Accountability

Higher Ed Roundup: Week of October 13 - October 17

Ed Policy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:30:00 -0400

Small Private Colleges Could Suffer in Credit Crunch

Baylor Pays Students to Retake SAT

Colleges Worried About IRS Questionnaire

NCAA Reports Higher Graduation Rates Among Student Athletes

Small Private Colleges Could Suffer in Credit Crunch

The credit crunch may be starting to hit small private colleges hard -- particularly ones that have miniscule endowments and rely predominantly on tuition payments to finance their operations, according to a report released on Thursday by bond rating agency Moody's. Many of these private colleges rely on variable rate bonds with interest rates that could spike if the credit market continues to dry up. With the deteriorating financial situation, banks are also more likely to ask for early repayment on these bonds, the report warns. While banks haven't started demanding accelerated payments yet, Moody' states, they will likely do so if the credit markets remain as tight as they have been. These higher-priced colleges could also suffer, the report states, if students shift in large numbers "to lower cost alternatives," such as state universities and community colleges. "We are not worried about the vast majority of colleges," John Nelson, the managing director of Moody's told Inside Higher Ed. "That message can't be lost. The vast majority of colleges are going to be fine. But for any of them to be in financial stress is kind of news."

Baylor Pays Students to Retake SAT

Baylor University came under fire this week after its student newpaper revealed that the institution had been providing financial incentives to incoming freshmen to retake the SAT. This fall, the institution began offering admitted freshmen a $300 campus bookstore voucher to retake the exam. Those students who raised their score by 50 points could receive a $1,000 discount on tuition. Nearly one-third of the incoming class took the university up on its offer. At first, campus officials defended the practice, saying that the financial incentives amounted to "merit aid." But admissions experts and other higher education officials and commentators criticized the university, saying it was trying to game its U.S. News & World Report college rankings, which take into account the average SAT scores of a college's incoming students. On Tuesday, the Baylor Faculty Senate condemned the practice as "academically dishonest." Yesterday, the university announced that it would curtail it.

Colleges Worried About IRS Questionnaire

More than 400 colleges are expecting a 42-page questionnaire from the IRS to arrive in their mailboxes soon, and many worry that the "compliance check questionnaire" signals more extensive regulation of their institutions. Two higher education associations -- the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) -- recently sent a letter to their members warning that the effort by the IRS "portends a significant shift in the way colleges and universities are regulated and governed." Responses by colleges to the questionnaire "will be used by the IRS to determine where tighter regulation is necessary and, in some instances, to initiate audits," the groups wrote. In addition, the IRS is expected to use the responses it receives to "serve as a foundation" for a new 990 tax form for colleges.

With those concerns in mind, the groups said that they planned to conduct their own analysis of their members' answers "in order to promote clarity and understanding in the higher education community, the general public, and for policymakers, regarding what these responses say about the college and university sector." According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who has been demanding greater scrutiny of higher education, said that if colleges were going to share the responses, he'd like to see them too. Policymakers and the public should not be asked to just accept the findings of a "higher education group funded study," he stated.

NCAA Reports Higher Graduation Rates Among Student Athletes

More college athletes are making it to graduation day, according to new data released on Tuesday by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The NCAA reported that 78 percent of Division I athletes who entered college between 1998 and 2001 graduated within six years. That's one percentage point higher than last year's data. The NCAA's "Graduation Success Rate" is higher than the federal graduation rates during the same period (64 percent for college athletes) because unlike the government figure, the association's doesn't penalize colleges for students who transfer out of school who are in good standing and rewards schools for students who transfer in to the institutions and graduate. Still, graduation rates for the most high profile college sports, such as men's basketball, continue to lag, with some schools graduating less than one-third of their players.

Where They Stand: John McCain on Higher Ed

Ed Policy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:58:00 -0400

Fifteen months after launching his presidential bid, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) started laying out his higher education policy agenda last month. In a news release, the Senator outlined his policy priorities but provided few details about his proposals.

With the Republican National Convention in full gear this week, Higher Ed Watch decided to take a closer look at McCain's higher education policy plans. He aims to do the following:

Simplify the Federal Financial Aid System

McCain believes that many eligible students do not seek out federal financial aid because they find the aid application process too complex and don't understand their options. He would address these concerns by:

Consolidating Programs: McCain proposes combining various federal grant and loan programs as a means to simplify their administration and help students better understand their eligibility for aid. While he doesn't get into specifics, it's likely that he would follow the Bush administration's lead and take aim at the campus-based student aid programs, which primarily supplement Pell Grants for low-income students. Critics say these programs are not serving the neediest students well because a disproportionate share of the funding is going to students at the wealthiest colleges.

Streamlining the FAFSA: McCain supports efforts to shorten the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to make it easier for students to fill out.

Redesigning Tuition Tax Breaks: The Senator proposes consolidating the various higher education-related tax credits and deductions, including the Clinton administration's HOPE and Lifetime Learning tax credits. "The existing tax benefits are too complicated, and many eligible families don't claim them," McCain says. "By simplifying the existing benefits, I can ensure that a greater number of families have a lower tax burden when they are helping to send their children to college."

"Fix" the Federal Student Loan Program

The Senator calls for creating a "simpler and more effective" federal student loan program but provides little explanation of how to accomplish this goal. Unlike his Democratic opponent, who has called for eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and providing loans entirely through the U.S. Department of Education, McCain believes that continued lender participation in the federal loan program is vital. He would, however, "demand the highest standards of integrity" from participating lenders, presumably to prevent a repeat of the pay-for-play student loan scandal that Higher Ed Watch helped expose last year.

Make Higher Education More Transparent for Consumers

McCain believes that the Department of Education can help students make better informed decisions about their college choices by publicly releasing "in a clear and concise manner" reams of data that colleges report to the federal government. The government already collects huge amounts of data from schools but "does nothing with the information." The Senator, however, would not impose any additional reporting requirements on colleges, saying that "the answer" to higher education's problems "is not to impose more regulations." He favors shining a light on information that is already available.

Eliminate Earmarks for Colleges

As part of his campaign against pork-barrel spending, McCain would bar lawmakers from providing Congressional earmarks to colleges for research spending. "Earmarking is destroying the integrity of federally funded research," he says. He would spend a portion of the money saved to increase government spending on university research that is competitively awarded by federal agencies like the National Science Foundation.

McCain's proposals are as notable for what they include as what they leave out. For example, his plan does not call for any new spending on federal student aid. This is in sharp contrast to President Bush, who pledged during his presidential campaigns to significantly boost spending on Pell Grants.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), McCain's Democratic rival, has already criticized McCain for failing to call for expanding student aid. In his speech to the Democratric convention, Obama cited this ommission as evidence that McCain doesn't understand "what's going on in the lives of Americans."

"How else," he asked, could McCain offer "an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college?" McCain has not yet responded to this attack, but to be fair, many student-aid experts are skeptical about whether Obama's proposal to significantly expand spending on tuition tax credits is the most effective way to increase college access and affordability.

Stay tuned to Higher Ed Watch in the weeks ahead for more analysis of the presidential candidates' higher education proposals.

Higher Ed Roundup: Week of June 23 - June 27

Ed Policy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:56:00 -0400

Modest Increases Proposed for Pell Grants

Dept. of Ed Details Student Loan Rescue Program

Lawmakers Discuss Need for Increased Regulation of Credit Card Marketing on Campuses

Minnesota Unveils Accountability ‘Dashboard'

Modest Increases Proposed for Pell Grants

Appropriations panels in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have proposed modest increases in spending on the Pell Grant program and some other federal student aid programs for the 2009 fiscal year. On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill for the Department of Education that would raise the maximum Pell Grant by $69, to $4,800, the same level President Bush proposed in his budget request. The measure would also increase by $5.7 million, to $70 million, funds the government uses to reimburse colleges for Perkins Loans that are discharged when students take public-service jobs. In addition, the legislation would provide a slight increase in spending on the government's main college outreach programs -- calling for an additional $10 million for the TRIO programs for disadvantaged students (raising their total budget to $838 million) and $5 million for GEAR UP (bringing its budget up to $308 million).

The House version of the spending measure, which is pending approval by the House Approprations Committee, would raise the maximum Pell Grant by $169, to $4,900. The House bill would also provide slightly more generous increases for the outreach programs -- $30-million for TRIO and $10 million for GEAR UP-- but does not include any increases for Perkins Loan forgiveness program. Progress on this bill, however, came to a grinding halt on Thursday, when intense partisan wrangling over gas prices caused the Democratic leaders of the Appropriations Committee to temporarily put off a final vote on the measure.

Dept. of Ed Details Student Loan Rescue Program

The Department of Education released on Wednesday final details about its strategy for ensuring continued student loan availability in the wake of the credit crunch. Under the plan, which the Department first announced in May, the agency will not only buy student loans from lenders, as Congress authorized it to do, but will also purchase for one year "participation agreements" in pools of new loans, temporarily giving lenders a source of cheap capital with student loans serving as collateral. The Department will charge lenders a rate of commercial paper plus 50 basis points for the agreements. On loans that it purchases outright, the government will pay lenders the amount owed on a loan, plus a $75 fee and 1 percent reimbursement of the origination fee paid to the government. During a conference call with reporters, Sara Martinez Tucker, the Department's under secretary of education, said that the agency's work on this plan has inspired it to take a closer "look at the entire federal student-aid system." She suggested that the Department may issue a blueprint for a student aid overhaul before the Bush Administration comes to an end.

Lawmakers Discuss Need for Increased Regulation of Credit Card Marketing on Campuses

College students should be able to obtain credit cards, but there needs to be significantly stricter regulation on how companies market these loans on campuses, according to a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit on Thursday. The subcommittee heard testimony yesterday from students, their advocates, and representatives of the credit card industry and the office of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In general, panelists focused on the need for restrictions on the campus-based marketing and underwriting practices of credit card companies. These proposals included tying students’ credit limits to their current income level, banning abusive or misleading marketing, and providing students with an option to opt out of credit card offers. The lone voice of dissent came from Kenneth Clayton of the American Bankers Association, who claimed such measures would overly infringe on students’ access to credit. The interaction between credit card companies and colleges has been a part of Cuomo’s ongoing investigation, and, according to his deputy counselor, a report on the office’s findings will be released sometime in the fall.

Minnesota Unveils Accountability ‘Dashboard'

Minnesota's state college and university system has unveiled a online “accountability dashboard,” an accountability system that will provide data, in a creative way, to the public on enrollment, tuition, and graduation rates at its 32 institutions. The database, which includes information on access, affordability, and quality, stems in part from a national effort by the National Association of System Heads to improve the education of low-income and minority students known as Access to Success. James McCormick, the system's chancellor, said he hopes the speedometer-type approach " will “jumpstart a culture of accountability” among its member institutions.

How to Handle Bad News for Small Schools in Oregon

Lindsey Luebchow — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:00:00 -0400

Four years ago in Oregon, two foundations invested $25 million in a "small schools" initiative, the largest private investment ever in Oregon's K-12 schools. The initiative sought to improve student performance and retention by transforming large, under-performing high schools into small learning academies. The first results of the Oregon experiment are in, and unfortunately they aren't very positive. Graduation rates remain low, and attendance and test scores haven't improved much since the large high schools split apart.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—the primary funder, along with the Oregon-based Meyer Memorial Trust—has pumped significant money into the creation of small high schools around the country. But improvements in student achievement and graduation rates have been elusive. Evaluations of the Gates initiative generally show that the redesigned small high schools produce similar results to their predecessor schools, and the Oregon findings are more bad news. The Gates Foundation deserves credit for reacting to these failures in the most productive way possible: continuing its investment in high school reforms, while also modifying that investment in response to research findings.

Oregon's First Small School Class

In 2004, the Gates Foundation teamed up with other education reformers in Oregon to start the $25 billion Oregon Small Schools Initiative. The initiative has produced 38 small schools in 12 districts across Oregon, either by restructuring large high schools into smaller units (32) or starting new small high schools (6). Grants from the initiative—around $1 million for the largest high schools—provide funds for reorganization planning, technical assistance, and professional and curriculum development, among other activities.

Three large high schools—Marshall and Roosevelt High Schools in Portland and Liberty High School in Hillsboro—started restructuring efforts right away in 2004. The first classes of students with four years in the small academies just graduated. But, as The Oregonian reports, the test scores, attendance, and graduation rates of these classes remained, for the most part, stuck at the same levels as those of previous classes.

Other Small School Efforts

Oregon is one of four states, including Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, with statewide small schools initiatives funded by the Gates Foundation. In addition, the Foundation awards restructuring grants to individual high-need school districts and also funds organizations that want to start new small high schools.

Evaluations of these grants, conducted by an independent contractor hired by the Gates Foundation, have found little improvement in student achievement resulting from the small schools. While some measures of student success, such as attendance and progression rates, have gone up for students in new small schools, students in redesigned small schools have also not shown progress in those areas. A recent evaluation of the federal Smaller Learning Communities Grant Program found similar results to the Gates initiatives, with "no significant trends" in achievement on state tests or college-entrance exams, but some improvement in student promotion, participation in extracurricular activities, and school violence.

Regroup, Rethink, and Reinvest

The Gates Foundation took a shot at a research-based, expensive school reform. The initiative has not yet produced solid results in its original form. But the Foundation is targeting some of the lowest-performing, highest-poverty schools in the country, and no one has yet to find a quick fix reform, particularly in high schools.

When a long-term investment doesn't produce meaningful returns, funders should not necessarily abandon it, but they should admit the need for modifications. And that's exactly what the Gates Foundation is doing. Instead of trying to save face, it is acknowledging setbacks, investigating why the initiative hasn't improved student achievement, and looking to fine-tune its investment. Specifically, the initiative is placing more emphasis on selecting grantees that have a track record of raising school achievement; spending more money on teacher recruitment, professional development, and retention; focusing more on effective curriculum and instructional resources; and favoring starting new schools to redesigning existing schools.

Vicki Phillips, the current director of the Gates Foundation's education initiatives, told The Oregonian, "We have learned that small by itself is not enough. Good curriculum and instruction don't just show up...We need to get more dramatic results." That's the right, ultimately most productive approach.

Disclosure: EdMoneyWatch.Org is funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Promising Proposals for Funding and Accountability in New Mexico

Lindsey Luebchow — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:00:00 -0400

The New Mexico legislature has been working to increase and better target K-12 education funding to school districts with high-need students. Governor Bill Richardson and the legislature appointed a Funding Formula Task Force in 2005. The Task Force commissioned a comprehensive study of New Mexico’s public school funding formula, including an estimate of how much it would cost the state to provide a "sufficient" education to all students.

The American Institutes of Research released the New Mexico funding study in January, and concluded that "sufficient" state funding for education would require an increase of $335 million ($1,034 per-pupil), or 14.5 percent above the current $2.5 billion in spending. When the legislative session ended in March, the legislature was in the middle of considering legislation to boost spending and overhaul the state funding formula. This week, the Legislative Education Study Committee is meeting to discuss the impact of the proposed formula.

New Mexico included a critical step in this process that other states have too often left out: accountability. Without accountability, there is no way to ensure that school districts use increased funds efficiently and effectively. Any sustainable argument for additional resources requires accountability.

New Mexico, in contrast, has embraced the need for accountability measures, as Michael Rebell noted on his blog EdFunding Matters. One of the funding study's recommendations was that the state require districts to align their spending plans with their current "Educational Plans for Student Success (EPSS)." An EPSS is a strategic plan developed by every school district and individual school in New Mexico that "sets clear goals, implementation strategies and evaluation measures" for student achievement and school improvement. They include achievement benchmarks for NCLB reading and math tests and specific strategies and interventions for reaching those benchmarks. The new legislation would expand the EPSS to include achievement in other areas, such as career and technical education and special education.

The EPSS system appears to be similar to the Contracts for Excellence in New York, an accountability program that was put in place after the New York legislature approved a significant increase in state education funding last year. 55 New York school districts—those that have schools in need of improvement and receive a certain amount of the new state aid—have filled out Contracts for Excellence. The Contracts require districts to target their new funds to at-risk students and proven programs, to set performance targets for improvement, and to publicly report the results.

In moving forward with any new state funding plan, New Mexico—and all other states—should wholeheartedly embrace and emphasize accountability in a fashion similar to New York. Individual district accountability plans give school districts the flexibility to define their own goals and to select the best route to achieve them. But the state retains the power of quality control, as it must approve and monitor how the district chooses to spend its funds. And there must be total transparency for the public about the spending choices and results.

Unfortunately, a few school officials in New Mexico have already started to express concerns that any revamped EPSS system would be too much of an administrative burden.

Here’s a warning to those officials: if you want more money on a consistent basis, year after year, it would be extremely wise to accept and support increased accountability measures. If schools don’t prove to the public and the state legislature that the new money is producing results, lawmakers will take it back much faster than they gave it up.

Tired of Waiting for Reauthorization, the Department of Education Regulates

Lindsey Luebchow — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:00:00 -0400

On Tuesday, the Department of Education unveiled a new set of proposed regulations on No Child Left Behind. The major announcement was details about the new, uniform graduation rate formula that all states will have to use for NCLB accountability purposes going forward. In addition, the Department outlined new requirements for district implementation of the Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provision.

In general, the proposed regulations focus on greater transparency for what's already happening in each state. At a briefing in Washington D.C., U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon said that the Department wants to make sure states and districts can justify what they are doing on assessment and accountability. He also raised concerns that districts are not adequately implementing NCLB's restructuring and SES requirements, and said that the Department wants to detail and reinforce what is already required by the law.

Here's a quick summary of the new proposed regulations, which were published today in the Federal Register and will be open for comment for 90 days:

Uniform Graduation Rates

By 2012-13, states, districts, and schools would have to use a "cohort graduation rate" formula, consistent with the National Governor's Association's formula.
Because it will take time for many states to collect the necessary data, they would have to use an "averaged freshman graduation rate" (AFGR) in the interim.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): States currently require schools to show some improvement (generally only a minimal amount) in graduation rates in order to make AYP under NCLB. The Department wants to require that states set a specific goal and a timeline for improvement in graduation rates.

Disaggregation: By 2012-13, states would also have to report disaggregated graduation rates and use them in AYP calculations. In the meantime, disaggregated AFGR rates would have to be reported; however, because the AFGR is not accurate enough for small data groups, disaggregation would not be used for accountability purposes at the school level until the more accurate rate is available.
Transparency & Clarification
"N" Size: States are currently allowed to set their own minimum subgroup sizes ("N" sizes) for AYP reporting. The Department is concerned that too many students are being excluded in some states with large N sizes, and proposes requiring states to justify their N sizes and other technical AYP components in their accountability workbooks. These explanations would then undergo a peer review.

Restructuring: The Department wants to clarify school restructuring requirements, which it believes aren't being effectively implemented. Districts would have to show that schools in the restructuring phase are receiving much more comprehensive, tailored interventions than schools in earlier, corrective action phases.
Supplemental Education Services and School Choice
Parental Notification: Schools would have to notify parents of their school choice options at least 14 days before the start of the school year. When schools send out notices of SES eligibility, they would have to be "clearly distinguishable" from other NCLB information.

State Approval and Monitoring: The Department wants states to provide more information about how they approve and evaluate SES providers. In addition, the Department wants to expand the list of factors that a state must take into account when approving or monitoring the effectiveness of providers.

Title I Funds: Districts are not allowed to count the costs of parental outreach towards the 20 percent of their Title I grant that must go to SES and school choice. The Department proposes permitting districts to count those costs, up to 0.2 percent of the total Title I allocation. In addition, districts would have to prove that they have sufficiently exhausted SES and school choice opportunities before they could reallocate any remaining funds to other purposes.

What's Behind Standardized Graduation Rates? Data System Investment

Lindsey Luebchow — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:00:00 -0400

Last week Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced that the Department of Education will begin requiring all states to use the same method to calculate high school graduation rates. NCLB already requires states and high schools to report graduation rates, but it allows states to craft their own formulas to do so. The result: states inevitably found ways to inflate graduation statistics. And the state-by-state patchwork of methods used makes it impossible to compare graduation rates across states.

Spellings' announcement is an important, smart move following years of pressure from education and civil rights organizations to improve graduation rate data. Without comparable, meaningful data to expose low graduation rates, states can continue to ignore the drop-out crisis that is plaguing low-income communities—especially in urban areas—around the country.

But Spellings' announcement also raises some important questions: Do states have in place the data systems they need to calculate new, standardized graduation rates? And, if not, how will they pay for new state data systems? So far, neither Spellings nor news articles covering the new regulations have addressed these issues in any detail.

Where State Data Systems Stand

The first step toward accurate graduation rates is a student unit record data system that can track individual students. These systems assign a unique identification number to each student in the state, so that the state can follow individual students from the time they enroll in ninth grade through high school graduation—even if they transfer between schools or school districts.

An accurate graduation rate formula (such the one adopted by the National Governor's Association, which appears below) measures the percent of students from an entering ninth grade cohort who graduate with a standard diploma in four years. This is commonly known as a "cohort" method of calculating graduation rates.

According to the results of a 2007 survey by the Data Quality Campaign, 36 states have the full data system capability to calculate this formula. Seven other states have student unit records in place, but lack a robust data audit system. Robust audit systems ensure that districts report valid dropout data, and they are necessary to remedy past documented problems with unreliable district reporting.

All 43 states that have already invested in data systems to track individual high school students should be prepared to comply with new federal graduation rate measures within the next four years. Some states that implemented these data systems only recently may need time to accumulate four years of student data (from the time the first ninth grade class enrolls until they complete 12th grade) to calculate a cohort graduation rate.

But seven states that don't have the necessary data infrastructure to calculate accurate graduate rates are going to have to play catch up—and that will likely be expensive.

Laggards Face Data System Costs

The exact costs of establishing a student unit record data system depend on the data infrastructure a state already has in place, but they are substantial. The Data Quality Campaign estimates that putting in place the structure for these systems costs between $1 million and $3 million annually over several years of development—not including ongoing maintenance costs after the system is in place or staff time at the district level.

These seven states may not be eager to spend money on K-12 data initiatives. One reason they don't have them already is that they've been unwilling to pony up the necessary funds in the past. But soon they may not have a choice—although if the history of NCLB and IASA implementation is any guide, they will likely drag their feet. And they may complain about more "unfunded mandates" from the federal government.

NCLB does provide funding to help states cover the costs of developing and administering state assessments and standards—$409 million in fiscal year 2008, distributed to states based on their share of students ages 5 to 17. Once a state meets all of NCLB's assessment requirements, it can use the grant money for "support for data reporting." But given the limited amount of money available in this pot (average state grant: $7.6 million), many states don’t have a lot left over after annual testing costs. The Bush Administration's 2009 budget request did not propose any increase in funding for state assessments. And Secretary Spellings hasn't indicated that the Department of Education will provide additional funding to help states implement new graduation rate standards.

A Worthwhile Investment

States that haven't already invested in student unit record data systems may not want to pay the costs to do so. But in the long run, student unit record data systems are an incredibly valuable investment that every state should make. If new, standardized graduation rate standards require lagging states to improve their data systems, that will be an additional benefit of these requirements.

Even states that already have the framework in place for graduation rates could do a lot to further develop their systems—for example, tracking all students from pre-kindergarten through higher education, or performing more extensive coding of student characteristics and outcomes. This type of data is invaluable in education research and accountability efforts.

That is, if states actually use it. According to the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, only 16 states used a cohort formula for NCLB accountability purposes in 2006-07, while others preserved their old formulas even if they had accumulated the data to use a more accurate cohort formula. In many cases, the less accurate measures produce inflated graduation rates that make states look like they're doing better than they actually are. Standardizing graduation rate measures will result in more accurate data—and make sure state taxpayers are getting their money's worth from new data systems.

Lift the Veil

Stephen Burd — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:44:00 -0400

As Congress works to finalize legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act for the next five years, higher education lobbyists are making one last ditch effort to dissuade lawmakers from requiring colleges to provide even the most basic information about how they spend their own institutional financial aid dollars.

At issue are provisions in both the House and Senate reauthorization bills that aim to provide prospective students, their families, and policymakers with more detailed data about their aid policies, as well as other types of consumer information, such as graduation and retention rates. Both bills ask colleges to report the average amount of grant aid that the institutions award their students and the proportion of students who receive these grants. The House legislation goes a much-needed step further, and requires colleges to provide a breakdown by income of students who receive institutional aid.

The two bills also differ on how this consumer information is to be reported. Under the House measure, colleges would be required to provide the data to the Education Secretary who would then publish it on the U.S. Education Department's College Navigator website, which the agency hopes prospective students will use when picking colleges. In contrast, the consumer reporting provisions in the Senate bill would be completely voluntary. Colleges that chose to participate would publish the information on their websites, using a model form developed by the Education Department.

College lobbyists, not too surprisingly, favor the Senate's voluntary approach. "Institutions provide a substantial amount of data to the U.S. Department of Education through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) each year, and we applaud efforts to assure that this information is used," the American Council on Education (ACE) wrote in a letter in late February to the leaders of the House and Senate education committees on behalf of itself and 13 other college groups. "However, many data elements specified in both bills are not currently collected through IPEDS in the form specified. Mandating that they be provided would create a significant new reporting burden for institutions."

If, however, Congress decides to make the reporting mandatory, ACE wrote, then it should "limit the data elements" required to those that the Department already collects through IPEDS. The groups know, of course, that such a limitation would continue to cloak colleges' institutional aid policies in mystery, as the Department currently asks the institutions little about how they spend their own aid dollars.

At Higher Ed Watch, we believe that colleges should be required to provide more detailed information about their institutional aid policies. The federal government, which spends tens of billions of dollars a year to help low- and moderate-income students gain access to college, has a right and responsibility to know whether institutions of higher education are helping or hindering public policy goals. Are colleges, for example, using the new influx of federal Pell Grant dollars that Congress and the Bush Administration have provided to supplement their own institutional financial aid and insure that low-income students don't have unmet financial need? Or are they using the new federal funding to replace institutional aid dollars they would have spent otherwise and using that money for other priorities, such as building fancy new dorms and athletic centers or providing merit aid to attract better, and often wealthier, students?

These are important questions for policymakers to be able to answer. Hopefully as lawmakers complete work on the Higher Education Act reauthorization legislation, they will stick to their guns and make colleges' financial aid practices more transparent. As we've said before, a little sunshine almost never hurts.

Earmarks Galore! More Transparency, But Still Flourishing

Lindsey Luebchow — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:00:00 -0400

Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a database of higher education earmarks for fiscal year 2008. A number of the earmarks are related to K-12 initiatives at colleges and universities, and many of the programs sound valuable and work toward positive goals. Members of Congress are certainly skilled at justifying them. But don't let these justifications sway you—earmarks mean no accountability to taxpayers and no concrete proof of program effectiveness.

The Office of Postsecondary Education routinely receives the most earmarks in the Department of Education, including some for K-12 initiatives such as teacher training programs. The Chronicle database also includes higher education earmarks distributed through the Office of Innovation and Improvement's Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), such as grants to support partnerships between colleges and local school systems.

When you look through the Chronicle's list of earmarks, many of the K-12 projects sound, on the surface, like worthwhile efforts. $120,851 for professional development for school teachers in mathematics and science? Great! How about $191,593 to create a Principals Institute, to train and certify all Maryland school principals? Sounds promising!

It's hard to argue that there isn't a need for these type of projects. But because there are no standards for earmarks, the type and quality of the funded programs varies widely. In addition, it can be difficult for taxpayers to get any detailed information about what the projects actually do.

For example, there is a $383,187 earmark for California State University at Northridge for the "development of an assessment-and-accountability system for K-12 teachers." Ed Money Watch wants to know more about that project, but a call to Rep. Brad Sherman's (D-CA) office, one of the sponsors of the earmark, yielded no response (as did most of our calls to Congressional offices). Or how about $286,899 to the Mississippi University for Women "for outreach and research to local school districts." The sponsor Senator Roger Wicker's (R-MS) office had no information for Ed Money Watch, and told us to try contacting the school. After several calls to the school, we finally figured out where the money is going, but it sure wasn't easy.

Of course, there's also the issue of judging whether the earmarked programs are actually effective. Members of Congress do not use a competitive process to distribute earmarks; it's all about special constituent interests. And once the earmark is out the door, there is no accountability for how the funds are spent.

It's good to see that the Chronicle and the Office of Budget and Management have started to publish earmarks in searchable databases, following the mandate of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. Transparency forces Members of Congress to at least validate their earmark spending, and maybe even pushes them to keep closer tabs on the money.

The public needs to ask tough questions about earmarks and not get caught up in Congressional spin—unless, maybe, a new President and new Congress get rid of earmarks for good. Wishful thinking from Ed Money Watch.

Smart Ideas on Early Elementary Accountability From UFT

Sara Mead — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:02:00 -0400

Last week United Federation of Teachers (New York City's teachers union) President Randi Weingarten gave a major speech proposing a new accountability framework to replace the controversial school report cards that NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein instituted last November.

In contrast to Klein's report cards, which assigned schools a single letter grade based primarily on student test scores, UFT's proposed alternative would offer parents and the public a matrix of indicators concentrated in three areas: academic achievement; safety, order and discipline; and teamwork for student achievement. Each schools report would also rate the NYC Department of Education on the quality of support it provides the school.

What we like about Weingarten's proposal is the effort it makes to include indicators that reflect how well schools are educating students in grades K-2. Too often, school report cards and accountability systems totally ignore the early grades, because those systems are based on test scores and K-2 students dont typically participate in state assessments. The result is an information black hole for parents and policymakers at the time when schools should be putting in place the fundamental groundwork to support childrens later learning. It also makes it harder to recognize or reward highly effective K-2 teachers. But the solution isn't to extend testing down to younger students--because the kind of standardized assessments we use under NCLB arent appropriate or necessarily reliable for younger children.

The UFT plan takes some sensible steps to include K-2 students in accountability reports:

First, it used third grade test scores to evaluate K-2 academic performance. We've previously argued that all elements of the PK-3 continuum need to be judged based on their contribution to the ultimate goal of proficiency by third grade, so we can really get behind this idea.
Second, UFT's plan would use independent on-site observations and surveys to evaluate the quality of K-2 learning environments, including the extent to which they provide a rich, age-appropriate curriculum for K-2 students. Because there is a strong research base about what works in early education, what young children need to know, and the kind of teacher interactions that contribute to student learning, on-site observations make a lot of sense as a quality measure in the early elementary years.
Third, UFT 's plan would evaluate elementary schools on the extent to which K-2 students display "school readiness skills, such as effort, cooperation, responsibility and respect." We think this proposal is on the right track, because fostering the kinds of social and emotional development skills that it mentions should be a critical goal of PK-3 instruction. But we fear the language UFT chose to use here may confuse parents and the public. The phrase school readiness here suggests the UFT plan would rate schools based on characteristics children bring to school with them, not the contribution schools make to students' acquisition of these skills. It also implies that the early grades aren't themselves school--a position we're pretty sure UFT doesn't hold. We'd be a lot happier with this part of the proposal if UFT called it "K-2 social and emotional development" rather than "K-2 school readiness." We'd also like to know more about the kind of indicators and assessments that would go into this measure, because evaluating social and emotional development in the early years, while critical, can be tricky.

We also like the UFT proposal's emphasis on teamwork among educators and effective school leadership as a part of a school's evaluation. In order to offer an aligned PK-3 education experience to students, schools must have strong leadership and collaborative relationships between teachers both within and across grade levels and subject areas. Creating incentives to build such collaborative relationships is smart.

Eduwonk and Leo Casey offer further analysis of the overall plan on their blogs. In general we agree with Eduwonk's comment that, while accountability consequences should be based on a relatively few, narrow and clear-cut indicators, parents, educators and the general public all benefit from systems that provide information about a variety of school performance indicators. Leo says UFT hopes the "proposed framework initiatives a vigorous debate over both the ends of accountability and the best means to achieve those ends." We're pretty sure they'd also like to see some concrete changes to make the NYC report card system look more like this proposal. As that debate unfolds, we hope it includes serious discussion of how NYC, and other school systems, can do a better of providing parents and the public with information about how schools are educating students in the early elementary school and pre-k years.