Evaluating the College and Career Readiness Act

by Sadya Khan

OCCRL was granted funding by the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) for a 3-year project to evaluate the state’s attempt to align high school and community college curriculum and reduce the need for remediation at the postsecondary level.  Evaluation questions from year one focused on goals, policies and practices employed by the CCR pilot sites, collaboration of various partners in implementing CCR, and the role of state and local organizations in supporting CCR. Selected findings from year one of the CCR evaluation include the following:

• All pilot sites shared a few common goals in implementing programs for the CCR program, including:
  • facilitating discussion and collaboration between high schools and the community college,
  • providing students with the skills and knowledge to score higher on placement exams, and
  • preparing students for the transition from high school to college.
• The pilot sites offered a wide variety of program approaches, including a range of target student populations, length and intensity of program delivery, curriculum content, and student services.
  
• Most pilot programs focused on college preparatory programs in math, with only a couple of colleges offering English/writing courses.
  
• Administrators associated with most of the colleges reported that parents and high school counselors are essential to the recruitment of students to the programs.

For more information, the year-one evaluation report is posted on the OCCRL website at http://occrl.ed.uiuc.edu/Projects/CCR/files/CCRYear_One_Report.pdf

Year two of the evaluation continues to focus on key practices employed by the pilot sites, as well as collaborative efforts by state and local partners in supporting CCR. Additional evaluation questions for year two include the following:

• What are the predominant patterns of academic (college preparatory) course-taking of rising senior students who engage in CCR remedial programs and supplemental services? What percentage of students progress to college preparatory coursework? 
  
• What are promising and sustainable models of remediation and academic assistance? 
  
• What other experiences and support services enhance student preparation for and transition to college, including student participation in college fairs, campus visits, career advising, college success courses, etc.?
  
• What are the intended and unintended consequences of student participation in CCR? What impact does the CCR program have on students’ aspirations for college and careers, their self-efficacy, and confidence?

Furthermore, year two of the CCR evaluation utilizes a model of college readiness developed by David Conley to evaluate students’ level of college readiness upon completion of the CCR interventions. Conley(2007) offers a comprehensive, multi-faceted concept of college readiness that includes both internal and external factors to the school environment.  The four facets of college readiness in Conley’s model are key cognitive strategies, key content, academic behaviors, and contextual skills and awareness, otherwise known as “college knowledge” (Conley, 2007).  These four facets are not perfectly separated from one another, but rather work together extensively to create a more comprehensive definition of college readiness (Conley, 2008).  (This issue of the UPDATE newsletter features an article by David Conley explaining his model of college readiness in greater detail).  In year two, the evaluation will work to operationalize Conley’s model of college readiness to measure CCR implementation.

In conclusion, key elements will be examined as OCCRL’s evaluation of the CCR Act moves into years two and three.  The evaluation will continue to identify and describe promising practices that attempt to address remediation and better prepare students to be college ready.  Additionally, as some of the colleges faced challenges with recruitment and retention of students in their CCR programs in year one, year two continues to look at the colleges’ strategies for increasing student participation and improving retention. Another priority for years two and three of the evaluation includes examining the coordination of state-level CCR activities with the local pilot programs.  As Illinois recently became the 34th state to join the American Diploma Network (Achieve, 2008), the CCR evaluation could facilitate the use of data in measuring student outcomes and identifying promising practices. The CCR Act has created the opportunity for Illinois to examine and reflect upon issues of college readiness, curriculum alignment, and remediation and determine the potential for various strategies and approaches to better prepare high school students to transition to college and careers. 

References

Achieve, Inc. (2008, October 15).  Illinois joins network of states committed to better preparing students for college and careers, [News Release].  Retrieved April 8, 2009 from http://www.achieve.org/node/1041.

Conley, D. T. (2007). Toward a comprehensive conception of college readiness. Eugene, OR: Educational Policy Improvement Center.

Conley, D.T. (2008).  Rethinking college readiness.  New Directions for Higher Education, 144, 3-13.

OCCRL (2009).  The Illinois college and career readiness act: Year-one evaluation results.  Retrieved April 13, 2009 from http://occrl.ed.uiuc.edu/Projects/CCR/files/CCRYear_One_Report.pdf  

Sadya Khan is a Visiting Project Coordinator with the Office of Community College Research and Leadership and can be reached at skhan2@illinois.edu.