The 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools, held in Washington, DC
The 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools, sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and Achieve, Inc., in partnership with the Business Roundtable, the James B. Hunt Institute, and the Education Commission of the States, was held in Washington, DC, on February 26 and 27. During the high school summit and the NGA Annual Winter Meeting that follows this week, the governors, lead by NGA Chairman Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and NGA Vice Chairman Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, met with education and business leaders, the president, administration officials, and congressional leaders.
The "2005 National Education Summit on High Schools" brought the nation's governors, as well as education and business leaders, together to address high school improvement issues, including the need to prepare students for the global economy by ensuring they have a solid education background. Other topics that were discussed: restoring the relevance of a high school diploma; increasing the graduation rate; closing the achievement gap; and aligning high school, college, and workforce expectations. During the summit, featured speakers included Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. In conjunction with the summit, Achieve, Inc., released and publicized various studies, including "Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts," "Rising to the Challenge: Are High School Graduates Prepared for College and Work?" and "The Expectations Gap." NGA released, "Getting it done: ten steps to a state action agenda," which identified ten steps governors can take to quickly put states on the path to redesign their high schools.
NGA also held summits in 1989, 1996, 1999, and 2001 and have been involved in the department's Preparing America's Future: The Secretary's High School Initiative. More information and companion materials and studies are available at the following sites: www.nga.org, www.achieve.org, and www.2005summit.org
Dream It. Do It. the Careers Campaign of NAM/MI/CWS Launched in the
Kansas City Region on February 8
In order to make manufacturing a preferred career choice by 2010, the Center for Workforce Success is reaching out to young adults, their parents, educators, their communities, and policy makers to change their perception of manufacturing's future and careers. The campaign is forming strong and committed coalitions from local civic, political, education, and business entities; launching a focused advertising campaign; creating a world-class Web site on the array of highly paid manufacturing jobs; and forming local partnerships with community colleges, technical schools, and local universities to respond to the interest in manufacturing careers. Visit the Web site at www.dreamit-doit.com (What's Working Newsletter, January/February Edition, Center for Workforce Success).
Meeting Announcement Reminder
As previously announced in the last issue of the OVAE Review, the OVAE State Administration and Accountability Group (SAAG) will be hosting three meetings to provide current legislative information and technical assistance in such areas as financial management and data analysis for state officials who administer Perkins grants. The meetings will be held in the spring and summer of 2005. Please see the descriptions below for the dates and topics of these meetings.
National Spring Leadership Meeting (April 11-13, 2005)
The National Spring Leadership Meeting will be co-hosted by the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) and OVAE and will be held at the Hilton Washington Hotel, 1919 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. The purpose of this meeting is to provide necessary information on legislation, research, and emerging issues important to career and technical education. There are networking and sharing opportunities, updates on legislation related to workforce development and education reform, and much more.
For more information, please contact Meghan Pauliny at (202) 737-0303 or mpauliny@careertech.org; Maury James at (202) 245-7781 or maurice.james@ed.gov; Kim Green at (202) 737-0303 or kgreen@careertech.org. Registration information and a draft agenda are available at www.careertech.org.
Financial Management Institute (April 13-15, 2005)
OVAE will hold the Financial Management Institute immediately following the National Spring Leadership Meeting, beginning at noon on April 13, also at the Hilton Washington Hotel in Washington, D.C. This event continues the department's tradition of offering financial management training for state financial and audit resolution staff that work on issues in vocational and adult education (Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Adult Education Act (Perkins III) and Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), respectively).
Among the proposed agenda topics are: Innovative Uses of Funds, Combined Funds, Financial Reporting, Grants Administration and Payment System (GAPS), GAPS Draw-downs and Carry-over Funds, Maintenance of Effort/Matching/Supplanting, Time Distribution, Indirect Cost Issues, Audit Process, Education Department's Central Automated Processing System (EDCAPS), Cash Management Improvement Act of 1990 (CMIA), and updates on any new legislation.
For more information, contact Nancy Brooks at (202) 245-7774 or nancy.brooks@ed.gov and Carroll Towey at (202) 245-7830 or carroll.towey@ed.gov.
Data Quality Institute (DQI) (June 14-16, 2005)
This conference, originally set for April 2005 in Washington, D.C., has been rescheduled for June 14-16, 2005, in Phoenix, Arizona, immediately following the National Association for State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium's (NASDCTEc) Career Clusters Institute. To the extent possible, participants of the DQI are invited to attend the Career Clusters Institute. (More information about the Career Clusters Institute can be found at www.careertech.org.)
Begun in 2001, the DQI aims to improve the quality and consistency of data collected by the states. OVAE has worked with the states in past years to improve the selection and implementation of measurement approaches and data collection systems. This year's focus will be to move from quality data collection to the application and use of data for program improvement.
Online registration will begin shortly. Meanwhile, the draft agenda may be accessed at www.edcountability.net. You may direct questions to John Haigh at (202) 245-7735 or john.haigh@ed.gov
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Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani kicks off STAR Pilot
Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani welcomed 350 teachers and program directors from six states participating in OVAE's Student Achievement in Reading (STAR) project to a live webcast February 28. Participating states included California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Ohio, and South Dakota. The two-day webcast kicked off a series of training sessions, as OVAE rolled out its new reading toolkit to the participating states and local pilot programs. The webcast featured sessions led by reading experts Mary Beth Curtis and John Strucker, focusing on the components of reading instruction. Capacity-building activities designed to support reading reform were also included.
Over the next twelve months, pilot sites will use the STAR Reading Toolkit to implement research-based reading practices in their programs. After pilot testing, the finished toolkit will be available to other states and local programs. "Tools" include strategies for determining students' skills and providing related evidence-based instruction for alphabetics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Beginning in May, the STAR technical assistance team will help each participating state conduct an intensive three-day institute based on the toolkit for pilot site teachers and administrators. Pilot sites will participate in monthly technical assistance calls supporting efforts to reform reading practice. Sites will also participate in a two-day follow-up training session beginning in October 2005 and collect data to evaluate the effectiveness of the STAR initiative.
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AACC/ACCT's National Legislative Summit in Washington, DC
The American Association of Community Colleges and the Association of Community College Trustees held their annual National Legislative Summit in Washington, DC, on February 13-16. The event, which drew over 1200 attendees, is held to influence public policy to benefit community colleges and their students.
On Tuesday morning, First Lady Laura Bush addressed the conference on the "Helping America's Youth" initiative. She talked about the importance of helping at risk students, especially those coming from low-income families, to realize that higher education doesn't have to be a dream, but rather that it can be a reality. She also went on to praise community colleges for their role in expanding education access to all. She said, "Community colleges have changed the paradigm of higher education in America. By making education accessible to all, you're building a nation of learners."
Also addressing the conference were Congressman Boehner and Senator Enzi, the chairmen of the House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over the federal education and job training legislation. Other speakers included the highest-level Democratic education policymaker and other noted political insiders.
To top off the conference, Secretary Margaret Spellings addressed the final breakfast session. She talked about the important role community colleges play in their respective communities saying "Community colleges offer opportunity for people of all ages, backgrounds, and life stories to gain the skills needed to thrive in this education economy." She also talked about the need to improve high school education, so as to place less stress on community college resources, and finally she noted that the president Bush's 2006 budget proposal significantly increases the aid for students to attend higher education institutions.
For more summit highlights go to http://www.acct.org
For the complete text of the First Lady's speech go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050215-7.html
For the complete text of Secretary Spellings' speech go to http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2005/02/02162005.html
OVAE to Release Major Study of Community College Students
With larger high school graduating classes over the past decade, it is not surprising that the proportion of community college students under the age of 22 has increased from 32 to 42 percent. The paths of this increasingly important population to and through the community college are described and analyzed in a new OVAE research monograph, Moving Into Town-and Moving On: the Community College in the Lives of Traditional-age Students.
In the dominant metaphor of this study, students come from high school to the town of the community college with different degrees of academic momentum, plans, and expectations. They establish residence for different periods of time and intensity. Some are only visitors, but more than half become longer-term tenants and homeowners. Each of these labels reflects different and complex degrees of involvement with the core economy and purposes of the community college-the distribution of knowledge and skills.
The most interesting groups of these students are the longer-term residents because the history of their course taking and attainment tells us a great deal about what the community college really does. And because the national longitudinal studies on which this data-essay is based include transcripts, there is a great deal of detail on the content of the community college curriculum. In fact, when the paths of these students are followed into the labor market, it is in terms of the contribution of specific course work to occupational preparation.
The success of community colleges in serving the traditional-age population is analyzed in terms of two outcome measures:
(a) transfer to a 4-year college and (for those who did not transfer)
(b) completion of an associate degree. The study explores the factors that contribute to students' attaining these outcomes and offers suggestions for improving transfer and degree completion rates.
Moving Into Town-and Moving On will serve as an important reference work for ED's new high school/community college partnership program as well as OVAE's growing portfolio of community college work on topics such as credit transfer, capacity, remediation, and workforce development. The paths described in the study should also prove helpful to community college administrators and faculty, along with state higher education officers, in designing indicators of institutional performance.
Hard copies of the full report will be available from ED Pubs in mid-March.
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