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Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

Let’s Sum Up Louisiana’s Approach to Higher Education Spending with 5 Events

A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) shines a spotlight on how far funding for higher education has fallen since the start of the recession. Particularly for states in the south, funding “is down by more than 35 percent since the start of the recession.”

Overall tuition at public four-year colleges is up almost 30 percent since 2007. Even worse for students who attend schools in the south– like Florida and Georgia–the report states that tuition skyrocketed 60 percent.

Considering the government has cut Pell Grants and wage growth has been stagnant, such a steep rise in tuition has likely priced many students out of attending college.

Louisiana is no exception to the Southern states whose policy has once included serious budget cuts for higher education. But, believe it or not, even Louisiana, one of the most severely cost-cutting states, has had a turnaround when it comes to higher education. Here are five steps in the journey to keep Louisiana’s colleges safe from loss of funds.

  1. Governor Bobby Jindal suggested cuts to higher education—as high as $600 million. Louisiana State University (LSU) went so far as to draw paperwork to file for academic bankruptcy just in case the state decided to go through with the decreases.
  2. Louisiana legislators approved a “spending plan that favors higher education.” The plan included $615 million in new revenue that would save the state’s colleges and universities, including LSU, from having to lay off employees and cut programs and services due to the budget shortfall.

According to NOLA.com, the original plan had the House Appropriations Committee raising close to $1 billion. Because that plan didn’t go through, the House still had to make cuts. Fortunately for higher education, those reductions were redirected elsewhere.

Healthcare funding will “fall $180 million short” and the new University Medical Center in New Orleans is missing close to $90 million due to the lack of state revenue.

On one hand, it’s great that the future of the state’s college students will not be compromised due to a budget shortfall, but Louisiana’s most vulnerable may be in peril because of bad money decisions by the state’s leaders.

  1. The state’s scholarship program called TOPS would see funding limitations as a result of the budget shortfall. This will require families in the state to assume more responsibility “for coverage more of their tuition bills moving forward.”
  2. Louisiana education leaders are asking for “twice as much money next year” after the state’s budget crisis this past year.

Currently state schools receive nearly $770 million in funding, but due to the shortfall and other needs, leaders are requesting $1.4 billion in funding for 2016-2017.

But the request is steeped in good news. While Louisiana may have budget issues, the additional money is needed to keep up with a growing workforce in the state.

“Higher education needs to add slots and expand programs at both two-year and four-year colleges to meet these needs, but doesn’t have resources to do so currently,” officials said.

According to NOLA.com, the state’s job market demands cannot be met if new money isn’t approved.

It will be tough sledding as education leaders had to fight just to get the current level of funding. In order to meet budget needs, many states–including Louisiana–will cut higher education funding to stay afloat.

NOLA.com reports that “[s]ince 2008, more than $700 million has been removed from Louisiana’s colleges and universities’ budgets — a larger cut than any other state higher education system in the country has had to endure.”

It’s why leaders are concerned that filling critical positions in the state’s workforce will be compromised if the new money isn’t approved.

A decision on when, or if, the request will be approved will not come until the state legislature meets for its next session in 2016.

  1. Bobby Jindal wanted more education cuts in Louisiana. Governor Bobby Jindal reportedly wanted to cut over $600 million from higher education, but was rebuffed by leaders in the state legislature.

In speaking with the press in late 2015, Jindal notes that he was upset that lawmakers didn’t cut from the state’s higher education fund.

To close the state’s budget shortfall, lawmakers used money from the rainy day fund. Despite Jindal’s opposition, the fact that higher education funds weren’t slashed even further is good for just about everyone else.

Nola.com notes that the move saved many schools from being reorganized.

“The Louisiana Legislature voted overwhelmingly last week to draw down around $28 million from the rainy day fund to cope with a midyear budget shortfall. The move allowed public colleges and universities to avoid reductions in the current budget cycle — though the outgoing governor said he would have preferred more reductions.”

Governor-Elect John Bel Edwards says that he wants to increase the budget for higher education, which will undoubtedly appease education leaders in the state.

Louisiana changed their course, but many other states are not so lucky. Students are being priced out of attending post-secondary institutions, the quality of higher education has been compromised, and we’re still grappling with how to properly keep many colleges afloat.

That, unfortunately, is the price we pay for bad policy.

Thoughts on the trend of higher education cuts? Did Louisiana make the right decision in bucking this trend? Please share your thoughts.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

5 Steps to Data-Based School Reform—the Common Sense Way

Are you interested in reforming a school or a district? Let’s go back to basics.

The first step to positive K-12 reform within a school or a district is to find a starting point. Often, data sets are used to determine this. This is great, but what if I told you there was another way? One that could capture the whole picture just a little bit better than data alone?

Here’s how successful school districts can improve with both data and common sense observations:

1. Develop an evaluation plan. This is to measure how effective a reform effort is.
Create performance goals. These goals will come in handy once it’s time to see how well your school or district is doing with the new changes.

2. Evaluate the pros and cons of instructional programs. School reformers need to do this regularly. You also need to realize that standardized tests should only make up a piece of the assessment puzzle, not the entirety. Continuously monitoring the progress the school’s student body makes will allow your task force to make changes to the reform plan when it’s necessary.

3. Put in some checks and balances. Make sure a variety of reformers are making the important decisions.
For instance, superintendents are responsible for making sure that creating and sustaining improvements is done in a way that meets students’ needs. The team leader’s job is to ensure teachers have all of the tools needed to help their students excel in class.

4. Keep everyone accountable. This is something that districts all over the country acknowledge as the key to improving schools. Everyone is expected to perform. To make sure this happens, the school district needs to provide staff and faculty members with high-quality professional development.

5. Keep an eye on your restructuring efforts. Your team should have useful data meant to track progress toward the goals set in step 1. Now it’s time to decide who will collect, analyze, and interpret that data. The best way to avoid bias is to hire an outside consultant—your team will receive more objective feedback about your reform efforts.

On a limited budget? Don’t worry—evaluating the results in-house is still a highly desirable option.

After analyzing the data, your team can then use the results to determine how effective the reform was.

What happens if the reform fails? Don’t worry. School restructuring is a long-term process. Simply build upon the small successes and learn from mistakes. Your team can then come up with new solutions, or fix the old solution to better suit the school’s needs.

If you want permanent improvement, reform has to occur continuously. Even the best schools need to continue to work on their restructuring process.

Is a long-lasting school reform that changes the lifeblood of the school possible? Yes, of course. It may not be easy, but with a tremendous effort, the proper use of resources, and the expertise of professionals, school reform can be wildly successful.

You may have noticed that I do not focus on data in this article. Does that mean it’s not important? No, of course it doesn’t! However, there is a lot more that goes into the bigger picture of smart school reform. Districts should recognize that and work towards solutions that not only make sense on paper, but also in real life.

Is data important? What role do you think it plays in school reform efforts? Don’t forget to leave a comment.

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, International Education

What fewer women in STEM means for their mental health

Jennifer Drake, University of Toronto

“You’re in engineering!?! Wow, you must be super-smart…”

It has been over 10 years since I was a first-year engineering undergraduate student; but when I remember the time a fellow female student made this comment, I can still feel a visceral, bodily reaction: my muscles tense, my heart rate increases, my breath quickens.

Comments like these on the surface appear as compliments. But when unpacked, they reveal subversive attitudes about women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

As I think back to this encounter, there are two aspects that stay with me. First was the surprised, skeptical tone of the other student’s voice that conveyed it was surprising and unusual (or, to put it more crudely, freakish) that I was in engineering. Second was the attitude that since I was in engineering, this could be explained only if there was something exceptional or outstanding (or, once again, freakish) about me. Women remain an underrepresented group in STEM. In Canada, women account for 23% of engineering graduates and 30% of mathematics and computer graduates. In the United States, women are 12% of the engineering and 26% of the computing workforce.

The reality is that STEM professions are most commonly male and it remains surprising when these professional roles are held by women. The large gender imbalance means that women may naturally feel they’re outsiders at school and at work. This situation is often uncomfortable and mentally demanding, when even just showing up and doing your job comes with constant social stresses and anxiety. Ironically, the difficulties that they (we) encounter often dissuade the next generation of women from joining us. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle that we need to break.

Fight or flight, designed for quick response

Because of their underrepresentation, women in STEM often regularly question their place in these professions. When things feel uncomfortable – like when I was confronted with that comment a decade ago – our brains can overinterpret the situation as an imminent threat. And there’s an evolutionary reason for that physical response.

Stress is an adaptive response to perceived threats. It’s how the body reacts to these situations. Anxiety is stress that lingers after the immediate threat is gone; it’s experienced as a feeling such as embarrassment, fear or worry.

Fight-or-flight is a physiological response.
Jvnkfood, CC BY-SA

This stress response evolved in human beings to help us navigate a wild, dangerous and unpredictable world. When faced with imminent danger, like a pouncing tiger, our bodies have evolved an automatic reaction to help us react fast. Stress hormones are released, the heart beats harder and faster, breathing becomes rapid and muscles tense, ready for action.

This automatic response prepares our bodies for possible actions: fight or flight! From the perspective of evolutionary adaptation, it’s in our best interests NOT to distinguish between life-threatening and non-life-threatening dangers. Act first, think later. In the African wilds in which early humans roamed, the consequence of underreacting could mean death.

Good during lion attack, less good during daily life

In modern life, we don’t have to worry much about attacks from lions, tigers or bears. But adaptive mechanisms are still very much a part of our brain’s biology.

The flight-or-flight response is intended to be short-term. The problem comes in when stress becomes a daily part of life, triggering a physiological response that’s actually detrimental to health over the long term. Repeated and long-term releases of the stress hormone cortisol cause changes in brain structure that leave individuals more susceptible to anxiety and mood disorders, including depression. When exposed to long-term stress, the brain structure called the hippocampus shrinks, affecting one’s short-term memory and ability to learn.

Subtle cues can make female students feel marginalized.
World Bank Photo Collection, CC BY-NC-ND

Messages you don’t belong can be stressful

These physical stress responses can unfortunately run at a constant low level of activation in people who are made to feel like they don’t belong or aren’t good enough – such as women in STEM. Social situations like my undergraduate encounter – and their ramifications – are a part of day-to-day life.

The effects of stress on women in STEM fields are often already obvious during their undergraduate studies. A study of women in engineering at the University of Waterloo has shown that female students tend to have lower overall mental health. Women in STEM fields are more likely to report higher levels of stress and anxiety and higher incidences of depression.

Sadly, the percentages of women working in these fields have remained stagnant for decades. In 1987, women represented 20% of the STEM workforce in Canada. In 2015, their numbers remain unchanged at 22%. In the United States, the reality is very similar, with women representing 24% of the workforce. Confrontational reactions like “You’re in engineering!?!” communicate the message that as a woman, one may not belong in the social group of engineering. The brain perceives these kinds of social interactions as threatening, dangerous and stressful.

The social cues that women may not belong in male-dominated STEM fields can often be subtle. For example, researchers have shown that the presence in labs of objects considered stereotypical of computer science, such as Star Trek and video game posters, are perceived as stereotypically masculine and can dissuade women from expressing interest in topics like computer programming.

Moreover, seemingly complimentary “Wow, you must be super-smart!” comments also communicate an even more troubling possibility that, in order to belong in this group (of men), as a woman, one must be exceptional. Women + Engineering = Super Smart.

But what if a female student is not exceptionally intelligent? What if she is only ordinarily smart? Or, even more troubling, what if she does not believe that she is smart at all? In her mind, she becomes a sheep in wolf’s clothing, an impostor who has tricked those around her into accepting her into a group where she does not belong. From the brain’s perspective, this is literally interpreted as being in the lion’s den.

Women can flourish in STEM, but it can mean shutting out the noise.
USAID Asia, CC BY-NC

STEM should welcome everyone

So what can be done? If we are to increase the participation of women in STEM fields, we must make workplace and educational environments inclusive. In order to thrive, female students need to believe that they belong in technical professions, in both academia and the private sector.

The social marginalization caused by gender imbalances in STEM programs can be mitigated. Targeted intervention programs that foster social belonging and coping mechanisms to deal with stress and threat can help women develop skills to handle the mental challenges caused by gender inequality and help women integrate into their male-dominated environment.

Connecting female students with female professional role models such as mentors or instructors has also been extremely effective at improving women’s self-concept and commitment to STEM.

Finally, campaigns like the #Ilooklikeanengineer hashtag disrupt our common stereotyping of STEM professionals and help support a cultural shift.

The rates of female representation in STEM will not change overnight. It will probably be at least another generation before parity becomes an achievable target. But it’s through changing these attitudes and stereotypes that we will reduce some of the social stresses on women in these fields, helping women choose STEM as a career path, stay in these fields, and most importantly, remain healthy and happy.

The Conversation

Jennifer Drake, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Policy & Reform

Study: U.S. teachers are absent too many days

A study from the National Council on Teacher Quality looked at teacher attendance for over 234,000 teachers in 40 districts during the 2012-13 school year.  Teachers in the U.S’s largest school districts missed an average of 11 days, and 16 percent of teachers missed 18 days or more.

Kate Walsh, president of the Washington think tank that advocates for teachers says, “Big city school districts are striving to improve student achievement, yet they seem to forget one of the most basic aspects of teacher effectiveness; teachers being on the job regularly, teaching kids.”

Nancy Waymack chimes in, “Teacher absences affect student achievement. No matter how engaging or talented they are, teachers can only have an impact if they are in the classroom.”

The cities with the lowest average absences include Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Louisville, Tampa and Washington, D.C.  The highest teacher absences occur in Columbus, Cleveland, Ohio, Nashville, Portland, Oregon and Jacksonville.

The study was based on a 186-day school year and did not factor in long-term absences for maternity or paternity leave or serious illnesses.

Absences also cost a lot of money. The 40 districts spent around $424 million to pay substitute teachers.

It was also noted that districts with formal policies to discourage teachers from missing school do not appear to have higher attendance rates over schools without policies in place.

I agree with Walsh and Waymack. Teachers need to make it a priority to be present in the classroom.  There are always occurrences where they may be absent a couple of days, but ultimately students need a teacher to be present consistently in order for students to reach their full potential.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Teachers

Emails and Teacher Morale

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Megel Barker

I overheard a conversation a few days ago between two of my colleagues. The text of the interchange was the concern with the frequency of emails and more importantly there was some doubt about the relevance of most of them. The conclusion centered round the idea that emails were a major distraction to the serious issue of teaching. One colleague signed off with a retort that maybe we were all better before emails.

This final utterance really made me think. I pondered what the world of teaching was like before emails became the daily deliverer of information. How did we get by? A cursory check with other teachers conveyed a similar annoyance with the uninvited intrusion of email on their daily duties. Another task added to the ever burgeoning list of ‘to-dos”.

Twilight Zone

But how could we arrive at this place? How is it that in the age of information, teachers are feeling overwhelmed, confused, tensed and lost when confronted with an inbox of school e-mails? Rather strangely, we seemed to have entered a twilight world of either under-information or over-information. The former, occurs when important emails become swamped or lost in your inbox, while the latter manifesting as being told everything happening in school. So where did we go wrong? Do we all need to know that someone’s goldfish died? Do we all need to know that a new student has joined the school, when I won’t teach him this year?

A quick survey among my colleagues, gleaned a similar sentiment. Emails are the bane of teacher communication in fact it is even being touted as having significant contribution to teacher morale. How could such a technological improvement, one that enhances the sharing of information and is proven to improve time become the sore thumb in a school environment? I have even heard the words “detest” and “hate’ being associated with some teachers’ feelings toward this mode of communication.

Staff Morale

Knowing that email must be a good thing, I decided to look at email from a purely mathematical perspective and see if it was possible to determine an optimal solution to this dilemma. The common thread that I identified from my simple survey was that email had two variables affecting the environment in which it operates. These variables were Email Volume (EV) and Email Relevance (ER). Email Volume was literally the number of emails received daily, while relevance referred to the impact the email had on the teacher carrying out their daily functions effectively.

The graphic shows four possible situations that teachers can encounter in their work environment. Each scenario has, I believe, a tremendous impact on teacher morale.

Situation A

Situation A is the case where there is a high volume of emails in the school environment. Everyone emails and everything is emailed. All important documents are shared by emailed and all official communications are disseminated by this medium. Staff is expected to read emails but is also expected to read and respond in this way. The reality of this is that the emails are all important! They have high relevance to staff’s daily work but the volume is quite high. This type of environment is quite pressured, where staff feels compelled to read emails but is strapped for time. The morale in that environment is

Situation B

A full inbox is the daily expectation. In this scenario, everything is shared and important emails get lost in the traffic. Teachers are constantly informed about every event in school with numerous follow-ups and communiques that involve issues that require no action. Social events and social notes are posted without concern for who might want to know. The bulk group “all teachers” is used with impunity. This creates an environment that makes teachers disconnect from the emails. They adopt a system that involves requiring them to be reminded that an email was sent. This disconnection can lead to a level of apathy among teachers and paradoxically also a level of tension. This tension, coming from the sensation, that they might be missing something that has great importance.

Situation C

An almost empty email inbox is the daily fare. Numbers of messages in your inbox is small and is irrelevant. This is not a common scenario for most teachers however it is an all too familiar experience for new teachers. This situation plagues the newcomer mostly and can be traced to not being added to main mailing lists. The natural outcome of this is that the teacher is less informed about important and relevant issues and is constantly left to find things out at the coffee bar or in the staff room. Teachers can either disengage from the system or they can complain that they do not know what is going on. Morale is indeed low here; a feeling of detachment persists and can affect performance especially if high relevance information is not shared.

Situation D

The only emails received have high relevance to the teacher’s practice. There is a very low volume of email but each email is entirely impacting on daily practice. Even though the volume is low, the information shared is current, composed and clear. In this scenario, it would be expected to have other means of sharing information such as Google Drives or folders kept on a local server with vital forms and archived information. Essentially, there is an expectation that the only people who get the emails are the ones who will be able to do something about it. Morale here is high and teachers feel valued, they feel their time is being recognized as truly important and so they respond by being energized and motivated. Work gets done and communication is valued.

The table above shows my summary of the four potential dimensions of email in the workplace and the prevailing morale. Despite the clear cry from all I interviewed for situation D, none of my respondents felt they had experienced this Utopian world. In fact they feel it is impossible to have this outcome at their current workplace. This is worrying. Emails should make us more efficient. I propose that Situation D is the optimal solution and I believe that schools should strive for this to materialize. So how do they do this?

An email protocol?

While there will be positives and negatives regarding this, schools should engage with their staff and collaborate on an email protocol. Some key features of this would include:

  1. Clarity on who is copied on emails
  2. Who uses the bulk email features such as “allstaff@….com
  3. The frequency with which emails are shared from admin
  4. Other means of sharing information such as cloud drives
  5. Use of “reply all”
  6. The frequency of social emails
  7. How the subject line of the email is worded

So, which of these scenarios best describe your current email climate? Is my description of staff morale correct? Please respond to my survey by clicking on the link: http://goo.gl/forms/I7y6P9hPXh.

____

Megel Barker is a Google Certified Educator that has taught mathematics for 21 years. He’s currently Assistant Principal at an International School in Oman and has written two workbooks that support the Oman GED Exams. You can follow him on Twitter @mathter.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch

4 Ways School Administrators Can Discover Their Unique Leadership Style

Each administrator has his own unique personality traits. So as can be expected, some leadership styles will appeal more to some school administrators than others. The natural differences in personality among various leaders lead to preferences that run below the leader’s awareness.

What often happens due to these personality traits is that a leader develops judgments, and responds to his or her environment by focusing on certain leadership aspects more than others.

Variations caused by factors such as age, upbringing, and gender have been shown to affect the way personality is developed and expressed. Practices are also influenced by the interaction between personality and contextual aspects associated with the workplace. Examples of these contextual aspects include the perceived nature of work, the leadership experience, the school level, and the leader’s position.

So which is the best way forward? What can school administrators do to find the leadership style that simply clicks for them and leads to unbridled success? Here are a few tips.

1. School leaders and administrators should first acknowledge their inborn, natural tendencies toward some practices over others. They should then reflect on whether these preferences affect their leadership practices. Honesty and transparency in admitting personality differences would motivate the leaders to consider ways to satisfy the various needs of their schools. Self-awareness is a necessary step before leaders can really engage in effective team-building.

2. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Many researchers consider delegation vital for leadership success. Research has shown that delegation is dependent on personality preferences, which translate to foregone conclusions in leadership behavior and in competence. The leader’s preferences are heavily influenced by what is natural, comfortable, and enjoyable for the leader.
Delegation allows the leader and team members to do what they do best.

3. School leaders need to consider the administrator’s preferences when it comes to shaping school leadership responsibilities. They will end up attempting more modest efforts, which sounds counterintuitive—but the success of this practice is actually based on sound research. While this may be more supportive of a differentiated rather than instructional leadership style, the importance of including varying differences of opinion is vital for any leadership model.

4. School leaders should embrace their differences as assets when working together. As schools seek to redefine themselves as learning communities, its members must work together in a friendly, cooperative fashion, by challenging and engaging with each other. Jungian theory finds that diversity generates synergy and innovation. Most leadership researchers and theorists have noted that human differences provide the creative tension needed in the forward movement and growth of any institution. Models of leadership that ignore the nature of leaders tend to be far less effective.
As school principals work to close the achievement gap in learning, they should strive to build a conscious understanding of their own natural preferences, in relation to instructional leadership.

Human differences are often depicted as weaknesses, and are quickly pushed aside. Seeking to address them in a meaningful way, instead of dismissing them, can be a seed for success in educational leadership.

Do you think that leaders need to be aware of and develop their unique leadership qualities to be successful at school? Why (or why not)? Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Teachers

A winning formula: how to pick the best teachers

John Hattie, University of Melbourne and Terry Bowles, University of Melbourne

It’s one of those debates that has seemingly gone on forever. All the way back to the ancient Greeks, people have been trying to figure out the best way to choose teachers.

Australian governments, most notably the NSW government and their commonwealth counterparts, have made “lifting the bar” to entry into the teaching profession a priority. Most recently, education minister Christopher Pyne announced plans to have aspiring teachers sit exams before getting into the classroom. While other states are trying to set university entrance score cutoffs for teaching.

These governments are seeking to tackle the perception (and, in some cases, reality) that there is a decline in the standard of entry into the teaching profession. Indeed, it is true that the average Australian Tertiary Admission Ranks (ATAR) for undergraduate teacher education have been slipping year on year, with some universities accepting applicants into teaching with ATARs below 50.

But ATAR cutoffs aren’t the best measure for the quality of pre-service teachers, and they would only likely affect the 40% of people who use ATARs to get into teaching in the first place.

But with quality teaching having such a big impact on student achievement, we should be looking at ways to better select teachers before they enter the classroom. If not, just to address the problem of so many new teachers dropping out.

The question is: how?

TeacherSelector

We, along with colleagues at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE), have developed one tool that could be used, called TeacherSelector.

A web-based tool, TeacherSelector is comprised of a battery of tests and is now used by a number of education institutions in Australia and overseas to help with their selection processes. We are also using it, along with a student’s academic record, to better select students into the Master of Teaching from next year.

TeacherSelector sees students complete a series of questionaires online, over a period of about one to one and a half hours. These questionnaires are based on what qualities we know excellent teachers have; factors like achievement, experience, motivation and personal attributes. The aim is to select people into teacher education programs who will suit the teaching profession.

After all, there’s more to being a great teacher than getting high academic scores. They also need relationship skills, communication skills and sensitivity to others. We know that previous academic achievement and experience as well as certain aspects of personality, can give us a pretty good picture of an individual’s future success in teacher education and their teaching career.

Using a Five Factor Model, we look at key personality traits, including emotional stability, conscientiousness, perseverance or grit, openness to views of others. We also ask open-ended questions about how individuals engage with others, apply themselves to tasks and manage emotion under stress when there are many competing demands on their time. This information can tell us a lot about an individual’s ability to self-regulate, their resilience, their communication style and other personal attributes.

There are also sections asking for transcripts of academic performance, but to complement this, TeacherSelector also measures general cognitive ability, including numerical, verbal and spatial reasoning. This is because general cognitive ability has been shown to be a good predictor of high performance as a beginner teacher.

Finally, the test also covers the individual’s motivation for, understanding of and experience with teaching, through a series of written responses; highly effective teachers are known to be passionate about teaching and learning, and show a deep understanding of their content area.

What we’re finding out

Our findings about TeacherSelector to date generally confirm what we already know, but we are also finding that candidates have a strong interest in using their individual results as as way to become a better teacher. They can identify their own strengths, as well as areas they would like to work on, and take proactive steps to address these, with the support of academic staff.

We are also interested in the predictive capacity of the tool and have embarked on longitudinal studies to establish which factors predict prolonged career engagement and service.

TeacherSelector is not dissimilar to other selection processes that have been used for many years in disciplines like business and medicine, as well as professional career selection. Given the high stakes involved in recruiting the right candidates into teaching, it’s wise to introduce similar measures in education, for the good of our teaching students and, ultimately, students in schools.

The Conversation

John Hattie, Professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne and Terry Bowles, Academic, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

While rethinking admissions process, consider creativity

James C. Kaufman, University of Connecticut

The Turning the Tide report released last week by the Harvard Graduate School of Education has colleges and universities across the country taking a hard look at what many believe is a deeply flawed admissions process.

A number of colleges have already been reexamining their admissions process. In September last year, more than 80 leading colleges and universities announced the formation of the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, so as to make changes in the admissions process and diversify student bodies.

The new report characterizes the message being sent by colleges to high schools “as simply valuing their achievements, not their responsibility for others and their communities.” It asks college admissions officers to take the following three primary steps to improve the admissions process so that it is fairer and inculcates a concern for others:

  • promote more meaningful contributions through community service and other engagement for the public good
  • assess how students engage and contribute to family as well as community across race, culture and class
  • redefine achievement in ways that level the playing field for economically diverse students and reduce excessive achievement pressure.

However, what often gets left out of admission criteria is a student’s creativity. As a creativity researcher, I have studied many aspects of creativity that reinforce the idea that creativity is a valuable and necessary attribute for students in the 21st century.

Why measure creativity?

Creativity can be seen at all levels – from young children to geniuses. Creativity can help us discover new things, from the next generation of smartphones to new ways of recycling our trash.

It enables us to make art, tell stories, design buildings, test hypotheses and try new recipes. Indeed, creative people have been found to be more likely to succeed in business and be happier in life.

There is a growing volume of research that shows putting greater emphasis on creativity assessments in the college application process could provide a more holistic impression of students’ potential. Right now, we look only at a narrow range of abilities, which means that we over-reward people with certain strengths and penalize people with other strengths.

SAT is a better predictor of success for white students.
Dennis S. Hurd, CC BY-NC-ND

Studies have shown that the most widely used standardized performance tests for college admission, the SAT, is a better predictor of college success for white students than African-American and Hispanic-American students.

However, creativity assessments are more likely to be gender- and ethnically neutral, thereby avoiding the potential for bias.

A study we conducted recently on more than 600 college applicants compared applicants’ performance on a series of online tests assessing various forms of creativity to application data, which included SAT scores, class rank and college admission interview scores.

We found that traditional admissions measures (SAT scores and GPA) were only weakly related to the creativity measures. Further, people with high creative self-efficacy (i.e., people who think they are creative) did slightly worse on some admission tests.

We are continuing to capture data about students over the course of their college careers to assess whether including creativity tests with traditional admissions measures can better predict student outcomes such as retention, college success and graduation rates.

Assessing creativity makes a difference

We do understand that assessing students’ creativity would not be easy. But that is not to say it is impossible.

As part of the admissions process, students could be asked about how they would solve world problems or what their dream job would be or how they would spend lottery winnings; these responses could then be rated for their creativity by admission officers or trained raters. Many studies have shown that this is a reliable and valid way of measuring creativity, although it can be resource-intensive.

Students participate in creative teamwork. Can creativity be measured?
Creative Sustainability, CC BY-SA

Some universities may ask such questions in current admissions, but most do not actually score answers for creativity. In fact, being creative on admissions essays can actually hurt students.

If there are concerns about adding too much stress on students during applications, schools could use a portfolio approach in which students could simply upload a poem, drawing, movie, invention or science experiment that they have already produced.

The fact is that using creativity as a criterion in admissions has been done before. At one point, Cornell University Professor of Human Development Robert Sternberg and colleagues included creativity and practical intelligence as an optional part of college admissions at Tufts University. What Sternberg and colleagues found was that students enjoyed the application process more and the average SAT score of all applicants increased from previous years.

In an equally important outcome, differences on these new measures showed reduced or no ethnic differences, and minority admissions increased.

Such results are typical in creativity studies. Whereas many standardized or intelligence tests show ethnic, cultural or gender differences, creativity measures tend to produce no differences – everyone has the same potential to be creative.

Creativity is more important than ever as college and universities try to both emphasize diversity in their student population and seek future innovators in science, technology, engineering and math, otherwise known as the STEM fields. Including creativity helps accomplish both goals.

If early impressions of the Turning the Tide report are any indication, we could be heading into a pivotal time for college admissions. Such changes should not be limited to the scope of this landmark report. We need to be creative.

The Conversation

James C. Kaufman, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Secondary Education

Should college and high school diplomas be earned together?

The term “college prep” as it relates to high school paths has a different meaning than when I was a teenager. The high school courses that I took that were “college prep” were designed to prepare me for higher education after I first earned my high school diploma. Today, it’s not uncommon for high school students to have several college credits before they walk across that graduation stage — and some may even have associate’s degrees. Dual enrollment, where students can simultaneously earn high school and college credits, is offered in schools across the country, and supported through legislation (and President Obama has been a vocal supporter of it).

While critics may say it’s just too much too soon for teens, I tend to lean the other direction. I think it’s important to zero in on what possible careers high school students may aspire to have as adults and to start them down the path early — before they have a chance to drop out and before life gets in the way.

Dual enrollment extends beyond traditional classroom settings, too. Virtual classes for both high school and college curriculum are available to teens and the ability to manage both is much more flexible with this setup. Recently, Coffee County Schools and Wiregrass Georgia Technical College (WGTC) announced a partnership called the Wiregrass Regional College and Career Academy that will give students in 11 Southern Georgia counties a chance to take classes from both a fully accredited virtual high school and college. Students will be able to earn their high school diploma AND a college associate’s degree at the same time — with state-mandated tests and exams proctored at locations throughout the area. What’s more — the program is FREE through the state’s Move on When Ready initiative. The schools will tap K-12 virtual learning curriculum Odysseyware for course completion.

Earning both a high school diploma AND a college degree at the same time is certainly not for every student – but should be an option for those who are ready to jump start their careers.

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

2 Ways Educational Opportunity Has Risen 80 Percent Since 1970

According to the Historical Report of Opportunity, released by Opportunity Nation and Measure of America, educational opportunity has escalated by 80 percent since 1970. The Report defines Educational Opportunity as the number of children in preschool, the number of high school students who graduate on time, and the number of adults with an associate’s degree or higher. Over the past four decades, Massachusetts improved the most; Nevada, the least.

Let’s look a bit closer at how educational opportunity has manifested itself in the United States.

  1. More kids in preschool: Between 1970 and 2010, the number of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool increased by nearly four times, emphasizing the growing awareness of the benefits of early childhood education. Studies show that low-income children who attend high-quality preschool are more successful academically and more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in postsecondary education. Some states have cut funding for public pre-K, yet early childhood education continues to be a priority in many states.
  2. More adults getting degrees: Every state experienced growth in the percentage of adults aged 25 or older who obtained at least an associate’s degree. This indicates the changing global economy that requires higher levels of education of employees. During the four decades measured, Americans with at least an associate’s degree increased by 105 percent.

In 2013, 28 percent of children nationwide were enrolled in state-financed preschool. While 36.3 percent of Americans have at least an associate’s degree, economists predict that by 2020, two-thirds of American jobs will require some form of post-secondary degree or credential.

While Americans should be proud of the educational improvements our country has seen, we need to continue, or even pick up the pace to ensure people possess the skills required to build a powerful 21st-century workforce. This report acts as a good reminder to value the importance of education as the pathway to many of life’s successes.

Readers, what do you think about the educational improvements America has seen over the past several decades? Are these improvements good enough, or should we expect even more than what is happening? Let’s see your thoughts in the comment section below.

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