan that is submitted to FNS.
The policy
brief also outlines the immediate opportunity of the SNAP E&T program and
shares some tips and best practices to get you started. This brief is the first
in a series on best practices in SNAP E&T, developed under the USDA’s Food
and Nutrition Service’s technical assistance project, SNAP to Skills.
Subsequent briefs and other resources about the program will be posted on the SNAP to Skills website. Find out more about your state’s SNAP E&T
program. To receive monthly SNAP E&T
updates, sign
up for the SNAP E&T Review.
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The Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) released a new Spanish-language
graphic novel, or fotonovela,
aimed at raising awareness about debt relief scams targeting Latino communities.
Maria and Rafael
Learn the Signs of a Debt Relief Scam is a story about a couple
who are thrilled that their daughter just graduated college. But soon after the
festivities wind down, reality sets in and Rafael starts worrying. They have to
start paying back the money they owe for the education, but he’s been out of
work for months. What’s he going to do? Maria thinks she might have the
solution: A company she heard about on the radio promises it can lower the
couple’s student loan payments and
help them get rid of their credit card debt. But it could be a scam.
To read this
fotonovela online in English – and to see how this story and others in the series
plays out – visit consumer.ftc.gov/fotonovela.
We encourage you to share the link with your networks. To order free copies in
Spanish, visit bulkorder.ftc.gov. To
see other consumer products from the FTC, refer to the OCTAE blog post Free
Consumer Protection Tools for Educators and Students.
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