e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: California

  • New Post at WCET: Update on California Online Initiatives

    I have a new post up at WCET with updates on the California Online Initiatives driven by state government, including today’s news that SB520 is on hold.

    The big news today is that the controversial bill seeking to allow for-credit partially-outsourced online education in California has been put on hold until at least 2014. [snip]

    On the surface, it appears that higher education insiders might have defeated state government efforts to take a leading role in online initiatives. SB520 is on hold and possibly dead, and most conditions on the additional funding have been removed.

    If you look under the surface, however, the outcome is not as clear. It turns out that the systems are in fact changing their priorities and investing in online to help matriculated students complete degrees at a lower cost, which was the original goal of state government leaders.

    There’s more information there, including news on the University of California’s and California State University’s two new online initiatives.

  • CCSF Accreditation Crisis: Seven Years in the Making

    Last week the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), which operates under the corporate entity the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), voted to end accreditation for the City College of San Francisco (CCSF) as of July 31, 2014. Unless reversed, the loss of accreditation would like force the 85,000 student college to shut down. CCSF would be the largest college to date to lose accreditation, and it is also the largest community college in California.

    Update 8/21: Date corrected to July 31.

    It might be useful to recap the process and issues that led to the current accrediting crisis. This summary is based on the accrediting body’s findings. In a later post I’ll address the counter arguments made by the school and faculty unions.

    Spring 2006 Evaluation

    The immediate story did not start in 2012 with the institution’s request for reaffirmation of accreditation and subsequent ACCJC evaluation, but rather started back in 2006. In the 2006 evaluation report the commission “validated that that the college meets the eligibility requirements for accreditation and complies with the standards of accreditation” and identified eight key recommendations.

    Recommendations #2, #3, and #4 were “overarching concerns that should receive the college’s focused attention and emphasis”. The recommendations are summarized below.

    • 1) Mission Statement: Regularly review and approve the mission statement in a discrete process
    • 2) Planning and Assessment: Build planning and assessment efforts in an integrated process linked back to the annual budgets, including clear criteria for resource reallocation and / or program and service development, expansion, or termination
    • 3) Student Learning Outcomes: Ensure that student learning outcomes are fully institutionalized as a core element of college operations, with specific focus on curriculum and program development
    • 4) Financial Planning and Stability: Develop a financial strategy that will: match ongoing expenditures with ongoing revenue; maintain the minimum prudent reserve level; reduce the percentage of its annual budget that is utilized for salaries and benefits; and address funding for retiree health benefits costs
    • 5) Physical Facilities Contingency Planning:Ensure the development of adequate contingency plans, which should be implemented in a timely manner in order to reduce potential exposure to losses
    • 6) Physical Facilities Maintenance Planning: Include the future costs of operating and maintaining new and existing facilities in its planning models and allocate funds in a timely manner to ensure the effective operation of these facilities
    • 7) Technology Planning: Bring all unit technology plans up-to-date, and develop a unified college-wide technology plan; this plan should be integrated with facilities and budget plans; funds for technology acquisition and maintenance, including regular replacement of outdated hardware, should be integrated into the institution’s budget
    • 8) Board of Trustees Evaluation: Establish a method of self evaluation for the Board of Trustees, determine the schedule for this process, and complete self evaluations on a regular basis

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  • California’s Online Education Bill SB 520 Passes Senate

    Last week senate bill 520 (SB 520) unanimously passed the California senate, and it is now heading to the assembly for review and, if passed, on to the governor for signature. I have covered the basics of SB520, shared the text of the bill, and described the first round of amendments to the bill. Michael and I have both provided commentary of the bill, and we have also written a position paper for The 20 Million Minds Foundation on the general topic of online education in California.

    Now that the bill has passed its major test in the senate, it would be worth comparing the current bill with that proposed a few months ago, as the amendments have been significant. The majority of amendments have been in response to faculty concerns about governance and quality assurance of online courses. The full text of the current bill can be found here.

    Highlight of Changes

    Original proposal of SB520 would have:

    • Created the California Online Student Access Platform to be administered by the California Open Education Resources Council (the one created to administer California’s OER law SB1052);
    • Created a single pool of online versions of “the 50 most impacted lower division courses” across all three systems (University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges);
    • Required the three systems to provide credit to students who successful take and pass the courses; and
    • Included content that has been reviewed and recommended by the American Council on Education.

    Current version of SB 520 that passed senate would:

    • Create a set of three Incentive Grant programs for online courses to be administered by the office of President or Chancellor for each system “in consultation with their respective statewide academic senates”;
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  • The Scope of the Bottleneck Course Problem

    Phil and I pay attention to what Bob Samuels says about California higher education for a few reasons. First, as a faculty member at UCLA, he sees the system from the inside. Second, as President of the University Council of the AFT, he is a good source for the union’s perspective on issues. And finally, as somebody who has spent significant time studying the financial structure of California public higher education in detail, he has data and insights that beyond the usual anecdotal observations by individual faculty members. (I look forward to reading his book when it comes out this summer.)

    So with all that as background, his comments on the scope of the bottleneck course problem are worth reading:

    In my interviews with students, I have found that the biggest reasons for a delay in graduation is that students switch majors, they fail out of courses, they cannot get required courses, they do not qualify for their intended majors, they have to work to pay for their living expenses, they do not think there are any jobs for them after graduation, they pursue double majors, they do not receive adequate advising, they have medical problems and personal issues. Students also complain about the number of requirements for certain majors and their dislike of large lecture classes. A comprehensive survey of the UC system would help to determine what is really happening on a local level.

    Another important aspect of this problem is the question of how much money individual campuses dedicate to undergraduate instruction. UCOP has reported on the increase in classes and the decrease in faculty relative to the number of students, but it is still unclear what has caused these changes. After all, during the last five years, while the state did reduce the UC budget by $1 billion, total tuition revenue went up by over $1.2 billion. It would seem that as students pay more for their education, they would get more support and smaller classes instead of less support and larger classes, but as this blog has stressed, the university continues to use undergraduate funds to subsidize many other university functions.

    The focus on time-to-graduation is important because, as Phil and I detailed in the portion of our position paper that I published earlier today, a delay in graduation is costly to students and taxpayers alike. As Bob points out, we don’t have a lot of clean data telling us exactly how much of the delay in aggregate graduation time is due factors that colleges and universities can control, like access to bottleneck courses or better student advising on what courses they should be taking, and how much of it is due to factors in the students’ lives that are external to the school itself. This is important information to have, both to give us a sense of where the state should be focusing its efforts and in terms of monitoring the success of those efforts. Furthermore, at least some of the data can be gathered relatively quickly and easily—for example, through student surveys. While Phil and I do believe there is enough evidence that bottleneck courses are a problem to merit increased attention and funding, we also believe that getting more hard data quickly enough to influence the policy that is currently being shaped should be a high priority.

    The financial aspects that Bob highlights in the second quoted paragraph are important too. Our position all along has been that there are a variety of ways to solve the bottleneck course problem and that technology is not a silver bullet. While we take no position on the specifics of Bob’s math, it is certainly legitimate to ask whether budget money that is currently being applied to other priorities should be redirected to opening more course sections of bottleneck courses.

  • Amendments of California SB520 Bill for Online Courses

    Last week California SB520 – the bill aiming to create a pool of online availability of 50 high-demand lower-division courses for which the public systems would have to award credit – was amended based on ongoing discussions and negotiations. The fact that the bill has been amended is not surprising, as this is the intent of the legislative process.

    Michael and I have covered the basics of SB520, original text, and some analysis in recent posts. The specific amendments can be viewed at the official CA legislature site.

    The themes of the amendments are to:

    • shift the approval of the pool of online courses from the California Open Access Resources Council (COERC) to the administration and faculty senates of the three systems (University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges);
    • tie the administration of the program to the California Virtual Campus;
    • restrict each course to matriculated California public higher education and qualifying K-12 students;
    • tie the provisions of the bill to funding in the Annual Budget Act; and
    • remove any tie to American Council on Education recommendations.

    Amended Bill Language

    Below are some of the key changes to the bill, with markups (red strikethrough text for deletions, blue for additions).

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  • California SB 520 Could Define a New Right Right for Students – Access to Courses

    I previously shared the text of SB 520, the proposed California legislation that would identify and approve a set of up to 50 online courses that the three public systems would accept as credit for admitted students. In my notes for the press conference introducing the bill, there are updated links to most major press articles on the bill as select blog posts. Michael shared his analysis  of the bill and where he thinks changes are needed.

    The more time I have to think about this news, the more I’m convinced that if successful, the passage of this bill (or an amended version substantially meeting the stated aims described in the press conference) could have an impact much bigger than California students taking online courses. This bill aims to establish a new right – for admitted students to have access to the courses they need.

    The right for admitted students to have courses available

    The real significance of SB 520 is that it focuses on the student, not the institution, and specifically on admitted students. When the Master Plan was adopted in California starting in 1960, the basic premise was to guarantee students a place within one of the three public systems based on their high school record. It was assumed that by having a place in a public institution, the student would have access to needed courses.

    For various reasons, this assumption is no longer valid.

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  • California SB 520 Currently Misses the Mark, but Not By Much

    Phil has done a great job of covering the news of California’s new bill (or stub of a bill, really) that would create a state-wide system of third-party online courses that would be available to students who would otherwise be shut out of courses that they need to graduate. It’s a good problem to tackle, since it would both make life better for students and improve the long-term state budget situation. Unfortunately, I don’t think the current incarnation of the bill takes into account either the full context and needs of students who find themselves shut out of the core courses or the directions that MOOCs are evolving into. As a result, it offers a bad prescription for the solution. The good news is that the shortcomings can be fixed while remaining well within the spirit of the bill.

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