A new report from Public Agenda adds an important new voice to the conversation about higher education reform. "Still on the Sidelines" explores the potential of trustees of colleges and universities to be significant change agents in higher education. While a small minority of trustees we talked to was passionate about broad, fundamental change, the majority see their role as a supportive one, helping the president lead their institution in challenging times without entertaining significant change in the status quo.
Research Studies: Education
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Still On The Sidelines: A Public Agenda report for the Lumina Foundation
What's Trust Got To Do With It?: A Communications and Engagement Guide for School Leaders Tackling the Problem of Persistently Failing Schools
Too many students are languishing in schools that, for whatever reason, fail to meet their needs and help them meet their potential. The dilemma is even more acute because the boldest reforms to transform these schools often provoke angry, prolonged public opposition. Public Agenda's latest report offers a critical resource for leaders seeking to transform the nation's persistently failing schools.
One Degree of Separation: How Young Americans Who Don't Finish College See Their Chances for Success
The third in a series of surveys of young people on college completion, and their attitudes toward higher education, One Degree of Separation asks about how young Americans who don't finish further education see their future.
Changing the Conversation About Productivity: Strategies for Engaging Faculty and Institutional Leaders:
This report, by our Public Engagement team for the Lumina Foundation's Higher Education Productivity Initiative, builds on and extends Public Agenda's ongoing research on attitudes toward higher education reform.
Can I Get A Little Advice Here?: How An Overstretched High School Guidance System Is Undermining Students' College Aspirations
Based on a national survey of young adults ages 22 to 30, Can I Get A Little Advice Here? asks young Americans how much help they received from the high school guidance system when it comes to choosing a college or career or getting financial aid for college. In too many cases, young people tell us, the answer is "not much."
Squeeze Play 2010: Continued Public Anxiety On Cost, Harsher Judgments On How Colleges Are Run
Are college and universities doing all they can to keep costs under control? According to a report from Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, six out of ten Americans believe that colleges mainly care about their own bottom lines instead of making sure that students have a good educational experience.
With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them:
Most young adults who started college but didn't finish left because they needed to work more to make ends meet, according to "With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them", a survey designed to compare students who started, but didn't finish, their college education with those who received a degree.
COMMENTS:
Data Analysis (by Anonymous, on January 18, 2010)
Thank you for assembling a valuable data set on a critical topic- retention. I have been activley involved in this area for the past 15 years and would like to ask if your raw data are available for additional collaborative study. Specifically, by grouping all of the subsectors of postsecondary education together we lose some valuable insights. What I would like to either do my self or suggest that you do is to separate the data first between public community colleges and public four year universities. I have done this in Florida and the results are very different and thus the strategies to improve are also. It is my experience that the strategies for success are very different for community college students than they are for university students.
Thank you for assembling a valuable data set on a critical topic- retention. I have been activley involved in this area for the past 15 years and would like to ask if your raw data are available for additional collaborative study. Specifically, by grouping all of the subsectors of postsecondary education together we lose some valuable insights. What I would like to either do my self or suggest that you do is to separate the data first between public community colleges and public four year universities. I have done this in Florida and the results are very different and thus the strategies to improve are also. It is my experience that the strategies for success are very different for community college students than they are for university students.
Supporting Teacher Talent: The View From Generation Y
Research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates examining the views of Generation Y teachers shows that 71 percent are open to financial incentives for teachers who consistently work harder and put in more time and effort, with 25 percent "strongly" favoring such measures.
At the same time, only ten percent say student performance on standardized tests would be an "excellent" measure of teacher success.
COMMENTS:
Supporting Teacher Talent (by Anonymous, on December 14, 2010)
Is there evidence that teacher "talent" (“performance”, “intellect”, “motivation” or whatever vague metric you want to use) has declined or become more erratically distributed over the last century? Would providing teachers incomes that are a significant percentage of the incomes of Wall Street traders make a difference to student learning? While the Education profession has not attracted the best and the brightest in the population it is not clear to me that programs that seek to do so or at least financially reward “talent” will make a difference. Could it be that the failures of American Education are more the result of changes in American society? In the 1950s and 1960, for example, when America was striving to compete with the USSR militarily, technologically, scientifically and culturally intellectual interest in each of these areas was encouraged and funded. Kids were given chemistry, electronic and erector sets as toys not Legos and action computer games with mindless themes. I remember going to the chemical supply houses to buy chemicals, glassware (beakers, test tubes, flasks, etc.) and other equipment to conduct experiments as well as making bombs for which nowadays a kid would be put in prison. Bill Hewlett of Hewlett Packard grew up doing the same thing including making rockets. The shift from a manufacturing economy to a consumer economy paralleled a shift in status from what you invented, were interested in or made to what you consume. As kids have become the targets of all manner of consumer goods companies their intellectual interests have been subverted or perverted. Distractions have multiplied. For example, cell phones, Twitter and FaceBook are not only bottomless distractions that can consume a kid’s waking hours they are addictions that impede successful Education. Nel Noddings, the philosopher of Education (and education) points out that kids need caring to learn and develop as moral human beings yet that is precisely what American society based as it is on corrosive individualism, social Darwinism and market fundamentalism discounts.
Is there evidence that teacher "talent" (“performance”, “intellect”, “motivation” or whatever vague metric you want to use) has declined or become more erratically distributed over the last century? Would providing teachers incomes that are a significant percentage of the incomes of Wall Street traders make a difference to student learning? While the Education profession has not attracted the best and the brightest in the population it is not clear to me that programs that seek to do so or at least financially reward “talent” will make a difference. Could it be that the failures of American Education are more the result of changes in American society? In the 1950s and 1960, for example, when America was striving to compete with the USSR militarily, technologically, scientifically and culturally intellectual interest in each of these areas was encouraged and funded. Kids were given chemistry, electronic and erector sets as toys not Legos and action computer games with mindless themes. I remember going to the chemical supply houses to buy chemicals, glassware (beakers, test tubes, flasks, etc.) and other equipment to conduct experiments as well as making bombs for which nowadays a kid would be put in prison. Bill Hewlett of Hewlett Packard grew up doing the same thing including making rockets. The shift from a manufacturing economy to a consumer economy paralleled a shift in status from what you invented, were interested in or made to what you consume. As kids have become the targets of all manner of consumer goods companies their intellectual interests have been subverted or perverted. Distractions have multiplied. For example, cell phones, Twitter and FaceBook are not only bottomless distractions that can consume a kid’s waking hours they are addictions that impede successful Education. Nel Noddings, the philosopher of Education (and education) points out that kids need caring to learn and develop as moral human beings yet that is precisely what American society based as it is on corrosive individualism, social Darwinism and market fundamentalism discounts.
Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today
Two out of five of American K-12 teachers appear disheartened and disappointed about their jobs, according to Public Agenda's Teaching for a Living study, conducted with Learning Point Associates and released in association with Education Week.
Campus Commons?: What Faculty, Financial Officers and Others Think About Controlling College Costs
With budgets under pressure and anxiety about whether college is accessible to all qualified students, a report by Public Agenda points to the need for policymakers, public higher education leadership, and faculty to work together to find ways to keep public higher education costs under control.
Focus groups and interviews for our report, Campus Commons? What Faculty, Financial Officers and Others Think About Controlling College Costs, shows differing concerns among the men and women who are running and teaching at public colleges.
Squeeze Play 2009: The Public’s Views on College Costs Today
Public Agenda's latest Squeeze Play survey finds many people feeling uneasy about a key element of the American dream: a college education. Even though a solid majority considers a college degree indispensable, even more say college is financially out-of-reach for many qualified students.
The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk about Costs, Access, and Quality
“The Iron Triangle” examines the views of more than two dozen college and university presidents who shared their thoughts with us in lengthy, one-on-one interviews. We found that in the view of many college and university presidents, the three main factors in higher education—cost, quality, and access—exist in what we call an iron triangle, and any change in one will inevitably impact the others. This is in opposition to the public, business and government leaders, who don't accept the idea that there is necessarily a reciprocal relationship between cost, quality, and access.
Sharing the Dream: How Faculty, Families and Community Leaders Respond to Community College Reform
This Public Agenda report, prepared for the "Achieving the Dream" initiative to close achievement gaps at the nation's community colleges, offers insight into how the initiative's goals will be received by critical stakeholders in and around community colleges.
Squeeze Play 2008: How Parents and the Public Look at Higher Education Today
A record number of Americans now say a college education is necessary for success in the workplace and the vast majority say costs should not prevent qualified students from attending. But more than half say college prices are rising faster than other expenses and 62 percent say many qualified students do not have the opportunity for a college education. Minority parents are significantly more concerned about college access. The report finds Americans are generally positive toward higher education, but there is evidence that this satisfaction is beginning to erode.
Life After High School: Young People Talk about Their Hopes and Prospects
This survey of young adults examines the decisions they make about work or college. We found the vast majority of young adults, of all races, strongly believe in the value of higher education. But the study raises questions about the shortage of high school counselors and the economic pressures felt by many young adults, especially minorities. The study also portrays the hit-or-miss career path experienced by those who enter the work force with a college or technical degree.
COMMENTS:
Especially I truly enjoyed (by jacklinlewis, on December 24, 2011)
Especially I truly enjoyed your collection of such fascinating with natural situation regarding the expectation and Prospects of parents from their kids.Reporting each and every moment of life after school is so impressively written here that will definitely help them to face all situation.PowerSchool Services
Especially I truly enjoyed your collection of such fascinating with natural situation regarding the expectation and Prospects of parents from their kids.Reporting each and every moment of life after school is so impressively written here that will definitely help them to face all situation.PowerSchool Services
Public Attitudes on Higher Education: A Trend Analysis, 1993 to 2003
This analysis finds that parents of high school students are increasingly worried about access to college. African Americans and Hispanics are especially concerned about access. Among African Americans, there is a substantial increase in the number who say college education is a necessity. At the broadest level, however, attitudes about higher education have changed little, with the vast majority of Americans believing that a college education is more important than in the past and that we should not allow the price of higher education to keep qualified students out.
Meeting the Competition: College and University Presidents, Faculty, and State Legislators View the New Competitive Academic Arena
In interviews and group discussions with higher education officials and state legislators, we found a growing number say market forces and increased competition are reshaping academia. Yet there appear to be deep divisions between academics and legislators on how to respond. Many in higher education say disadvantaged students may be left out as institutions compete for the best students and most profitable programs with limited funding. Conducted for the Futures Project: Policy for Higher Education in a Changing World. 2002.
Great Expectations: How the Public and Parents -- White, African American and Hispanic -- View Higher Education
For most Americans, a college education has replaced the high school diploma as the gateway to the middle class, and we found African American and Hispanic parents are significantly more likely than whites to emphasize the value of higher education, not less. The public's focus isn't just on the credential but on the personal growth, skills and perspective that students take away from a college education. The public seems confident that anyone who really wants to go to college can find a way. But people acknowledge that poor families have a tougher time.
Doing Comparatively Well: Why the Public Loves Higher Education and Criticizes K-12
The first report to compare the public's perception of higher and lower education by examining the findings of a number of research projects. A report from The Institute for Educational Leadership, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Public Agenda. 1999. Available only by calling IEL at (202) 822-8405.
Taking Responsibility: Leaders' Expectations of Higher Education
Much has been said and written about the high cost of higher education. This Public Agenda survey reveals that employers, professors, government officials and higher ed administrators are no less perplexed by another problem on the nation's campuses: too many freshmen are not ready to take on college-level course work.
The Price of Admission: The Growing Importance of Higher Education
Based on a nationwide telephone survey, this study explores Americans' views on the importance of higher education, its cost, and American's access to it. Prepared for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, for copies call (408) 271-2699. Complete questionnaire results are available from Public Agenda for $20.00. 1998.
Enduring Values, Changing Concerns: What Californians Expect From Their Higher Education System
A reassessment of the views of Californians concerning their higher education system since 1993's The Closing Gateway (see below). Which attitudes were enduring and which changed in response to new developments within the State are examined. Available at no charge from CHEPC. Fax requests to 408-271-2697. Ask for Report #97-1.
Preserving the Higher Education Legacy: A Conversation with California Leaders
A follow-up to The Closing Gateway, this report is based on a series of in- depth interviews with 29 distinguished California leaders about California's higher education system. 1995. Available at no charge from CHEPC. Fax requests to 408-271-2697. Ask for Report #95-3.
The Closing Gateway: Californians Consider Their Higher Education System
Striking findings about Californians' and other Americans' views on the importance and accessibility of higher education are examined. 1993. Available at no charge from CHEPC. Fax requests to 408-271-2697. Ask for Report #93-6.
I graduated from high school in 2004 from a school near Cleveland, Ohio. After high school, I went on to college in which I graduated in 2008. My high school lacked the guidance for college bound studebts in that I can not remember if my high school had a guidance counselor or if such a person exists. High schools need to put more effort into the type of people hired to help students with college choices and less effort on sports, theatre/arts and other extracurricular activities that will not benefit students if they do not choose the right college. Overall, guidance counselors are an important part of the transition to college and they serve as an inspirational role for young adults moving forward to the next level of their lives.