Insights

This is the third in a series of blogs about efforts to eliminate equity gaps in the CSU. Thad Nodine describes the equity work underway on CSU campuses, based on their participation in the Middle Leadership Academy, a professional learning program that is supporting teams of CSU faculty, staff, and administrators in addressing equity-based opportunity and outcomes gaps on their campus. The blog also describes the Academy’s approach in creating a space where campus teams in the CSU come together to learn from colleagues and other campuses.

A long awaited window is opening. Governor Gavin Newsom’s first budget proposes $10 million to develop a longitudinal education data system that would “better track student outcomes and increase the alignment of our educational system to the state’s workforce needs.” But the people who will decide whether and how to create a statewide data system face some critical choices—namely, what purpose would such a data system serve? Who would use it and which questions would it be designed to answer?

In the second in a series of blogs about efforts to eliminate equity gaps in the CSU, Thad Nodine reports on the CSU Network’s fall Convening focusing on regional education partnerships and the use of data sharing to support equity-based inquiry and outcomes on CSU campuses. Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen and Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jorge A. Aguilar spoke to the gathered teams about the role of partnerships in achieving reforms and improving outcomes at their institutions. Then the teams got to work, discussing how to use the external partnerships to increase equitable student outcomes at their respective universities.

Three state education leaders—from K-12 education, the California Community Colleges, and California Competes, a nonprofit organization—welcomed a new cohort of 20 Fellows to the California Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP) during its first three-day seminar of the year. Each of the speakers shared their thoughts on California’s need to improve its ability to set and assess statewide goals across K-12 schools, postsecondary education, and workforce training programs. One obstacle stands in the way, California has no statewide coordinating body or data structure that spans its K-12 and higher education systems.

This is the first in a series of blogs to share information about efforts to eliminate equity gaps in the CSU. Thad Nodine separately interviewed two leaders in higher education who have dedicated their professional lives to understanding and addressing equity issues. Dr. William Franklin is vice president for student affairs at CSU Dominguez Hills. He currently spearheads a mentoring program for African American and Latino young men called the Male Success Alliance. Dr. J. Luke Wood is associate vice president for faculty diversity and inclusion and distinguished professor of education at San Diego State University. He also serves as co-director of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab.

California’s system for reporting student data is, well, not really a system at all. Should California develop a statewide education data system? What purposes would such a system serve? What kinds of data would be tracked and shared, and with whom? These are some of the questions that the education professionals in the California Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP) posed to each other and education leaders, in the final gathering of the 2017-18 Fellows.

What makes efforts to improve student success rates at large public universities so challenging, particularly in light of committed efforts by faculty, staff, and administrators to improve student learning, progression, and completion?

Transfer students at Cal Poly Pomona were historically perceived as needing less attention because they had successfully navigated the first years of their college journey. Over the past few years, CPP began to question this mindset and confront the unique challenges facing transfer students. In this blog, Norma Leon and Lorena Márquez trace the rise of the PolyTransfer Program and the efforts to foster a transfer-receptive culture on campus.

Colleen Moore, Assistant Director, Education Insights Center testified before the Senate Education Committee on April 11, 2018 as the committee debated SB 1224 (Glazer) Statewide longitudinal education and workforce data system. These are her prepared remarks.

What a difference a year can make. In February 2017, Katie Hern, co-founder of the California Acceleration Project, spoke with the inaugural cohort of the California Education Policy Fellows Program about the challenges of reforming developmental education statewide from the bottom up—after working campus by campus for almost a decade to spur changes in a system of 114 California Community Colleges. When she met with the second cohort of EPFP Fellows a year later, the policy landscape had completely changed.