Forgetting Our History of Learning Assistance Leads to Access Denied at Four-Year Institutions

There has been considerable converation on the Internet recently about the decision of Ohio to eliminate most or all developmental-level (they use the outdated term "remedial"). The state hopes students will take the necessary courses at a (hopefully) nearby community college. Listening to the leaders in Ohio and other states talk, you would get the impression that the offering of developmental-level courses is a rather recent invention. Actually, tutorial programs have existed on the college campuses when they began as early as the 1700s. Harvard University was the first institution to offer developmental-level courses in the late 1800s and other colleges -- public and private -- quickly followed suit. While the White students attending college in the 1800s might have been coming from families of wealth and influence, their academic preparation was weak in English, math, reading, or some combination of the three. Colleges had to offer developmental-level courses to provide a chance for success for these students.

Although learning assistance has been a significant and sometimes controversial element in higher education, it is underreported by many historians of postsecondary education. Developmenatl-level courses are just one example of learning assistance. Others would be tutoring, mentoring, drop-in learning centers, study skill workshops, and the like.

A review of the professional literature demonstrates that some higher education historians ignore and others lightly record histor­ical events concerning learning assistance in U.S. postsecondary education. Although the learning assistance community has published numerous articles, dissertations, and monographs (Lundell and Higbee, 2002), those writing broad histories of higher education in the United States have paid little atten­tion to this area and the students involved (Arendale, 2001, 2002a, 2002b; Brubacher and Rudy, 1976; Lucas, 2006; Jeynas, 2007; Rudy, 1996; Stahl and King, 2009).

A review of this component of higher edu­cation documented that many students throughout U.S. history were involved with learning assistance activities such as academic tutoring, enrollment in remedial or developmental courses, and participation in learning assistance cen­ter services. At times, learning assistance programs involved more than half of all college students at an institution (Canfield, 1889; Ignash, 1997; Maxwell, 1997; Shedd, 1932). The lines become blurred as students simultaneously enroll in courses at the developmental and college level in different academic subjects. Academic preparedness is not a characteristic of the student; rather, it is a condition relative to a particular academic course during the same academic term. It is inaccurate to designate students as “remedial” or “developmental,” for they may be competent or expert in one academic content area and need­ing learning assistance credit and noncredit services in another.

Kammen (1997) provides an explanation for underreporting the history of learning assistance, identifying “historical amnesia” as a potential cause. Quoting Ralph Ellison, he says, “Perhaps this is why we possess two basic ver­sions of American history: one [that] is written and as neatly stylized as ancient myth, the other unwritten and as chaotic and full of contradictions, changes of pace, and surprises as life itself” (p. 164). Distortions of memory occur for a variety of reasons, not only for cynical or manipulative motives (Kammen, 1997). The researcher engages in a long discussion concerning the similarities and differences between the “heritage syndrome” and true history: “The her­itage syndrome, if I may call it that, almost seems to be a predictable but cer­tainly nonconspiratorial response—an impulse to remember what is attractive or flattering and to ignore all the rest. Heritage is comprised of those aspects of history that we cherish and affirm. As an alternative to history, heritage accen­tuates the positive but sifts away what is problematic. One consequence is that the very pervasiveness of heritage as a phenomenon produces a beguiling sense of serenity about the well being of history” (p. 220).

Acknowledging the role and importance of learning assistance presents uncomfortable statements about higher education:

1. Academic bridge programs are necessary for many students to adjust to a college environment for which few are prepared academically or emotionally.
2. Developmental-level courses were necessary for the White students from priveledged families in the 1800s due to poor academic preparation.
3. Student subpopulations today other than the most privileged often need academic support systems to increase their chances for success resulting from dis­advantaged and deprived backgrounds. The same reason developmental-level courses were offered to White students of affluence in the 1800s is now denied to underrepresented and first-generation college students.
4. The need for learning assistance indicts the efficacy and effectiveness of ele­mentary and secondary education.
5. Scarce financial resources and personnel are necessary to meet the needs of students who are academically underprepared. Some students who drop out of college could have been retained through an effective learning assistance program.

Lack of knowledge about the history of learning assistance also contributes to current challenges for the field. For example, it is easier to curtail or eliminate learning assistance activities (especially developmental-level courses) if its historic importance for support and access to postsecondary education is not understood. As explored in the next chapter, learning assistance was an essential asset for colleges to support student achieve­ment and persistence. During the current period of financial emergency con­fronting many institutions, nonessential services are subject to reduction or elimination. It is not a surprise what Ohio higher education is doing since half a dozen other states have already enacted similar policies. Access to college just became that much more difficult for the "new" students to higher education.

• Arendale, D. R. (2002). A memory sometimes ignored: The history of developmental edu­cation. Learning Assistance Review, 7(1), 5–13.
• Arendale, D. R. (2002). Then and now: The early history of developmental education. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 18(2), 3–26.
• Kammen, M. (1997). In the past lane: Historical perspectives on American culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mission Differentiation: Code Language for Cutting Programs at Schools No Longer Wanted

The following is excerpted from my recent book, Access at the crossroads: Learning assistance in higher education (2010, Jossey Bass). Several of my recent blog posts have been about the elimination of developmetnal-level courses in Ohio. I also posted the message to the LRNASST email listserv and received reports from half a dozen other states that had previously enacted the same policy. I was disappointed to read that some people welcomed the decision since the students were better served at the two-year instiutions. I don't disagree about that result (as diappointing as that is). The issue I am concerned about is what happens when four-year institutions engage in "mission differentiation" and discontinue services and programs that had previously provided for more than 100 years. The following is my analysis of the practice and supported by research studies of others concerning the dramatic and negative outcomes as a result. -- David Arendale

Impact of Institutional Mission Differentiation on Learning Assistance

Economic challenges since the 1970s, especially among public institutions, have intensified. Land-grant institutions debate how to balance their historic egalitarian mission serving all state residents while curtailing programs and raising admission standards. Institutional leaders increasingly employ institu­tional “mission differentiation” to reign in costs and focus resources on the institution (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004). Mission differentiation recognizes institutions with special programmatic offerings and targeted student popu­lations. Selective college admission policies lead some to question the need for comprehensive learning assistance services, especially developmental courses.

Preliminary analysis of mission differentiation reveals unannounced and unanticipated outcomes for learning assistance (Bastedo and Gumport, 2003; Gumport and Bastedo, 2001; Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004). Analysis of learn­ing assistance policy in Massachusetts and New York confirmed that mission differentiation led institutions to terminate academic programs, eliminate remedial or developmental courses, and promote honors colleges. The result is stratification of academic program opportunity in the state. Prestigious and high-demand academic programs were offered at fewer institutions than before. For students, stratification encouraged higher admissions standards at upper-tier institutions. As a result, students had fewer choices for postsec­ondary education (Bastedo and Gumport, 2003; Gumport and Bastedo, 2001; Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004).

Another result was curtailment of developmental courses at upper-tier institutions in the state system (Bastedo and Gumport, 2003; Gumport and Bastedo, 2001). Developmental courses are often a key ingredient in providing access and success for historically underrepresented students. Bastedo and Gumport (2003) concluded that more intense analysis is warranted before sys­temic changes occur to avoid or at least predict major changes in the stratifi­cation of students’ opportunity to attend postsecondary education and the student support systems needed for their success.

As more historically underrepresented students from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds seek admission, important learning assistance infrastructures are dismantled (Bastedo and Gumport, 2003). Mission differ­entiation assumes incorrectly that college aspirants are more academically pre­pared, and institutional leaders therefore conclude that developmental credit courses and other traditional learning assistance activities are not needed. Increasingly, public four-year institutions curtail or eliminate developmental courses with the expectation that students needing such instruction easily access them at a community college (Bastedo and Gumport, 2003; Gumport and Bastedo, 2001; Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004). This option requires a local community college. Most students do not have the financial resources or time to commute long distances for such classes. These students often are finan­cially disadvantaged and possess little free time. They cannot commute to mul­tiple institutions for courses while maintaining a job (or two) to pay for college and support a family. Based on a national dataset, students who attend mul­tiple institutions are less likely to graduate from college than those who begin at the intended degree-awarding institution (Adelman, 2006).

Mission differentiation raises a new set of questions and conflicts in post­secondary education (McPherson and Schapiro, 1999). Access to higher edu­cation shifts to access to what form of education and under what conditions. Differentiation among institutions increases stratification in society (Anderson, Daugherty, and Corrigan, 2005).

• Bastedo, M. N., and Gumport, P. J. (2003). Access to what? Mission differentiation and aca­demic stratification in U.S. public higher education. Higher Education, 46(3), 341–359.
• Gumport, P. J., and Bastedo, M. N. (2001). Academic stratification and endemic conflict: Remedial education policy at CUNY. Review of Higher Education, 24(4), 333–349.
• Slaughter, S., and Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Soliday, M. (2002). The politics of remediation: Institutional and student needs in higher educa­tion. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

More questions about moving developmental courses to community colleges

I have been thinking more about my previous blog posting about Ohio's decision to join a growing list of other states with eliminating developmental-level (they call them "remedial") courses at four year institutions. I posted that message to a listserv populated by people who either teach those courses or are in another role in the field of learning assistance. Some have commented community colleges may do a better job or the shift to the 2 year is good. As someone who spent his first decade in community colleges, I understand their point. We often prided ourselves as able to devote more energy and attention to teaching than our counterparts at four-year institutions who also had heavy responsibilities for reserach, grant acquistion, and publishing.

A few questions to consider about passively watching state and institutional policies lead in that direction.

1. Why can't four year schools do the job? Who has more resources?
2. Why would we not hold four year institutions to the same if not much higher expectations than two-year institutions? I seem to remember a quote from President Kennedy about the decision to place a person on the moon, "we don't do this because it is easy, but because it is hard."
3. Is this issue really about effectiveness of DE courses and the best venue for them, or just another opportunity for the four year colleges to shift financial burden to the often modestly funded community colleges so they can invest in better skyboxes at the stadiums and pay more outlandish salaries to the CEOs?
4. Is this issue about best place for DE courses to be offered or is this part of the historic movement to get "those" students off the campus so as not to contaminate the "best and brightest" and negatively impact their national rankings since the DE course takers may have lower ACT or SAT scores?
5. What happened to the REQUIREMENT that all land grant institutions be open for the children of state residents? I don't remember any exemptions passed by Congress on this historic federal legislation?
6. Why was it the norm for colleges in America in the 1700s through much of the last century to offer DE courses but now things have changed? Could it be the change in demographics for who needs one or more DE courses due to poorly funded public schools or returning to college?
7. Finally, whatever happened to choice in America? Why should our children and young people not have the opportunity to begin their education wherever they want, especially with the public four year colleges we support through our ever increasing tax dollars?

What do you think? Please post a reply below and lets keep up the conversation.

Kicking the can down the road: Ohio four-year institutions to ban remedial courses. Tells K-12 to fix the problem.

The Hamilton Journal-News reported by 2015 nearly all remedial (also called developmental level) courses would be eliminated at public four-year colleges in Ohio. "The nearly 40 percent of college freshmen in Ohio who are not ready for college-level work will take most of their remedial courses at community colleges under a statewide plan that dramatically changes how four-year schools provide instruction to those needing extra help." The newspaper reporter stated, "Ohio is following a national trend that critics say could limit access to the four-year degrees many need for high-paying jobs. Some fear it may discourage some students from attending college at all." State education leaders, at least those at the four-year institutions, said the long-term solution was for elementary and secondary education to do a better job. "By the end of 2012, university and college presidents must develop standards of what it means for a student to be “remediation free.”

Critics of the plan said “A lot of the students who need remediation are the same students who have already been marginalized by the system because they attended the worst high schools and are the least prepared,” said Tara L. Parker, a University of Massachusetts professor who studies developmental education. “There is no evidence community colleges do remedial courses any better or cheaper.”

The "Ohio Solution" is the same one that has been talked about since the mid 1970s with the "Nation At Risk" report. Elementary and secondary education must do a better job. Better articulation agreements need to be developed between secondary and postsecondary education. An endless number of education commissions made up of leaders from K-12 education, postsecondary education, corporate world, public advocacy groups, and the rest have been talking and experimenting for years to make "this problem" go away.

It appears the intense fiscal pressures facing public four-year colleges due to decreasing financial support from state government has renewed the desire to "save costs" and eliminate remedial or developmental-level courses. State officials claim offering these courses at the four-year public four-year colleges costs $130 million annually. While to the average taxpayer this seems considerable, what is the combined budget for these public colleges? National studies on this issue report the funds devoted to offering these courses is between one and five percent. Most faculty who teach these courses are part-time and paid considerably less than full-time and especially tenured faculty members at the same four-year institution.

The "Ohio Solution" has been implemented previously in many other places. They all share the same problems with achieving their stated goals:

1. Changing K-12 education curriculum does nothing to meet the needs of returning adults to education. While their exit from high school might have given them adequate skills for immediate entry to college, the long period out of school has led to atrophy of their skills and need for basic level instruction to bring them back to college-readiness.
2. Even if a school district wanted to change its curriculum, if it has less economic resources, how can it be expected to do the same level of quality as the better-funded suburban schools?
3. Changing K-12 education curriculum does nothing for the students who are not enrolled in rigorous college-bound curriculum. Some students and their parents have other future plans that initially do not include college. Maybe they plan to begin a family. Maybe attend a trade school or continue in the family business. Do we want to only have one track choice for students in high school?
4. Changing K-12 education curriculum does nothing for the students who do not fully focus on their classes, read their textbooks with great intensity, and complete all homework to perfection. If everyone earned A's in their classes, achieved to highest level of proficiency with all high risks tests, and in general, were "on task" all the time, they might not need the developmental-level courses. Assuming that they immediately enter postsecondary education immediately after successful completion of high school. With skyrocketing tuition costs, family members out of work or working low-wage jobs, and difficulty for high-school students to earn much at part-time jobs that now are sought by the out-of-work adults, it is not so easy to immediately attend college. Some have to earn some money first.

A wise person once said, "complex problems require complex solutions." The "Ohio Solution" fails on this account.

David Arendale, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education, University of Minnesota. Post comments to this blog or contact the author directly at arendale@umn.edu

It is More than Just the Money: More Challenges for "Low-Income" Students

In a recent blog posting from "College Bound", they reported some familiar statistics, 84 percent of high-income students enroll in college in the fall after high school, just 54 percent of those from low-income families go on to college, according to 2009 National Center for Education Statistics data. Poor students go to college at lower rates than wealthy students did 30 years ago. By age 24, young adults from high-income families are 10 times more likely to earn a bachelor's degree than those from low-income households. The authors asked, "What changes should be made to improve the landscape?"

The logical response is that it mostly about more financial aid (more grants than loans). That diverts from the bigger issue of lacking social capital for these low-income students. Probing further would reveal that a larger percentage of these "low-income" students are first-generation college, students of color, attended rural or urban school districts, and a variety of other factors. The answer to the question "what changes should be made...?" leads to a larger critique of higher education beyond just making some more money available. What changes does higher education institutions need to make to become more welcoming learning environments rather than focusing on the "deficits" of money. All institutions need to have a welcoming and supportive environment: trade school, community college, four-year liberal arts, and research-intensive universities.

Questions to ask of all institutions include:

• What sorts of faculty development programs do they have that provide comprehensive and ongoing efforts to enable them to embed best practices of Universal Instructional Design into their courses? How are they building in academic supports in the class rather than just passing them off to someone else?


• How high of a priority has the institution placed on raising more funds for grants targeted for students from low SES backgrounds? Are these funds keeping up with the dramatic increases in tuition and other costs associated with college?


• How comprehensive are learning assistance activities for students? Are these provided through both credit and noncredit venues? Are exit competencies in developmental-level courses articulated with entry level expectations for college-level courses that they take next? What efforts are being made to take academic-term length developmental-level courses and turn them into a series of modules that can be taken independent of one another to quicken time for completion and less use of Pell grant money to pay for the tuition?

This is just scratching the surface of the issue for what are the challenges for "low-income" students. It is not just about the money.

[Click here to read entire entry from the College Bound blog.]

Illinois Establishes Performance-Based Funding for Colleges

Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois signed a bill establishing performance-based measures to determine funding for public universities, community colleges and other state education agencies. Metrics such as student success in degree and certificate completion will be developed to influence a portion of state funding for higher education institutions.This matches our approach this year to budget for results for all appropriations in the Illinois Senate and extends it to Illinois universities," Maloney said. "Officials from WIU and other state institutions have been involved in setting the parameters for our initial measures. This has been a priority for me as Chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, and the opportunity to improve academic results and ensure funds are spent most efficiently make it one of the most important bills passed this year.House Bill 1503 will take effect in 2013 and begin with metrics to affect a small percentage of funding that would increase over time. Allocations would be based on academic milestones, retention, and time to completion. Statistics on students who are academically or financially at-risk, first-generation students, low-income students, and those traditionally underrepresented in higher education will also be measured to affect funding. [Click to read the entire press release.]

This provides a great opportunity for leaders in college access and student success programs to highlight their activities, approaches, and services increasing positive outcomes for students. Colleges in Illinois will be redoubling their efforts to increase access and college completion. The answers can come from their own college TRIO, learning assistance, and developmental education programs. They have solutions that could be scaled up for wider implementation.

Why only the "outstanding" college students receive slate mobile computers?

I just read an announcement about the University of Southern Mississippi was handing out 1,000 slate computers to their "outstanding" students. [Click to read the online article.] The curious thing about the plan was to only share them with "outstanding" students defined as those from the Honors College, McNair Scholars Program, and Southern Style leadership group.

The article states "Tablets are like the Swiss Army Knife to academic excellence. By leveraging this new technology, we are committed to transforming the way students interact, engage and learn in the classrooms," said Homer Coffman, CIO at Southern Miss, in a statement released today. "The iTech department at Southern Miss is continually challenging itself to support emerging technology and find new ways to put information into the students' hands."

With such a great technology, why not the "average" students or targeting those that are facing academic challenges in a class or two? Why not for students who do not have a mobile device, perhaps due to low income? The college I work at provides an iPad for all first-year students enrolled in the College of Education and Human Development. [Click to read the press release.\ Results look promising. We are repeating the distribution this year at no cost to the students. Preliminary from the instructors in more than 30 classes report favorable positive resutls from the students and the faculty members who enhanced their classroom learning enviroinment.  It was also good to know that everyone in the classroom had an effective mobile computer and bridged the "digital divide" due to income restrictions and social capital that some students have and others do not.

Congrats to the University of Southern Mississippi for their bold decision to distribute the 1,000 tablet computers. Please consider more inclusion with next year's program to those who are not quite as outstanding as others (yet). Maybe the mobile devices could help propel more students to that category. Outstanding students probably have more social capital than others. Let's see what happens when more resources are provided to those who might need the resource more.