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Report Opens Door to Strengthen College-Going Cultures
By Linda Wong on October 26, 2011 1:40 PM
Findings from a recent report released by researchers at the Center for Urban Education (CUE) and the National College Access Network (NCAN) will be used to improve college-going rates among minority high school students at two pilot schools and others in the Boston Public Schools (BPS).
The result of a year-long demonstration project involving two area high schools, the report aims to strengthen the college-going cultures of schools and improve the quality of college-access programs to boost college admissions among historically underrepresented students.
The participating schools are the Community Academy of Science and Health, a small college preparatory school with a student population that is nearly 75 percent African American, many of whom are of Haitian-Creole descent, and East Boston High School, a large comprehensive high school that is two-thirds Latino.
CUE and NCAN researchers worked with teams of teachers, administrators and program staff at both schools to look at data gathered from student records, surveys, interviews and observations to identify practices that were not working well for students.
Survey results showed that over half of the student respondents had college aspirations, and a third wanted to go to graduate school. But half of the ninth graders had not received any information about college admissions tests, and most did not know how to fill out college applications or financial aid forms. These findings were unexpected since each school had 10 to 15 college-access programs, with most run by community groups, colleges and universities and federally supported organizations.
To understand these discrepancies, CUE researchers led by Estela Mara Bensimon, professor of higher education and co-director of the center, used their action research tools so that school teams could look at their outreach and informational activities to find out why they were not working as well as they had thought.
For example, student survey findings at one school said that half of the students had never attended a college fair. The school team members found this hard to believe since the fairs had been in place for years. Initially they blamed the problem on students or their parents. As a result, CUE researchers helped the team reframe the issue from one of student disinterest to “how do we prepare students to participate in a college fair?” This line of inquiry made them realize that students were not adequately prepared to know what questions to ask or how to research colleges they might be interested in attending. According to NCAN executive director Kim Cook, they saw their students through a “new lens, the lens of equity.”
Another unexpected finding from school staff interviews and focus groups was the lack of teacher knowledge about the college application process. One teacher in a focus group said he wished he could have taken back the advice he gave to a student after listening to his colleagues. Feedback like this made school administrators and counselors realize that they needed to involve others. Said one team member, “… creating a college-going culture is a whole school collaboration. It isn’t just the guidance counselor; it is an entire school effort.”
As a result of their participation in the pilot project, made possible by funding from The Kresge Foundation to NCAN, the school teams developed action plans that will be implemented in the current academic year.
Marsha Inniss-Mitchell, director of the college ready initiative for Boston Public Schools, said the findings and recommendations will be used to strengthen Success Boston, a citywide effort to boost college completion rates for district graduates. According to Inniss-Mitchell, the demonstration project “has really supported BPS to build stronger alignment with college access and success partners, begin to strengthen the college-ready cultures in all district high schools and think about ways to better incorporate the use of data in our day-to-day work.”
TAGS: education
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