Celebrating education leaders who refused to accept marginal adjustments and resolved to approach problems and solutions comprehensively!
Auntravion Dominique Ellis hugs Valerie Jones, vice president of instruction, at Odessa College's 2015 commencement
When you really want to help students succeed...
you go big - approaching problems and solutions comprehensively!
A Hechinger Report op-edauthored by IEBC's Brad Phillips outlines how Odessa College - a Texas community college with a majority minority student population, refused to accept marginal adjustments that met a few students needs and instead resolved to scale high impact, research-based programs that served all students.
The results are profound. Over the past four years, every single disaggregated student group without exception (minorities, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, part-time and those in remedial courses) achieved record levels of success. The White House budget released this week would restore First in the World grants to support evidence-based strategies to improve college completion. Odessa provides an excellent model to follow.
Setting Students Up for Success
This time of year many high school students are weighing their options for college. For most people getting a college degree is the difference maker in getting a good job and opportunities for a satisfying life.
Seeing themselves in the opportunity-making business, Idaho public colleges are now automatically admitting high school seniors with a 3.0 or higher grade point average and SAT score of at least 1000. The initiative makes abundant sense, removing a key barrier to college. It is also an opportunity to align what is taught at the K-12 level with what students will need to know and do to succeed in college. There are signs of a tipping point toward support for secondary and post-secondary education systems working together. Read more.
Integrating Cultural Competence
Calling all community colleges! Reflect your increasingly diverse students by pulling cultural competence into your instruction, assignments, and assessments and watch your staff and students benefit.
Join the Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC), in collaboration with Educational Testing Service (ETS) for an intensive two-day workshop series for community college faculty, administrators and researchers in San Diego, Friday and Saturday, April 15-16, 2016. Sign up now for early bird rates.
Linked Learning Data
The Irvine Foundation selected IEBC to continue helping educators in Linked Learning districts across California grapple with, and understand, what data and other evidence can tell them about student progress and outcomes. IEBC research shows that the average high school graduation rate for class of 2014 students who were in a Linked Learning Pathway is 27 percent higher than for students who were not: 98 percent compared to 71 percent.
Effective data use is at the heart of Linked Learning's efforts and is helping expand the work to serve even more California students. With support from the James Irvine Foundation, IEBC developed a suite of data solutions to support Linked Learning districts. These products and services are designed to generate data reports that guide continuous program improvement. This approach allows the Foundation and Linked Learning Alliance to monitor progress as it expands, and respond with midcourse corrections and adjustments.
When Data Speaks...
Gates Foundation Senior Program officer Dr. Jennifer Engle was exactly right in saying that data isn't just data, but reflections of student needs.
In a video highlighting the foundation's report "Answering the Call," Engle talked about how some states and colleges are using data to improve student graduation and retention rates. Listening to data is listening to students and at the heart of efforts to continuously improve and meet students' needs.
Catching the Student Voice
Mobile research toolsare helping higher education institutions uncover the kind of changes and support students need to have an optimal college experience.
Understanding the student experience from the student perspective leads to dramatically more effective policies and practices.
Is Your Data Making Itself Useful?
IEBC's data use workshops and webinars across the country answer questions about data that get at the heart of improvement efforts. To learn more about
student success and data use, contact us at bphillips@iebcnow.org or call us at 760-436-1477.
Institute for Evidence-Based Change |
(619) 252-8503 | www.iebcnow.org
