Rio Grande Valley Collective Impact – Strategy Group 2 – Focus Areas and Strategies

Rio Grande Valley Collective Impact

Research and Strategies to Support the Goal of Strategy Group 2:

All High School Graduates are Able to Transition Successfully to Postsecondary Education

Briefing Booklet

November, 2012

About This Booklet

This booklet presents a compendium of research, national best practices, and case studies intended to complement and build upon currently identified strategies to support the goal of Strategy Group 2, that all high school graduates in the Rio Grande Valley are able to transitions successfully to postsecondary education. Some of these strategies are best implemented by individual institutions, while others are best implemented across institutions or at a regional level. Also, should Strategy Group 2 prioritize any of these strategies, the group should spend time discussing how those approaches would need to be adopted for the specific context of the RGV.

Table of Contents

Strategy Group 2 – Strategies for Impact...... 3

Strategies to Strengthen a PSE Going Culture...... 5

Profile: Kennedy High School’s Career/College Newsletter...... 9

Strategies to Support the College Application and Matching Process...... 10

Profile: Roads to Success’ College Transitioning Curriculum

Strategies to Ensure that Students Can Afford to Enroll, Attend, and Persist in PSE

Profile: The Austin Chamber of Commerce College Ready Now Initiative

List of Sources

Strategy Group 2–Strategies for Impact

A Strong PSE Going Culture Among Students, Families, and Communities
# / Strategy / Institutional / Partner-Based
1 / Launch district or region-wide initiatives in which all K-12 schools foster college aspirations and build a PSE-going climate / X / X
2 / Institute extracurricular, school-based programming to expose students – throughout the high school years – to the rigor, experiences, and rewards of college life / X
3 / Institute extracurricular programming, through outside partnerships, to expose students to the rigor, experiences, and rewards of college life / X
4 / Engage parents to ensure that they share and act on the same expectations that their children will attend college / X
5 / Build a multi-tiered college and career mentoring system / X
Improved College Application and Matching Process
# / Strategy / Institutional / Partner-Based
1 / Institute incentive and support systems to increase the number of high school students whofill out the ApplyTexas application / X / X
2 / Ensure that all students receive college counseling and application support from high-quality college and guidance counselors / X / X
3 / Partner with nonprofit organizations offering comprehensive college / SAT preparation, application, and matching services / X
4 / Create a College Access Network to coordinate college fairs, SAT/ACT and FAFSA registration campaigns, college matching assistance, and other supports to students and families / X
5 / Provide concise, bilingual information to students and families that presents their postsecondary options and funding opportunities, and customize this information for undocumented students and families / X
6 / Institute universalacceptance programs in which all high school graduates meeting minimum requirements receive community college acceptance letters / X
Students Can Afford to Enroll, Attend, and Persist in PSE
# / Strategy / Institutional / Partner-Based
1 / Establish FAFSA and state aid registration campaigns andencourage guidance or support staff to offer office hours to students/parents looking for help with the financial aid process / X / X
2 / Expand scholarship participationby mobilizingresourceswithin the business and philanthropic communities to establish new scholarship programs, as well as influencing students to take better advantage of existing programs / X
3 / Build an RGV high school alumni databaseand leverage it to learn about student outcomes in PSE, and to send college-going alumni reminders of key financial aid dates and support resources / X
4 / Encourage universal adoption of the Financial Aid Shopping Sheetto allow students to make more well-informed comparisons between award letters / X

The following pages provide research-driven detail on the strategies above, including examples of the strategies in practice and profiles of institutions where these and other practices are helping to drive student success.

Strategies to Strengthen a PSE Going Culture

In making decisions about whether and where to attend postsecondary education, students are strongly influenced by their family, friends, and community. It is therefore important to ensure that students, students’ parents, and the community as a whole understand both the importance of completing a postsecondary credential, and the personal and financial sacrifices that may be required to achieve that goal. There are a number of ways to inform families and communities about the benefits of postsecondary education, and making this a common mission often requires coordinated efforts by schools, students, nonprofits, CBOs, funders, and more.

  1. Launch district or region-wide initiatives in which all K-12 schools foster college aspirations and build a PSE-going climate; build enhanced trust and social capital among teachers, administrators, counselors, students, and parents; and emphasize to each student, as early as possible, that he/she has great postsecondary potential
  2. Display college pennants along corridors and in classrooms, consider naming classrooms/cohorts after college teams, and inject college-going language into school activities and assignments
  3. Support these efforts by (a) ensuring that course counseling takes place to help students to see the connection between their high school curriculum and their success in college and career; and (b) stressing the importance of doing well in classin order to stay on track for PSEsuccess[1]
  4. Establish a district- or region-wide college and career newsletter including college application and admission dates, standardized test and FAFSA registration information, and success stories from college-going students and business leaders in the community
  5. Example: John F. Kennedy High School in Fremont, CA publishes a monthly online newsletter listing important items of interest by grade level (see profile); this is just one college-based initiative out of many being employed across the Fremont Unified School District[2]
  6. Imbue school and district mission statementswith language tied to college matriculation goals; alternatively, create a college mission statement to accompany the preexisting school/district mission statement
  7. Involve a broad array of stakeholders in drafting these statements, circulate them to school families, and post them in every classroom (in English and Spanish)
  8. Example:San Diego Unified School District’s mission statement is: “AllSan Diego students will Graduatewith the Skills, Motivation, Curiosity, and resilience to Succeed in their choice of College and Career in order to Lead and Participate in the society of Tomorrow"[3]
  9. Recent research suggests that a strong college climate is themost consistent predictor,among several relevant variables, of whether students took steps toward college enrollment[4]
  10. According to the study cited above a school with a strong college climate is a place where the faculty push students to go to college, work to ensure that students are prepared for PSE, and directly support students in completing their college applications
  11. The same study also found that Latino students tend to be more reliant on their teachers and their school for guidance and information, and that their college plans are more dependent on their connections to school[5]
  12. Example: Clint Independent School Districtnear El Paso has strengthened a college-going cultureby hiring a college readiness facilitator at each high school, establishing a Superintendent’s Scholarship Fund to raise money for college scholarships, implementing a new early college high school, recognizing a “College of the Week” on the district website, and launching a “College for All” initiative across all K-12 schools[6]
  13. Institute extracurricular, school-based programming to exposestudents – throughout the high school years – to the rigor, experiences, and rewards of college life; customize the messages and activities of the programs to each grade level (the following come from a range of sources[7][8][9]):

  1. Example:On its Early College Design webpage, Jobs for the Future has highlighted Hidalgo School District for embracing its early college framework and fostering a college-going culture, through many of the activities above and others as well, beginning as early as elementary school[10]
  1. Institute extracurricular programming, through outside partnerships, to expose students to the rigor, experiences, and rewards of college life
  2. Example: UTEP created the Mother-Daughter / Father-Son program in 1986, which enrolls Hispanic students beginning in sixth-grade who may someday be the first in their families to attend college; the students attend college classes, perform community service, learn about career options, and hear from successful Hispanic men and women about their paths to college; parents are required to be actively involved – an important step as they, too, learn the value of college[11]
  3. Example: First Graduate, a San Francisco nonprofit, makes a ten-year commitment to students beginning the summer after sixth grade; students receive tutoring support, career exploration activities, and access to college scholarships, among other benefits[12]
  4. Engage parents to ensure that they share and act onthe same expectations that their children will attend college
  5. A 1998 study of the effect of parental involvement on educational outcomes found that the strongest effects on 12th-grade student achievement stemmed from parents actively encouraging their children to plan for and attend college – this was the most significantly positive form of parental involvement, out of 15 that were studied[13]
  6. Parent engagement is especially important in the largely Hispanic context of the RGV: Many young Latinos feel the need to forego college in order to support their families, and parents propagate this behavior when they fail to understand that having their children attend and complete college can help the family even more[14]
  7. Example:AbriendoPuertas launched a PSE-going culture initiative in the RGV called Generation TX, in which parents serve as volunteers and communicate essential postsecondary information to fellow parents, many of whom live in the colonias throughout the Valley; in six months AbriendoPuertas completed 430-plus College Training Sessions, reaching more than 3,265 individuals and providing them with customized advise on financial aid, campus visits, the application and admissions processes, and the importance of postsecondary education[15]
  8. Build a multi-tiered college and career mentoring system, involving[16]:
  9. Upperclassmen and high school freshmen and sophomores: require the upperclassmen to talk about their college plans and help the younger students to structure their plans and to carve out the best path through the high school curriculum
  10. RGV alums attending local colleges and high school juniors and seniors: encourage the college-going students to inspire the high school students and to help them with the college selection and application processes
  11. Local members of the business community and high school juniors and seniors: ask the business professionals to talk about their path through college and to coach the high school students on the importance of choosing the right coursework, both in high school and in college
  12. Urge the relationships mentioned in the last two points above to continue after the mentees matriculate to a PSE institution

Profile: Kennedy High School’s Career/College Newsletter

Strategies to Support the College Application and Matching Process

Students who wait to apply to college and who do not attend immediately after graduating from high school are much less likely to complete a degree or credential. As Clifford Adelman states, “What this means is that recruitment efforts have to insure that students enter postsecondary education immediately following high school graduation. The longer students wait, the less likely they will finish a degree.”[17]Research also shows that students are more likely to complete if they attend the most selective institution to which they can be admitted. Students should be required to apply to college, encouraged to set their sights high as regards where they apply, supported during the application process, and, once admitted, given the support they need to attend. Specific strategies include:

  1. Institute incentiveand support systemsto increase the number of students whofill out the ApplyTexas application
  2. Example:Most, if not all, seniors at YES Prep Public Schools in Greater Houston fill out the ApplyTexas application, and the school system makes college acceptance a graduation requirement[18]
  1. Appropriately train all college and guidance counselors to serve students’ college needs and develop procedures to ensure that all students receive college counseling and application support from high-quality college and guidance counselors, with more intensive support in the upper grades
  2. Support these efforts by providing college-related professional development to staff
  3. Require counselors to focus advisory sessions on proper college matching, to ensure that students apply to colleges that are a good fit for their skills and interests,including collegesat the upper range in admissions selectivity of the schools which are likely to accept them; research indicates that “undermatching” (i.e., enrolling in a college with admissions standards below those which one would be a good match for) is a far more serious problem than “overmatching”
  4. A study of North Carolina high school graduates revealed that of the more than 6,000 students in the sample who were “presumptively qualified” for admission into more selective universities, more than 40% of them did not attendthese schools; that number climbs to 60% for highly qualified students from families in the lowest income distribution quartile, and to 66% for highly qualified students from families where neither parent attended college; many of these students did not enroll in college at all[19]
  5. A Chicago Public Schoolsstudy found that (a) students at all levels of qualifications were more likely to undermatch(62%) than to match (38%); (b) highly qualified students were equally likely to not enroll in college or to enroll in a college far below their match (37%) as they were to enroll in a very selective college (38%); and (c) Latino students were the most likely to undermatch– 72% of the Latino students in the study undermatched, including 44% who enrolled in colleges “far below their match” or did not enroll at all[20]
  6. The study also found that students were more likely to match if they attended high schools with a strong college-going culture[21]
  7. The above is compounded by compelling evidence from multiple studies which indicates that six-year graduation rates are progressively higher as you examine groups of colleges on the spectrum from least to most selective
  8. Partner with nonprofit organizations offering comprehensive college / SAT preparation, application, and matching services (see profile on Roads to Success, a New York City nonprofit serving multiple college preparation roles for local schoolchildren)
  9. Create a College Access Network to coordinate college fairs, SAT/ACT and FAFSA registration campaigns, college matching assistance, and other supports to students and families
  10. Coordinate information sources and college-related services across the Valley to communicate continually updated scholarship information to students and families; this and other supports should be made available to current college students as well
  11. Example:The College Access Alliance team within Greater Cincinnati’s Strive Partnership consists of more than 25 partners and support organizations that collaborate to ensure that youth in the region receive a full range of college access services, including academic, career, and college advising; college and financial aid application assistance; campus visits and college fairs; college entrance and placement test preparation; cultural awareness activities; and scholarship searches[22]
  12. Provide concise, bilingual information to students and families that presents their postsecondary options and funding opportunities, and helps them plan for life post-high school; this information should be customized for undocumented students and families
  13. Example: The Austin Independent School District has an Immigrant College Access Program, led by an Immigrant College Coordinator; the program’s goal is to increase the number of immigrant students graduating Austin ISD making informed career choices and enrolling in higher education[23]
  14. As part of this effort, the program published The College Guide for Advising Undocumented Students, a comprehensive booklet of facts and resources relevant to the undocumented student population, including information on important state policies making it possible for these students to receive grant aid for college[24]
  15. Institute universal acceptance programs in which all high school graduates meeting minimum requirements receive community college acceptance letters
  16. This would make it clear to students that they have met the threshold forpostsecondary admission, providing additional motivation to enroll
  17. Example:As part of the Road Map Project, a collective impact initiative in South Seattle, the community colleges in SouthKing Countybegan sending a universal acceptance letter to all eligible high school graduates from the region