Educational Collaboration
The challenge of meeting unprecedented enrollment demands

By Joni Finney
U.S. SECRETARY of Education Richard Riley's recent report on the "Baby Boom Echo" describes an unparalleled enrollment increase in the public schools: This fall school enrollment reached 51.7 million students, more than the 51.3 million record set by the baby boomers 25 years ago. Enrollment will rise to a new high of 54.6 million by 2006. The enrollment growth is the test, he believes, of whether America will invest "the time, energy and resources so that these children and this nation can look to the future with confidence."

To maintain the current service levels in elementary and secondary education will require, according to the Department of Education, 190,000 additional teachers, over 6,000 more schools and approximately $15 billion in annual operating expenditures. Most of the growth in school enrollment will be in about half the states, with the western states facing the greatest increase.

Increases in school enrollments will result in about a 14 percent rise in college enrollments nationally. Again, about half the states will account for most of the increase. In California, colleges and universities will have to absorb about another half a million new college students by 2006.

The costs of accommodating growth in California higher education alone are staggering. Some 5.2 billion new dollars for operating and construction costs will be required (on top of a base of $6.5 billion) to provide about the same level of service.

It is unlikely that the next generation of young people will want, understandably, to see their opportunities for education beyond high school reduced. In fact they will probably insist that opportunities be expanded. From 1990-1995 the proportion of high school graduates going on to college has increased by seven percent nationally. Due to rising employer expectations for job skills and a public belief that a college education is the gateway to middle class opportunity, demand for higher levels of education is likely to increase.

At present, there are only two alternatives for addressing the college enrollment growth. The first is to simply jam more people into college classrooms and hope that these students absorb something. The other is to curtail access to higher education. Neither alternative has anything to commend it. Both would be economically short-sighted; both would severely weaken reform efforts in the public schools. Both would undermine educational quality and three decades of public policy that expanded college opportunity. Most importantly, neither alternative would instill a sense of confidence in the future.

How can the country meet these unprecedented levels of enrollment demand? At the same time, how can we create higher levels of achievement for all students? Many of the gains to be made in both the educational and financial productivity of the system can be achieved by focusing on the interface of the educational sectors.

By working together, schools, colleges and universities can accomplish what neither of them has been able to accomplish alone during the past decade of reform; that is, significantly improved student achievement, better access and preparation for college, and increased financial productivity.

In the 1973 Carnegie Commission report, "Continuity or Discontinuity," educators first articulated the importance of focusing on the "interface" of the educational sectors. Admissions, curriculum and teacher education were among the major areas of conflict identified in the report.

The report also called attention to the overlap and duplication that occurred during the last two years of high school and the first two years of college, suggesting that the last year of high school be eliminated for most students. Few changes in the contemporary reform movement would invalidate the critique of the Carnegie Commission more than twenty years ago.

There are three areas around which more effective and widespread collaborative efforts could be built and result in significant improvements in student achievement and improved productivity of the overall educational system. The first is through the wide-spread development of college preparation opportunities for young people; the second is the reform of college admissions; and third is the overhaul of teacher education.

Early College Enrollment
Efforts to provide opportunities for young people to enroll early in college have potentially big payoffs. Student motivation and participation in these programs testifies to the fact that, when given the opportunity, high school students will take advantage of challenging and advanced learning opportunities.

The well-known model, "Project Advance," developed by the faculty at Syracuse University provides college level courses taught by high school teachers with special training from the Syracuse faculty. The courses fulfill both high school and college requirements. Credits from Project Advance are accepted at over 400 colleges and universities around the country. This example is particularly interesting in that the students who participate--now numbering more than 85,000--go beyond those enrolled in traditional high school honor courses.

Administrators of Project Advance estimate that 25 percent of the participants enter college with enough credit to graduate a semester early, and more than 90 percent of the Project Advance students graduate from college on time. Students pay lower fees than regularly enrolled college students, and financial aid is provided for needy students.

The College Board Advance Placement courses and examinations are another alternative popular with high school students and accepted at many colleges and universities around the country. Students are awarded credit toward the high school diploma and toward a college degree. In California, the number of high school students participating in Advance Placement has increased more than 65 percent between 1986 and 1994. And, between 1994 and 1995 the number of AP exams per 1,000 11th and 12th graders increased a whopping 17 percent!

To illustrate the potential savings, The California Higher Education Policy Center estimates that, by the year 2006, if 70 percent of entering freshmen at the University of California were to begin college with at least one semester's worth of college credit taken through Advance Placement courses and at community colleges, etc. (and currently 25 percent do so), nearly $47 million dollars could be saved and invested elsewhere.

To accommodate an estimated 77 percent increase in high school graduates, and an increased demand for higher education, Nevada school administrators and college leaders have developed a plan to share facilities, faculty and other institutional resources. Under the plan, small off-campus technical centers will be built on high school campuses. In exchange for allowing high schools the use of the center in the daytime, the high school will allow the community college use of its classrooms in the late afternoon and evening. Students may enroll concurrently for high school and college coursework. Officials estimate that the centers can be built for about $5 million each, while a full-fledged campus would cost at least ten times that much.

Other early enrollment models (including "Running Start" in Washington, Minnesota's concurrent enrollment program and Massachusetts' dual enrollment option), testify to the willingness and readiness of high school students to participate in early college enrollment opportunities and the potential educational and financial savings that can result.

Admissions Reform
Since the mid 1980s, colleges and universities have played a role in signaling what courses were important for high school students to take, along with other requirements for college admission, such as SAT and high school GPA standards.

Changes in course-taking patterns by high school students in California and other states speaks to the success of this strategy. The limitations of this strategy also have become apparent in recent years, since the course-taking pattern of high school students--as a single strategy for reform--has not been sufficient and has not resulted in the expected rise in student achievement. Furthermore, it has resulted in ever-increasing complexity and mixed signals that surround college admission.

To illustrate this complexity, a recent study looking at a highly competitive public flagship institution in the midwest found that students had to be admitted first to the university and then to a particular college--all with different expectations for high school preparation--before being eligible to enroll. The overall university admissions requirements specified completion of a college prep curriculum, specific test scores on the ACT/SAT, and class rank data (which was not comparable across high schools).

College requirements often included written essays, interviews and additional high school coursework. Once students were admitted to the university and to a specific college, they were then required to pass a series of university-wide placement exams. These exams were not related to the college preparatory curriculum, nor to the academic requirements of the colleges.

Simply stated, this study and others like it show that higher education hasn't made up its mind about what is worth knowing and what competencies students should master before entering college. (For an additional perspective on this issue, see the winter issue of CrossTalk, in which Michael Kirst, of Stanford University, discusses the mixed signals sent to California students about college preparation.) While this approach to admissions survived, even thrived for many decades, it is likely to come under intense scrutiny as college admissions decisions increasingly take on the function of sorting students into future middle or lower income groups.

The next stage of reform, illustrated well by an example from Oregon, but also underway in Colorado and Wisconsin, requires high schools and colleges and universities to better define the competencies, skills and knowledge students need in order to be successful in college, and to link those to changes in the elementary and secondary curriculum and to college admissions.

Teacher Education Reform
Often overlooked, teacher education is perhaps one of the most powerful levers for school reform, in which colleges and universities have a nearly exclusive monopoly. Numerous reports and commissions have made recommendations about the importance of reform in teacher education.

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future is the latest to join the ranks of voices calling for reform. Among the commission's recommendations are requirements that teachers be trained in the field in which they plan to teach, the implementation of candidate-based licensing requirements similar to those in law and medicine, and closer linkages with the schools in creating professional development sites dedicated primarily to the preparation of teachers.

Another encouraging step toward reform is that at least 17 states are moving forward in a cooperative effort to develop candidate-based assessments through the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, under the auspices of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

States can learn from the creative experimentation in place and design public policies that increase the likelihood of better collaborative relationships between the various educational sectors. One way to do this is to leverage new dollars targeted for K-12 and higher education in these areas of reform.

Another way to accomplish the same goal is for states, and many are beginning to move in this direction, to take the lead in establishing educational standards along the entire educational spectrum, including standards for college admission that are related to learning expectations in the schools as well as those necessary for college success. The accompanying assessment tools to make the standards real must also be used in decision making about student progress along the educational continuum.

It is unlikely that those states focusing on the reform of K-12 exclusively or on higher education independent of the schools will realize their expectations for improvements in student achievement or make the most out of their financial resources. Those states that pursue an educational agenda focused on the interface between the educational sectors stand a better chance to rise to the Secretary's challenge in a way that will enable America's students to look to the future with confidence.